Sir Lurksalot photopack (Negro League players)

[Cusick]

James Gurley was the name used for this player in THE NEGRO LEAGUES BOOK by Dick Clark and Larry Lester. The caption to this photo, found in Phil Dixon's THE NEGRO BASEBALL LEAGUES: A PHOTOGRAPHIC HISTORY, calls him George Gurley. Seamheads.com, using a head shot of the same photo, says he is Earl Gurley.

By whatever first name, he was a versatile player who pitched and played the outfield and first base during his lengthy career in the Negro Leagues spanning from 1922 to 1932. Over that time, he was on seven different teams, topped by 84 games with the Memphis Red Sox. He is shown here with the Chicago American Giants.

[Cusick]

Alvin "Bubber" Gipson pitched for the Birmingham Black Barons from 1941 through 1946, but he appeared in a team photo with the 1941 Chicago American Giants. He is shown here from that photo as it was presented in BLACK BASEBALL IN CHICAGO, by Larry Lester, Sammy T. Miller, and Dick Clark.

[Cusick]

Gervasio Gonzalez was a catcher and first baseman for various iterations of the Cuban Stars during the decade of the 1910's. He is shown here on a Cuban cigar card, which features him in the uniform of the Almendares team of Cuba.

[Cusick]

Grady Orange was a shortstop and second baseman for the Birmingham Black Barons, Kansas City Monarchs, and Detroit Stars in a career that lasted from 1925 through 1931. He appears here in a Detroit Stars uniform in a photo from BLACK BASEBALL IN DETROIT, by Larry Lester, Sammy T. Hughes, and Dick Clark.

[Cusick]

James "Sandy" Thompson was an outfielder in the Negro Leagues from 1923 through 1933. He spent most of his time with the Birmingham Black Barons and Chicago American Giants. He is shown with the latter team in the photo from the Seamheads.com website.

[Cusick]

Lee Wade pitched in the Negro Leagues from 1909 through 1918, hurling more games for the St. Louis Giants than for any other team. He is shown here with the St. Louis Giants in a photo from Robert Retort's PICTORIAL NEGRO LEAGUE LEGENDS ALBUM.

[Cusick]

John "Pop" Watkins was a catcher and first baseman with the Cuban Giants in 1898. The photo is from Sol White's HISTORY OF COLORED BASEBALL.

[Cusick]

Emmett Wilson was an outfielder with four Negro League teams over the period of 1936-43. The teams were the Chicago American Giants, Pittsburgh Crawfords, Cleveland Buckeyes, and Memphis Red Sox. The photo shows him with the 1935 Claybrook Tigers team based in Arkansas. It's posted on the website of arkbaseball.com.

[Cusick]

Martin Dihigo was a versatile Hall-of-Famer who played in the Negro Leagues at various points during the 1922-45 time span. He played outfield, shortstop, third base, first base, shortstop, and pitched. He was on Hilldale, the New York Cubans, Homestead Grays, Baltimore Black Sox, and various iterations of the Cuban Stars. He is shown in a photo from the National Baseball Hall of Fame website in a Santiago, Cuba uniform. The Hall of Fame dates the photo as circa 1940.

[Cusick]

Tommy Johnson was a pitcher with the Chicago American Giants from 1938 through 1940 and again in 1942. This image was posted by Sir Lurksalot on page 20 of this thread, but I'm re-posting it here because there has been recent activity by PhotoBucket to blur or delete most of the photos posted on the first twenty-one pages of this thread. Of the players validly posted on those pages, Tommy Johnson was the only one for whom I couldn't find an alternative photo source.

[oddsox]

Some great photos here.... my first visit to your site as a member.
Looking for Raymond "Smoky" Owens, pitcher for Cleveland Bears, Jacksonville Red Caps, Cincinnati-Cleveland Buckeyes.

Starting pitcher for West All-Stars in 1939 East-West game at Yankee Stadium, 8/27/1939.

Have reached out to Negro League Hall of Fame, the NY Yankees, New Amsterdam News and others. Found precious little … it appears you have a photo of him here, but I haven't located it yet. There must be more!

Thanks in advance for your reply!

[oddsox]

Was catcher for Jose Mendez in 1910.
Very likely the catcher in this photograph w/ Ty Cobb the batter.
https://onlineonly.christies.com/s/g...card-315/45938

[oddsox]

Gurley was a lefty who batted right.

[Cusick]

Originally Posted by oddsox

Some great photos here.... my first visit to your site as a member.
Looking for Raymond "Smoky" Owens, pitcher for Cleveland Bears, Jacksonville Red Caps, Cincinnati-Cleveland Buckeyes.

Starting pitcher for West All-Stars in 1939 East-West game at Yankee Stadium, 8/27/1939.

Have reached out to Negro League Hall of Fame, the NY Yankees, New Amsterdam News and others. Found precious little … it appears you have a photo of him here, but I haven't located it yet. There must be more!

Thanks in advance for your reply!

Sorry for the delay in responding. Rarely receive inquiries on this thread, so I don't check it very often.

The answer to your question is that there is a photo of Raymond Owens on page 54 of this thread.

