Sir Lurksalot photopack (Negro League players)

[LuellaT]

Hello! I am the granddaughter of Allen Johnson and love this picture of him. What is the origin? Do you have any other pictures? My mom (his daughter), my brother and I are working on family history project.

Originally Posted by Cusick

Allen Johnson served in an executive capacity for multiple Negro League teams over the 1938-46 period. He was the owner of the New Orleans-St. Louis Stars and the part owner of the New York Black Yankees.

[Cusick]

Originally Posted by LuellaT

Hello! I am the granddaughter of Allen Johnson and love this picture of him. What is the origin? Do you have any other pictures? My mom (his daughter), my brother and I are working on family history project.

Hi, Luella T -

I think the origin was the newspaper The Chicago Defender, January 24, 1942, on page 23. It was extracted from a group photo with the title "Plan Early Jump on Other Baseball Clubs."

As to your second question, I'm not aware of other photos of Allen Johnson.

[LuellaT]

Originally Posted by Cusick

Hi, Luella T -

I think the origin was the newspaper The Chicago Defender, January 24, 1942, on page 23. It was extracted from a group photo with the title "Plan Early Jump on Other Baseball Clubs."

As to your second question, I'm not aware of other photos of Allen Johnson.

Thank you so much!

[Amazin69]

From an older RMY catalog, Collins in winter ball with the Caguas Criollos. (Year uncertain; the back of the photo only says "1940s"). An improvement over the other smaller Collins images, IMO.



I removed the sepia and sharpened the picture, per usual practice.

[Amazin69]

(Moved, per discussion below.)

[Amazin69]

Et sequitur…Linares in 1942 with Marianao (between his stints with the NY Cubans).



This is a larger version of Linares's Wikipedia picture, but I lightened it significantly to improve visibility. (Still a certain amount of facial shadows, though.)

[Cusick]

Originally Posted by Amazin69

Same as the above. Garcia was with Monterrey from 1947-1953. Unsure if he is any relation to the "Pablo Garcia" who is the current Monterrey head coach.

Attachment 1013941

Amazin69, thank you for posting the above three photos. However, I suggest you delete the Garcia photo from this thread and re-post it on the minor league thread. To my knowledge, he never played in the Negro Leagues. His experience with Monterrey in the Mexican League is considered part of minor league baseball.

[Amazin69]

Originally Posted by Cusick

Amazin69, thank you for posting the above three photos. However, I suggest you delete the Garcia photo from this thread and re-post it on the minor league thread. To my knowledge, he never played in the Negro Leagues. His experience with Monterrey in the Mexican League is considered part of minor league baseball.

I was wondering about that. Will fix.

(I was rationalizing it as he was banned from the National Association minors, just as the Negro League stars were, but by 1947, that wasn't technically true, even if the color line had barely been cracked at that point. Thanks for the clarification.)

[Amazin69]

Same auction as before.

The Kansas City Monarchs' young star of 1945, Renfroe out hit his teammate Jackie Robinson that season.



Seen here with the Torreon (Coahuilla) Algodoneros ("Cottoneers") of the Mexican League. (The "UL" logo stands for "Union Laguna" because the team was sponsored by the Union Soap Company.) De-browned and sharpened, as normal for me.

This is a larger version of Renfroe's Baseball-Reference picture. BB-Ref claims that Renfroe only played for Torreon in 1955, his final season, but I have two problems with that. First, Chico is too much of a baby-face to be on his way out. And, more importantly, Torreon was only in the Mexican League from 1946-1953! So probably closer to the start of his career, IMO.

[Amazin69]

Larger version of the image from Page 1 of this thread, from the RMY auction I've used before:



De-Browned and sharpened, as you know is my wont.

Interestingly, this picture is date-stamped "November 4, 1945", so this is from the Cuban winter league before Kaiser debuted with the Homestead Grays. (The "H" on the uniform is for "Havana", for whom he played.)

[Amazin69]

Same source as before, showing the NY Cubans outfielder in winter ball with Almendares.



Had to lighten this one severely to cut down on the facial shadows (and raise the contrast to compensate), but it's still an improvement on the image on page 23, IMO.

[Amazin69]

Yup, another one. With Almendares in 1946.




The Chicago American Giants pictures earlier in the thread is nice, but I like this one a bit better. JMO.

[Amazin69]

(Still from that auction.)

I guess Baseball-Reference ceases to count the Negro Leagues as major leagues after 1948, presumably due to lowering of the talent level on account of increasing integration.

I am surprised that they don't therefore count the 1950 Negro Leagues as minor leagues, however. Seems inconsistent, IMO.



So we don't have any stats readily available on how Frank Barnes (pictured here) performed as a Kansas City Monarch in 1950, before he was sold to the Yankees, thus becoming the first black player in the history of the Yankee organization. Nor do we know how Barnes fared from 1953-1955 when he was (presumably) back in the Negro Leagues, before eventually making it to the bigs with the Cardinals.

We have a posed shot of Barnes back in the thread, but this is IMO an improvement. De-browned and sharpened, of course.

[Cusick]

Originally Posted by Amazin69

(Still from that auction.)

I guess Baseball-Reference ceases to count the Negro Leagues as major leagues after 1948, presumably due to lowering of the talent level on account of increasing integration.

A special committee of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) designed to address this topic has recommended that the records of the 1949 and 1950 Negro American League also be recognized as major league equivalents. However, I don't think that MLB has weighed in on the issue of those two years yet. Until MLB gives its official imprimatur, what other organizations or databases do must be considered less relevant. Right now, it's MLB's criterion that ends with the year 1948.

[Amazin69]

I'm fine with the decision to draw the line at 1948. (One has to do it somewhere.) I'm just having trouble with the idea that the teams that were called "major leagues" in 1948 are not even included as minor leagues in 1949.

Either it's "organized baseball" or it isn't, IMO.

[Patsy Tebeau]

This picture was featured in a paper from 1958 though I can't swear that is when the picture itself was taken.

[Amazin69]

After pitching for Ponce in the 1949 winter season, Powell joined Mayaguez for the Caribbean Series, and became the first man to win a game pitching for a Puerto Rican team in CS history.



Powell went on to pitch in two East-West all-star games, and in 1951 was part of the Santurce team that was the first Puerto Rican squad to win the Caribbean Series.

(Same auction as before, with color tweaks and increased sharpness, once more.)

[cinemaodyssey]

I hadn't seen a photo of Harrison, who was a pitcher based out of St. Louis, Missouri. He was on the early season roster for the 1929 Homestead Grays, where he was pictured in the 5/26/1929 edition of the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph.

[cinemaodyssey]

Another obscure guy, infielder Dean, was also pictured in the 5/26/1929 edition of the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph. He was only recorded as getting into 1 game for the 1929 Homestead Grays.