Edward Scott Sr. (October 17, 1917 – January 11, 2010) was an American

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...

scout Scout may refer to: Youth movement *Scout (Scouting), a child, usually 10–18 years of age, participating in the worldwide Scouting movement ** Scouts (The Scout Association), section for 10-14 year olds in the United Kingdom ** Scouts BSA, sect ...

. Before he became the first

African-American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. ...

scout in the history of the

Boston Red Sox The Boston Red Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Boston. The Red Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League East, East Division. Founded in as one of the Ameri ...

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...

, Scott was a talent-spotter for the

Negro leagues The Negro leagues were United States professional baseball leagues comprising teams of African Americans. The term may be used broadly to include professional black teams outside the leagues and it may be used narrowly for the seven relativel ...

, and he signed Henry Aaron, the

Baseball Hall of Fame The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is a history museum and hall of fame in Cooperstown, New York, operated by a private foundation. It serves as the central collection and gathering space for the history of baseball in the United S ...

r and future

home run In baseball, a home run (abbreviated HR) is scored when the Baseball (ball), ball is hit in such a way that the batting (baseball), batter is able to circle the bases and reach home plate safe (baseball), safely in one play without any error ( ...

king, to Aaron's first professional contract for the

Indianapolis Clowns The Indianapolis Clowns were a professional baseball team in the Negro American League. Tracing their origins back to the 1930s, the Clowns were the last of the Negro league teams to disband, continuing to play exhibition games into the 1980s. Th ...

Early life

Scott was born in

Dade City, Florida Dade City, officially the City of Dade City, is a city in, and the county seat of Pasco County, Florida, United States. It is located in the Tampa Bay Area, northeast of Tampa, Florida, Tampa and southwest of Orlando, Florida, Orlando. The popu ...

, but moved to

Mobile, Alabama Mobile ( , ) is a city and the county seat of Mobile County, Alabama, United States. The population was 187,041 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. After a successful vote to annex areas west of the city limits in July 2023, Mobil ...

, as a young man, where he played baseball for a local, semi-professional African-American team, the Mobile Black Shippers. He worked in a paper company and barnstormed the area with his baseball team. When his playing days ended, he started scouting. The

baseball color line The color line, also known as the color barrier, in American baseball excluded players of black African descent from Major League Baseball and its affiliated Minor League Baseball, Minor Leagues until 1947 (with a few notable exceptions in the 1 ...

had been broken in

minor league baseball Minor League Baseball (MiLB) is a professional baseball organization below Major League Baseball (MLB), constituted of teams affiliated with MLB clubs. It was founded on September 5, 1901, in response to the growing dominance of the National Le ...

in , and in MLB the following year, by

Jackie Robinson Jack Roosevelt Robinson (January 31, 1919 – October 24, 1972) was an American professional baseball player who became the first Black American to play in Major League Baseball (MLB) in the modern era. Robinson broke the Baseball color line, ...

. But the 16 Major League teams were slow to integrate and the Negro Leagues were still operating when Scott's scouting career began.

Hank Aaron signing

According to Ed Scott Jr., his father discovered the teenaged Aaron playing in a Mobile

softball Softball is a Variations of baseball, variation of baseball, the difference being that it is played with a larger ball, on a smaller field, and with only underhand pitches (where the ball is released while the hand is primarily below the ball) ...

game. "If that boy can hit a softball that far, how far can he hit a baseball?" his son quoted Ed Sr. as saying. He was able to sign Aaron for the Indianapolis Clowns, and by , the 18-year-old player was offered a contract by the

Boston Braves The Boston Braves were a Major League Baseball club that originated in Boston, Boston, Massachusetts, and played from 1871 to 1952. Afterwards they moved to History of the Atlanta Braves#Milwaukee, Milwaukee (and became the Milwaukee Braves). ...

. Aaron would go on to play 23 big-league seasons, and shatter (in )

Babe Ruth George Herman "Babe" Ruth (February 6, 1895 – August 16, 1948) was an American professional Baseball in the United States, baseball player whose career in Major League Baseball (MLB) spanned 22 seasons, from 1914 through 1935. Nickna ...

's all-time record with 755 home runs over his career. (Aaron currently stands second, all time, to

Barry Bonds Barry Lamar Bonds (born July 24, 1964) is an American former professional baseball left fielder who played 22 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB). Bonds was a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1986 to 1992 and the San Francisco Giants f ...

Red Sox signings

Scott spent four decades with the Red Sox as a scout, beginning in the early 1960s. Among the players he signed for Boston were George Scott (no relation), Oil Can Boyd and Amos Otis, who was drafted out of the Boston system as a minor-league prospect by the

New York Mets The New York Mets are an American professional baseball team based in the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of Queens. The Mets compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National ...

. Ed Scott was still listed as a scouting consultant by the Red Sox in .''Boston Red Sox 2001 Media Guide'', page 419 His son Alex also was a Boston area scout based in Mobile during the 1990s.

Personal life and death

Also an accomplished

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various Golf club, clubs to hit a Golf ball, ball into a series of holes on a golf course, course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standa ...

er, Scott was inducted into the Mobile Sports Hall of Fame in 2003. He died in Mobile at age 92 on January 11, 2010.

References

External links

Ed Scott profile by Negro Leagues Baseball Museum
{{DEFAULTSORT:Scott, Ed 1917 births 2010 deaths Boston Red Sox scouts Negro league baseball personnel Sportspeople from Mobile, Alabama 20th-century African-American sportsmen 21st-century African-American people Baseball scouts