William H. Binga (February 26, 1869 – October 14, 1950) was an American

third baseman A third baseman, abbreviated 3B, is the player in baseball or softball whose responsibility is to defend the area nearest to third base — the third of four bases a baserunner must touch in succession to score a run. In the scoring system us ...

catcher Catcher is a position in baseball and softball. When a batter takes their turn to hit, the catcher crouches behind home plate, in front of the ( home) umpire, and receives the ball from the pitcher. In addition to this primary duty, the ca ...

and

manager Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities ...

in the pre- Negro league baseball era. Born in

Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...

, Binga played most of his career in

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

, and Minneapolis, Minnesota. Currently, it appears Binga started his baseball career at the age of 26, playing three games as a catcher for a team in Adrian, Michigan. He quickly moved on to the

Page Fence Giants The Page Fence Giants were a professional Black-American baseball team based in Adrian, Michigan, from 1895 to 1898, performing as one of the nation's top teams in the Negro leagues. Named after the Page Woven Wire Fence Company in Adrian, they ...

, which eventually brought him to Chicago when the team moved to Chicago and became the

Chicago Columbia Giants The Columbia Giants were a professional, black baseball team based in Chicago at the turn of the 20th century, prior to the Negro leagues. Founding In 1899, a group known as the Columbia Club, organized the Columbia Giants under the direction ...

in 1899. In Chicago, he played for several seasons for the Columbia Giants, Chicago Union Giants, and the

Leland Giants The Leland Giants, originally the Chicago Union Giants, were a Negro league baseball team that competed independently during the first decade of the 20th century. The team was formed via a merge of the Chicago Unions and the Chicago Columbia Gia ...

. He would move with many fellow players to Minnesota in 1908. Binga left the Colored Gophers based in Minneapolis in August 1911, the newspaper citing a "disastrous season" due to "bad management" and said the players of the team were "much dissatisfied.""Mr. William Binga" Twin City Star, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Saturday, August 19, 1911, Page 1, Column 3
/ref> During his career, he played with

Sol White King Solomon "Sol" White (June 12, 1868 – August 26, 1955) was an American professional baseball infielder, manager and executive, and one of the pioneers of the Negro leagues. An active sportswriter for many years, he wrote the first definit ...

Rube Foster Andrew "Rube" Foster (September 17, 1879 – December 9, 1930) was an American baseball player, manager, and executive in the Negro leagues. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981. Foster, considered by historians to have been per ...

, George Wilson, Walter Ball, Eugene Barton, Andrew Campbell, Alex Irwin, Candy Jim Taylor, Johnny Davis, and he played

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

alongside

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. ...

famed

Bobby Marshall Robert Wells Marshall (March 12, 1880 – August 27, 1958) was an American sportsman. He was best known for playing football; however, Marshall also competed in baseball,

Fellow player Jimmy Smith called Binga "the only third sacker and surest hitter in the country.""The Past and Present in Baseball" Indianapolis Freeman, Indianapolis, Indiana, Saturday, May 28, 1910, Page 7, Columns 3 and 4
/ref> After a couple of seasons in Philadelphia, it appears Binga played the rest of his seasons for teams in Minnesota and the Dakotas. The last known game Binga played was in

Willmar, Minnesota Willmar is a city in, and the county seat of, Kandiyohi County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 21,015 at the 2020 census. History Agricultural expansion and the establishment of Willmar as a division point on the Great Northern ...

. He was living in Willmar as late as the 1930 Census, where he is still listed as renting a place from Clayton R. Baker."United States Census, 1930," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/X38W-4L1 : accessed 24 Jan 2013), William H Binga in household of Clayton R Baker, Willmar, Kandiyohi, Minnesota; citing enumeration district (ED) 0032, sheet 18B, family 468, NARA microfilm publication T626, roll 1104

Post baseball career

Binga was buried in an unmarked grave in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where his grave remained unmarked for more than 63 years. He received a proper headstone for the first time in June 2014 from the

Negro Leagues Baseball Grave Marker Project The Negro Leagues Baseball Grave Marker Project is an effort started by Peoria, Illinois anesthesiologist Jeremy Krock and with support of the Society for American Baseball Research to put a proper headstone on the graves of former Negro league bas ...

.Honoring Minnesota's long-gone Negro League players", by Rubén Rosario, at TwinCities.com, June 26, 2014. Retrieved June 27, 2014.
/ref> His death records show he was married, to Edna Louise, and his parents were Joshua and Lucy Binga."Minnesota, Deaths and Burials, 1835-1990," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/FD8T-VGS : accessed 24 Jan 2013), William H Binga, 14 Oct 1950 According to the 1940 Census, Binga's wife had died."United States Census, 1940," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/KSLS-KZX : accessed 24 Jan 2013), William H Binga, Precinct 1, Ward 2, Willmar, Willmar City, Kandiyohi, Minnesota, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 34-32A, sheet 1A, family 13, NARA digital publication T627, roll 1930

References

External links

an
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Binga, William 1869 births 1950 deaths African-American baseball managers Baseball catchers Baseball players from Michigan Baseball third basemen Burials in Minnesota Leland Giants players Minneapolis Keystones players Philadelphia Giants players Adrian Reformers players Page Fence Giants players Columbia Giants players St. Paul Colored Gophers players 20th-century African-American people