Big Bill Smith [Part 2]: In his own words

All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.
Martin Buber

June 5, 2023

Introduction

In a previous post [see Post 27], I published the demographical information of William “Big Bill” Smith, a forgotten African American baseball player from the turn of the last century. Born in 1869, Bill Smith played various positions (first base, catcher, second base, and outfield) for many of the best Negro teams of the 1890s and 1900s, including the Cuban Giants, the Cuban X Giants, and the Brooklyn Royal Giants. He also was deeply involved with three short-lived top Black teams of this period: the oddly named 1906 Philadelphia Quaker Giants of New York, the 1910 New York Black Sox, and the 1913 Mohawk Giants from Schenectady, New York. Smith himself spoke several times about his career to newspaper reporters (usually while promoting himself and his current project or team). This post will reprint four of these articles to establish a basis for the further discussion of Big Bill Smith’s career. The first of these 4 articles is from the April 2, 1909, edition of the Nashville Globe, the colored (to use the term then applied) newspaper from Bill Smith’s home town. In 1907 and 1908, Bill had played for John M. Bright’s Cuban Giants team. But in 1909, Smith (who had just turned 40 years old) decided not to return to Bright’s club and try his luck playing for and managing his own club. Before the 1909 season started, he was considering starting a baseball team in Nashville, Tennessee. Big Bill talked about his plans with a Nashville Globe reporter:

Article #1: The Nashville Globe, Friday, April 2, 1909 [Page 8].

Mr. William Smith, an old Nashville boy, and better known around town as Serk Smith, is in the city, having just returned from Florida and Cuba, where he has had charge of a number of ball players during the winter season.  Mr. Smith is a man of wide experience in baseball, having been at the head of some of the leading Negro baseball teams in the country – such teams as the Cuban Giants, Cuban X Giants and Philadelphia Giants – and for the last fifteen years has given his attention to the game both as a player and a manager.  Mr. Smith has been working out every day during his stay here, getting ready for the hard season in the East.  When seen the other day by a Globe man Mr. Smith stated that he was surprised to find baseball at such a low tide in Nashville.  And that he had several good things in store provided the movement for a Negro park comes along all right.  He seems to think Nashville is a good baseball town and that a good team here with a park to play in would be a profitable investment.  He says the record Nashville has made in the world of baseball is one to be proud of and that whenever a ball player says he hails from the Rock City he is given a good chance to show what he can do.  When asked if he thought well of any of the talent around here he said that there was a world of good young ball players in Nashville and that he was thinking strongly of taking some of them with him if he did not decide to stay here and work up a good team.  He also stated that by mixing some older heads with the young blood already here he could mold out  a very fast team.  It is to be hoped Mr. Smith will remain in the city.  Such a man has been badly needed in Nashville and we should give Mr. Smith a world of encouragement and do all we can to help him.  Nashville needs baseball and that badly; here is wishing him success.

Bill Smith did form his new team in 1909: the Nashville Collegians. He kept his club playing around Nashville for its first month before barnstorming up north. But the team did not last out the year, evidently breaking up in July of 1909. In 1910, Smith would organize another new team, the New York Black Sox, with better financial backing. The Black Sox lasted out the 1910 season. For the 1911 and 1912 seasons, Bill Smith once again returned to the Cuban Giants. In 1913, Smith was contacted by one William “Bill” Wernecke, a white businessman from Schenectady, New York, for help forming and organizing a team called the “Mohawk Giants.” Before coming to town, Bill Smith talked to a news reporter for a local white newspaper, the Schenectady Gazette:

Article #2: The Schenectady Gazette, Friday, February 28, 1913 [Page 14]

