Negro League Demographics: Post #1 Big Bill Smith [Part 1]
The light of other days is faded, and all their glories past. Alfred Bunn
March 27, 2023
The field of Negro League Demographics may be the “final frontier” of Major League Biographical Research.* The Society for American Baseball Research [SABR], and its Biographical Research Committee in particular, have worked diligently to fill in every nook and cranny of Major League Demographics. By the end of the 2022 season, 20603 men had appeared in the traditional (non-Negro League) Major Leagues. Of these men, 37 players are missing their 1st name. Just 152 players (of those presumed deceased) are missing info about where and when they died. Only 474 players are missing birth information. And virtually all of these players with missing biographical data played very briefly in the Major Leagues. Many years ago, when I first became a Baseball fan, great chunks of this data was missing. I remember well the search for the remains of Benjamin Rippay (aka Charlie Jones), the very first National League triple crown winner (in 1879). His death data was eventually found, hiding in plain site. Basic information on all sorts of important and noteworthy players was just absent. Now, diligent SABR members are hunting down the marginal guys. With their great work seemingly almost completely done, Major League Baseball [MLB] itself decided to throw these SABR researchers a curveball. On December 16th of 2020, MLB announced that, henceforth, the teams of seven Negro Leagues, from 1920 to 1948, would be considered Major League clubs. On the one hand, this was an honor totally overdue. On the other hand, this overdue inclusion was a logistical nightmare, especially demographically.
*Apologies for the offhand Star Trek reference, I couldn’t help myself. I would hardly be considered a Trekkie, but it fit perfectly.
The Conundrum of Negro League Demographics
From the National and Union Associations to the Federal League right up to the present, there is a box score for every game ever played in the traditional Major Leagues. This is not true for the Negro Leagues. There will always be missing box scores for games in the newly seven Major Negro Leagues. This means that there are Major League/Negro League players from these circuits who will always be unknown. The worst teams in the historic Major Leagues (other than perhaps the Union Association) were still of Major League caliber (better than all but the best Minor and Independent baseball teams of their times). However, there were lots of Negro teams, not included in the seven newly minted Major Negro Leagues, that were of much better quality than the worst teams in the new Major Negro Leagues (especially the now Major 1932 Negro Southern League). The great Negro teams that played before 1920 are simply forgotten despite the fact that many of these clubs would simply wipe the floor with the worst teams (and some of the best too) from the now Major Negro Leagues. In addition to all this, Negro league player demographics are geometrically much more difficult than the player demographics of the classic Major Leagues. Primary sources, such as newspapers, are seriously lacking. A classic Major League club was covered by multiple daily major newspapers. A Negro League team usually had one weekly African-American newspaper that covered it (with just passing references in the daily white papers). There is a very good chance that death data for Dave Brown (the great African-American pitcher who went on the lamb from murder charges) will never ever be found. This would not be true of a white classic Major League murder suspect. Such a player would never have escaped the clutches of his crime. It would have followed him through the press until his conviction or absolution.
Praising the Seamheads Negro League Database
There is an old lawyer joke that goes: “What do you call 1000 dead lawyers on the bottom of the Ocean? [Answer: “A good start.”] In the last ten years, the website Seamheads has developed a Negro Leagues database that was all but inconceivable when Robert Peterson’s book “Only The Ball Was White” revived interest in the Negro Leagues, way back in the 1970s. Seamheads has made a lot more than just a good start on missing Negro League Demographics. But there is still a lot of missing information for important and noteworthy Negro League players. For my post today, I will be discussing just such a player. His name was William Smith, but he was much more commonly known during his playing career as “Big Bill.” Anyone who has done demographic research will probably flinch at the very thought of tracking down someone named William Smith. Other than perhaps John Jones or Bob Brown, there may be no worse name to try to research without any clue where to start. Fortunately, there are clues for Big Bill Smith. For one thing, the Baseball Hall of Fame actually has a scrapbook evidently compiled by Big Bill himself.* In the scrapbook, there are lots of clues, including a couple of short newspaper biographies of Bill Smith. In these bios, it is stated that Bill Smith was born in Nashville, Tennessee. The Hall of Fame even has demographic information for a William Smith, born in 1869 at Tennessee, and also died there in 1939, who they believe is the right man. The Seamheads database, perhaps relying on the Hall of Fame file, lists Bill Smith as being born in 1869 at Nashville too. Strangely enough, despite the fact that the Hall of Fame has data on the wrong William Smith, the info is actually correct. “Big Bill” Smith was born in 1869 at Nashville, Tennessee. But he died in 1940 at Indianapolis, Indiana.
*Many thanks to Claudette Scrafford of the Baseball Hall of Fame for, long ago, making me a copy of the Big Bill Smith scrapbook.
