Tag Archives: West Texas-New Mexico League

Lost Advertisements–Connie Mack Day in Cleveland

6 Sep

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A 1938 Advertisement printed in Cleveland newspapers for Connie Mack Day.

The Philadelphia Athletics manager was honored on June 19 in front of 20,000 fans at Cleveland Stadium.  The ad listed every “star player developed by the grand old man of baseball.”

The baseball world pays tribute to that grand master of the National Game

Connie Mack

President and Manager of the Athletics

Connie Mack’s major league career dates back to 1886–52 years ago.

He became an American League manager in 1900 and had served as manager of the Athletics from 1901 to date–the longest record of continuous managerial service in the entire history of the sport.

He has to his credit nine American League pennants (1902, 1905, 1910, 1911, 1913, 1914, 1929, 1930, 1931) and five world championships (1910, 1911, 1913, 1929, 1930).

The list of star players discovered and developed by him is a tremendous honor roll to his credit.

His city has awarded him the $10,000 annual award for outstanding performance to the credit of Philadelphia.

A kindlier man never lived.  A greater baseball strategist never lived.  We do ourselves credit to honor this great sportsman and gentleman.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer said Mack was presented with “a handsomely bound leather book in which were the signatures of every person in organized baseball from Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis down to the greenest rookie in the West Texas-New Mexico League.”  Cleveland’s baseball writers also presented Mack with an engraved gold pencil.

The Plain Dealer and The Cleveland News both noted that when Mack addressed the crowd he added an “n” to Indians president Alva Bradley’s first name; The Plain Dealer said:

“Mr. Mack always had a tough time with names of his friends and players.  For years he has called ‘Lefty’ Grove ‘Groves’ and Lou Gehrig “Garridge.’ In fact he never has attempted to call his second baseman, (Dario) Lodigiani, anything but ‘Lodi’ for this season.”

The league-leading Indians beat Mack’s Athletics 5 to 4.

Gaines and Raines

12 Feb

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Two of the early foreign players—or gaijin—and the third and fourth African-Americans to sign to play baseball in Japan pose with the man who negotiated their contracts in 1953: Jonas Gaines, left and Larry Raines with Abe Saperstein of Harlem Globetrotters fame.

gaines

Jonas Gaines

Gaines, born in either 1914 or ’15 depending on the source, was nearing the end of a long career; a graduate of Southern University, he played semi-pro ball in North Dakota then began his professional career with the Newark Eagles in 1937, went to the Baltimore  Elite giants in 1938 and appeared in five East-West All-Star games.  Gaines served in the US Army in WWII and  finished his Negro League career with the Philadelphia Stars in 1950.  He spent 1951 and ’52 with the Minot Mallards in the Manitoba-Dakota (Man-Dak) League.

He spent one season in Japan with the Hankyu Braves in the Pacific League, where he was teammates with Raines.  The Braves third gaijin was another former Negro League player, John Britton.  Britton and Jimmy Newberry were the first two African-American players in Japan, having signed together in 1952.  Newberry, like Gaines, left after one season.

Gaines returned to the states in 1954 and led the Pampa Oilers, champions of the West Texas-New Mexico League, with 18 wins.  He finished his career with the Carlsbad Potashes in the Southwestern League in 1957. He died in his native Louisiana in 1998.

Larry Raines, Japanese baseball card

Larry Raines, Japanese baseball card

Raines was a twenty-two-year-old infielder for the Chicago American Giants and hit .298 in 1952.  Saperstein, who helped engineer the deal that brought Britton and Newberry to Japan, negotiated the contracts for Gaines and Raines, who according to Jet Magazine were paid $1000 a month by the Braves.

Raines quickly became a star in Japan, leading the Pacific League with 61 stolen bases in 1953; he led the league with a .337 batting average, 96 runs and 184 hits, he also finished second in RBI’s in 1954.

Raines returned to the states and signed with the Cleveland Indians in 1955.  After two seasons in the minor leagues, he played in 96 games for the Indians in 1957.  He appeared in nine games with Cleveland in 1958 and played in the minor leagues until 1961.  Raines returned to Japan in 1962, playing one more season with the Braves.  He died in Michigan in 1978.

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