[HEADLINE] “Big Bill” Smith, widely known Baseball Player and Member of Schenectady Club, in this city [PARAGRAPH 1]. W. T. Smith, better known in baseball as “Big Bill,” is in this city aiding William Warnecke in completing his schedule for the coming season.  Smith has been playing ball for eighteen years and is known by a majority of the league managers and by practically all managers of semi-professional teams in this section of the country.  His reputation as being absolutely on the level in all dealings will result in the Schenectady Colored club being booked with the foremost attractions, for the manager s know that Smith never misrepresents the true facts, and when he says this will be the highest paid colored club in the country, as well as the leading, he is telling no falsehood.  This will also be the first club of its kind to have mackinawa a part of the players’ uniforms. [PARAGRAPH 2] Smith will be the catcher of the local colored club.  He has been playing all winter at Palm Beach and arrived here yesterday in accordance with telegraphic request of Mr. Wernecke to help in arranging the schedule.  For the opening game to be played at Island Park, the second week in April, the Schenectady club hopes to oppose either the Utica or Syracuse State League team.  The managers of both teams have written for games for later in the month and it is expected that no trouble will be experienced in signing them a week earlier. [PARAGRAPH 3] As a ball player, Smith has a record that any leaguer might well feel proud of.  In 1903, while playing with the Royal Giants, he made 26 hits in 13 games and each was better than a single.  Seven were for the circuit of the bases.  Few, if any players in the country today, have established a better batting record in consecutive games. [PARAGRAPH 4] “Big Bill” stands 6 feet, 1 inch, and tips the scales at 240 pounds, which shows just why he received the nickname of being “Big.”  When but 16 years of age, he began his career with the Black Sox of St. Louis.  He organized the Brooklyn Royal Giants in 1905.  Later he joined the Cuban Giants and it was while with this colored aggregation that he received his best schooling.  In 1907 he came here with this team and played two games, defeating the Locos on a Saturday by the score of 16 to 6 and the Jeffs the next day by a score of 11 to 0.  Ben Ellis umpired these games.  In the game against the Jeffs, which then had “Bill” Cunningham” in their line up, Smith made three hits, one a three bagger, off Ketcham, and scored a like number of times.  In the other game he made two hits, one a two bagger, off Berger and Arnold, and scored one run. [PARAGRAPH 5] He is a graduate of Fisk university at Nashville, Tenn., which has been made famous by its jubilee singers.  In speaking of the team which Mr. Wernecke has organized, Mr. Smith said last night: “I can truthfully say that this is one of the best ever organized among colored players in the country.  I can see nothing but success for the team and I know that just as soon as it becomes generally known that Schenectady has the highest paid and leading team, that Mr. Wernecke will be swamped with applications for games.  If the players on this team were white, he would be unable to secure their services for less than $3,000 per month.

Interestingly, while this article contains much new and interesting information about Bill Smith’s life and baseball career, it also has an obvious falsehood. It asserts that Smith went on a complete batting rampage for the 1903 Brooklyn Royal Giants, smashing 26 extra base hits (including seven home runs) in just 13 games. But the Brooklyn Royal Giants were not formed until 1904 and Bill Smith did not play for them until 1905. However, a little research does confirm that Smith’s batting spree (or something close to it) did actually happen. Only it occurred in 1902 when Big Bill was playing for the Cuban X Giants. Also Bill Smith did not organize the Royal Giants either. He was hired by John Connor, the Royal Giants’ team’s owner, to manage and improve the club in its second year. Of course, the article reprinted here is the only one of the four that was written by a white reporter for a white newspaper (which may account for the sloppy reporting). Smith played for and managed the Schenectady Mohawk Giants through the 1913 season. In 1914, Smith re-organized the team (for a different owner Samuel Flansburgh), but this team disbanded in mid-season. Since John Bright had died in 1913, Bill Smith could not return to play for the Bright’s Cuban Giants. But, for the rest of 1914 into 1915, he did play for the remains of the Cuban Giants (teams made up of former Cuban Giants players which operated under various names but called themselves the Cuban Giants when no one was looking). Late in 1915, Big Bill Smith once again started his own club. He named his team the Chicago Black Sox (which just 4 years later would reverberate with historical irony). In August of 1915, the Chicago Black Sox played a series of games versus C. I. Taylor’s top-rated Indianapolis ABCs ballclub. This series likely changed the course of Big Bill Smith’s life.