Seamheads.com has a head shot of him, but it's obviously from the same photo. If you want to take a look at their image, it's at:

http://www.seamheads.com/NegroLgs/pl...rID=owens01smo

[oddsox]

Originally Posted by Cusick

Don Newcombe, Nashua...Newcombe pitched for the Newark Eagles in 1944 and 1945.

Thanks for the post -- I saw a Dodgers questionnaire Newk filled out from 1946 when he first joined their organization. It said he was born in 1924, he served in the Navy as a teenager (verified, 1943) and he played with the Eagles 1942-1945.

There was also a photo of him purported to be with Newark just coming up. Recognize the pic?
Know anything more about this??

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1495...4779996131547/

[Cusick]

Originally Posted by oddsox

Thanks for the post -- I saw a Dodgers questionnaire Newk filled out from 1946 when he first joined their organization. It said he was born in 1924, he served in the Navy as a teenager (verified, 1943) and he played with the Eagles 1942-1945.

There was also a photo of him purported to be with Newark just coming up. Recognize the pic?
Know anything more about this??

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1495...4779996131547/

Note to readers -- If you want to see the full photo to which oddsox is referring, you have to join the facebook group in the link.

No, I don't know anything about the Homogenized Bread baseball card on which the photo appears. I have my doubts that it's Newcombe in the photo, as did the commenters when they first saw it. One of the commenters continued to believe that it isn't Newcombe. It's difficult to decide if it's Newcombe, because his appearance changed over time, and the guy in the Newark uniform is very young. But one aspect of human appearance does not change as we age. That's the shape of our ears. See below for a comparison of the left ear of the player in the Newark uniform (left) and the left ear of Don Newcombe (right). If you look very carefully, they are not the same shape in every respect. The two photos are not of the same person.

As for the information in that Dodgers questionnaire, I'm skeptical about it. Both Baseball-reference.com and Retrosheet give Newcombe's birth year as 1926, so I would go with that. My original contention that Newcombe played with the Eagles in 1944 and 1945 was based on information in THE NEGRO LEAGUES BOOK, by Dick Clark and Larry Lester, who were the co-chairs of SABR's Negro Leagues Committee at the time the book was published. The same info is verified by THE BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE NEGRO BASEBALL LEAGUES, by James A. Riley. Furthermore, I did a newspaper search on Don Newcombe and the Newark Eagles for the years 1942 - 1944 and found nothing for Newcombe prior to 1944. One article mentioning Newcombe with the Eagles in 1944 referred to him as a rookie; none as a returning veteran.

[Cusick]

Harry Murakami had a remarkable life. Of Japanese descent, he was born in Hawaii. He left for the mainland in 1916, and wouldn't return to Hawaii for another 24 years. He was a gifted athlete in many sports. He played semi-pro baseball in Chicago on his arrival in the midwest. Then he attended Northwestern University, where he became the quarterback and captain of the junior varsity football team. He was at NU for two years, where I think he played basketball and baseball as well. Then he went back to semi-pro baseball. In 1926, he was in the minor leagues. See B-R.com below.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/r...d=muraka001---

In 1927, there was a witness who found him playing with the All-Nations Negro League team. See the clipping from the Omaha World-Herald of May 20, 1928 below.

As the years progressed into the 1930s, Murakami, then becoming known more familiarly as Harry Ukulele, became a recreational director and got into coaching. He moved around various cities in the midwest. He was the rec director in Sheraton, Wyoming, for a while. He set up baseball camps in many cities, ranging from Iowa to New Mexico. He was also a scout for three different major league teams at various times. Finally, in the early 1940's, he settled in Denver where he became the swimming coach at the YMCA. When he retired in 1963, it was estimated that he had taught 30,000 Denverites how to swim.

The photo of him below is from a publication called Nippu Jiji, dated August 17, 1940, whose audience is the Japanese diaspora.

[Cusick]

This photo of Sol White was posted by John Thorn on Facebook. It shows Sol with the York Colored Monarchs in 1890.

[Cusick]

"Bill" or "Willie" Williams was a pitcher with the 1937 Washington Elite Giants, 1938 Baltimore Elite Giants, and 1943 Newark Eagles.

The photo is an image captured from a 2001 video hosted by Billy Gordon, Montgomery Maryland historian. Billy himself is an athlete, having been a star basketball player in high school who was drafted by the NBA Seattle Supersonics. He is also the father of former major leaguer Keith Gordon. The video is from the archives of the Montgomeryhistory.org and was produced in conjunction with the Lincoln Park Historical Society in Rockville, Maryland.

I think he is pictured with the Rockville Legionnaires. There is newspaper evidence that he played with that team in 1949 and the uniform piping is similar to that seen on the Legionnaires uni when Russell Awkard was with them.

[Cusick]

Eddie "G.G" Burton was a second baseman with the 1947 Harrisburg Giants and then went on to play for black barnstorming teams for another eight years. Although the Harrisburg Giants were not members of the Negro major leagues, Eddie served as an ambassador for the Negro Leagues during his retirement years in Charlotte, NC, and in my estimation, should be included in this forum. Plans had been underway to include his legacy in the Charlotte Knights' tribute to the 100th Anniversary of the Negro Leagues in 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic interfered. He died in 2018 at age 88.