Raymond V. Wilson was one of the biggest stars of early black baseball. The Freeman said the captain and manager of the Philadelphia Giants was, at the plate, “styled the colored Hans Wagner,” and “in his heyday the best first sacker in the game.” The paper also said he was one of the game’s best base runners:
“Ray Wilson gives no indication of speed or race, but he possesses these two qualities in a surprising degree, and his stealing is magnificent. His strong point, however, is avoiding the man with the ball. He has a slide which carries him outside the base and around, his spikes clinging to the base.”
Ray Wilson
It is unclear where Wilson was born, but he lived for a time in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania before he became a member of the Cuban X-Giants in 1898. The Harrisburg Telegraph said, the following season, in announcing that local catcher Clarence “Wax” Williams had joined the X-Giants “Ray Wilson, of this city, is playing first base on this crack team.”
The Telegraph said that Wilson played for several teams in Harrisburg, initially as a second baseman, “but his ability was soon learned and he was sent for.”
Wilson remained with the X-Giants through 1906, and then joined the Philadelphia Giants where he played for the remainder of his career.
It came to an end in the mid summer of 1910.
In a game at Bronx Oval, Wilson and the Giants were playing the Brooklyn Royal Giants. The New York Age said Wilson was at bat, facing Brooklyn’s Harry Buckner and “was hit on the head near the temple and received a fracture which necessitated his retirement from baseball.”
By late July he began exhibiting strange behavior.
Other sources, including The Associated Press, said he received the injury earlier in his career, as a result of being “hit on the head by a swift line drive.”
The Freeman attributed some of the reason for Wilson’s becoming “somewhat demented” on his reaction to the death of his friend, Giants pitcher Sy “Bugs” Hayman, who was hit by a car on his way to a game, and died on July 4, 1910.
Bugs Hayman
The injury, regardless of how it happened, as well as any other contributing factors, left Wilson nearly incapacitated, and he was sent to his mother’s home in Pittsburgh.
Just a week after arriving in Pittsburgh, The Associated Press reported that he had disappeared:
“(H)is relatives have asked the police to find him. Warning is given by the relatives that Wilson is insane and that he may not be captured without trouble.”
According to those relatives he was suffering from hallucinations:
“One of Wilson’s hallucinations was that someone batted a ball at him and that it broke through his hand and hit his head. On such occasions he would lie down for hours, helpless from pain from the imaginary blow.”
On the day he disappeared, Wilson “picked up a newspaper to look at the ball scores. He saw something which stirred him, and dashed from the house shouting that his head was hurting.”
Several days later he turned up in Tyrone, Pennsylvania, more than 100 miles from Pittsburgh. The Tyrone Daily Herald said he had been arrested by railroad police “after insisting on going on to Harrisburg without paying his fare.” Wilson was held in the Tyrone city jail until his identity was determined. The paper said it was unlikely he would be prosecuted because he was “temporarily deranged, this accounting for his strange actions on the train.”
He was committed to the Pennsylvania State Hospital in Harrisburg where he died in September of 1912. Most sources give Wilson’s year of birth as 1870, which would have made him 42 years-old at the time of his death, The Harrisburg Telegraph, in their brief death notice, listed his age as 35.
There was an intriguing claim made by Wilson’s hometown newspaper during his 1910 disappearance—although it was probably a conflation of the story of Charlie Grant. The Telegraph said:
“While (John) McGraw was manager of the Baltimore team he endeavored to get Wilson into the major league by claiming the Negro was an Indian. The subterfuge was discovered and Wilson was forced to remain in the Negro nines.”
With statistics being incredibly scarce, it is impossible to judge just how good Wilson was. But, 15 years after his death, George “Chappie” Johnson—who had been in the game for more than 30 years was interviewed by W. Rollo Wilson of The Pittsburgh Courier:
“You want an all-time team you say? I’ll pick you one and will challenge anyone to name a better outfit. On this team of my choosing will be nothing but smart men. Every one will be able to hit, to bunt, to think…Here is your team, and note that old-timers are few and far between:
Chappie Johnson
“Catchers (James “Biz”) Mackey, (Bruce) Petway, (George “Tubby”) Dixon; pitchers George Wilson of the Page Fence Giants, Nip Winters, Joe Williams, (Charles) Bullet Rogan; first base, Ray Wilson of the Cuban X-Giants, second base John Henry Lloyd; shortstop Dick Lundy; third base Oliver Marcelle, utility, John Beckwith; outfield Pete Hill, Oscar Charleston, Jess Barbour, (Cristobal) Torriente.”
Note: While it seems unusual that John Henry Lloyd, almost unanimously considered the greatest shortstop in Negro League history, was placed at second, Johnson told The Courier:
“Among the men John Henry Lloyd stands out as the greatest second baseman of all time, and he is supreme at that bag yet. Of course he made his greatest reputation as a shortstop, but I always thought second base was where he belonged.”
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Tags: Baltimore Orioles, Biz Mackey, Brooklyn Royal Giants, Bruce Petway, Bullet Rogan, Chappie Johnson, Charlie Grant, Clarence Williams, Cristobal Torriente, Dick Lundy, George Wilson, Harry Buckner, Jess Barbour, John Beckwith, John Henry lloyd, John McGraw, Nip Winters, Oliver Marcelle, Oscar Charleston, Page Fence Giants, Pete Hill, Philadelphia Giants, Smokey Joe Williams, Tubby Dixon, W. Rollo Wilson
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