The Obituaries of Big Bill Smith
Just like old Benjamin Rippay (aka Charlie Jones), William “Big Bill” Smith was hiding in plain site all along. The Pittsburgh Courier, a national weekly African American newspaper is one of the primary (along with the Chicago Defender) newspapers for Negro League research. In the Saturday, October 19th, 1940 edition of the Pittsburgh Courier, the newspaper published the following obit for Big Bill Smith:
Ex-Ball Player Dies. Indianapolis, Ind., Oct. 17 – William Turner Smith, known in the baseball world as “Big Smithy,” died last Thursday at his home, 422 W. 26th street. Mr. Smith was 69 years old. A native of Nashville, Tenn., Mr. Smith was a graduate of Fisk University. He entered professional baseball in 1893 as a catcher. In 1905 he organized the Brooklyn Royal Giants, the New York Black Sox in 1910, and the Mohawk Giants in 1914.
A nice simple and concise obituary. William “Big Bill” Smith died on October 10, 1940, at Indianapolis, Indiana. Of course, Indianapolis had its own weekly African American newspaper, the Indianapolis Recorder. The Recorder had a slightly more substantial obituary:
Wm. T. Smith, Wagon Wheel Operator, Dies. William Turner Smith, ex-baseball player and manager of national fame, and operator of the well-known local Hotel Men’s club or the “Wagon Wheel,” 561 West Twenty-sixth street, died here Thursday, October 10th, at 7:45a.m., at his home, 422 West Twenty-sixth street. “Smitty,” as he was locally known, had been ill since June of this year. He was sixty-seven years of age. A native of Nashville, Tenn., he began his career at sixteen when he was a heavy hitter for a Fisk university teams [sic]. In 1905, “Big Bill,” as he was called in baseball circles, organized the Brooklyn Royal Giants. He later became nationally known as a catcher and batter, and played with leading colored teams of the day including the Cuban Giants, Cuban X Giants, Schenectady Colored Baseball club and the Black Sox of St. Louis. Perhaps his greatest claim to baseball fame lay in his managerial work with the New York Black Sox Baseball association. Mr. Smith came to Indianapolis twenty-three years ago when he began a career as a painting contractor. Coming from a family of painters who were well-known in southern areas, Mr. Smith worked here in that field for about ten years. Failing eye-sight forced him out of the business. Approximately four years ago, he became the proprietor of the Hotel Men’s club or the “Wagon Wheel,” which has been greatly patronized by local citizens. An honorary member of the Elks lodge and Coalese club, Mr. Smith was affiliated with the Christian Science services for him were held Saturday, October 12, at 2 p.m.. at the residence. Surviving Mr. Smith are a widow, Mrs. Marguerite Smith; a daughter, Miss Thelma Smith of New York City; a brother, John Smith of Cleveland, O.; an aunt, Mrs. Alice Rogan; two nieces and five nephews. The Herbert C. Willis mortuary was in charge. Burial was in Crown Hill cemetery.
Complete Demographic Information for Big Bill Smith
Demographics always reminds me of the children’s game Jenga. In this game, you build a tower with wooden blocks. The goal is to create a stable structure that will not collapse if blocks are removed. In demographics, a new piece of data often contradicts another and then all your theories collapse like a house of cards. But finding absolute proof of birth or death? That is like building a Jenga tower with a steel reinforced frame. With William “Big Bill” Smith’s date and place of death confirmed, the next step is to order his death certificate to see if more information can be gleaned. Bill Smith’s death certificate lists his date of birth as January 30, 1873 and place of birth as Tennessee. His parents’ names are listed as Isaiah Smith and Parthena Thompson. His cause of death is listed as cancer. Most interestingly, Bill Smith’s race is listed as “white.” two pieces of this information on this death certificate are incorrect (or perhaps, at least, partially true). First, “Big Bill” Smith was bi-racial. In census after census, he is listed as a “Mulatto,” the term of that time for bi-racial. Secondly, a little census research quickly reveals that William Smith was certainly born in 1869, not 1873. This completes the basic demographic research into our subject: William Turner Smith (aka “Big Bill” or alternatively just “Big” and also “Big Smitty” or “Big Smithy” occasionally; also, in his younger days, “Serk” and, at one time, “Home Run”); Born January 30, 1869, at Nashville, Tennessee; Died October 10, 1940, at Indianapolis, Indiana [Age 71 at time of death].
Future Posts
Of course, this demographic information is simply the skeleton for the tall tale of “Big Bill” Smith. In future posts, I will try to flesh his story out by answering such questions as: 1) How long and for whom did Bill Smith play Baseball; 2) How good a Baseball Player was Bill Smith; and even 3) Actually how big was Bill Smith? If you have never heard of “Big Bill” Smith, the answers to some of these questions may genuinely surprise you. Bill Smith was a very noteworthy player indeed.