In all probability, Bill Smith meet his future wife while his Chicago Black Sox played in Indianapolis. In any event, Smith apparently spent the 1915-1916 off-season in the Indiana city. He would settle down in Indianapolis and live the rest of his life there. But Bill Smith was not quite through with Baseball yet. In Smith’s scrapbook, there are two articles evidently clipped from an African American Indianapolis newspaper. The earlier of these two articles, almost surely from 1916, has a better summary of Bill Smith’s career than the 1913 Schenectady article. It even has a headshot photo of Bill himself. Smith was evidently planning on continuing his baseball career in his adopted city. In the article, Smith even hinted that he would be open to trying to form a league or organization with other Negro Baseball team owners and managers (four years before the great Rube Foster formed the actual first truly viable Negro National League). The unknown reporter did a great job outlining Big Bill Smith’s career and hinting at Smith’s future aspirations:

Article #3: 1916 Newspaper Clipping from Big Bill Smith’s Scrapbook at the Baseball Hall of Fame [probably from the the Indianapolis Freeman].

[HEADLINE] “Big Smithy” as a Factor in Base Ball. [SUB-HEADLINE] A Glimpse Into His Most Interesting Career On The Diamond Both As Manager and Player. [PARAGRAPH 1] W. T. Smith started his career in baseball at Fisk University, where, with Frank C. Leland (deceased), they formed the star battery.  In 1893 Smithy played his first professional game in New York with John M. Bright’s Cuban Giants.  In 1897, he joined the Cuban ex-Giants, with which team he played in every position.  In those days there were only three Colored teams in the United States, namely Cuban Giants, Chicago Unions and Cuban ex-Giants, and to fill a position on either team a player had to be mighty good.  In 1902 Smith weighed 230 pounds and could hit according to his size.  On a two weeks’ trip with the Cuban ex-Giants through Pennsylvania “Big Smithy” had twenty-eight hits – one single, ten doubles, eight triples and nine home runs, five of his home runs being made in two days, two at Roxborough and three at Morristown.  In 1905 Smith organized, manned and managed successfully the Brooklyn Royal Giants.  In 1910 he launched a sensational team of youngsters – the New York Black Sox.  No one on the team had ever been heard of except Mathews, the former Harvard University star, but they played great ball and defeated every team in the East.  Leroy, Grant, Handy, Crawford, Andrews and several stars of lesser light graduated from the Black Sox.  His best effort was the launching of the Mohawk Giants in Schenectady, N.Y., in 1914.  At that time the average attendance at Sunday games in Schenectady was 800.  With the advent of the Mohawks the average attendance jumped to 5,000 at Sunday games and 1,500 on Thursdays and Saturdays during July and August.  The Mohawks defeated Montreal, Utica, Elmira, Albany, Troy, Pittsfield, and Holyoke, all league teams, and Walter Johnson’s All-Americans, with Walter Johnson pitching.  Smith wired President Navin, of the Detroits, for a Sunday game, who wired: “Do not care to play exhibition games unless guaranteed a thousand dollars.”  Smith called Mr. Navin over the ’phone and agreed to send him a certified check for a thousand dollars if he would send Cobb and Crawford. On being informed he would have to play a Negro team, he declined the offer.  The Chicago Cubs accepted a Sunday date at Schenectady and notified Smith on Friday that they would not play a Colored team during their playing season.  The Rutland (Vt.) team was then engaged to play the game instead of the Mohawks.  Smith put Wickware in uniform to pitch for Rutland, but the Cubs would not play against him.  In writing of the affair, the New York Evening Telegram said: “The Chicago Cubs in an exhibition game with the Rutland Tri-State League team refused to go on the field when the latter tried to put a Negro pitcher in the box.  Drawing the color line is the acme of impertinence for a team that can bawl out umpires and opposing players in such finished yet uncouth manner as can the Cubs.” [PARAGRAPH 2] Smith is thoroughly familiar with baseball from all angles.  Seeing the time is now ripe for organized baseball among the Negroes, he has decided to take up the work in the West and to co-operate with all the managers and promoters for the organizing and uplift of Negro baseball.  He has already paved the way for another first-class team in the West by organizing the Chicago Black Sox, which team in their initial appearance defeated the crack A.B.C.’s two extra-inning games.  Let us hope that all managers and promoters pull together and adopt the proper methods and the success of Negro baseball is assured.

Despite his hopes and dreams, Bill Smith was pretty much at the end of his baseball career. Smith was evidently out of Baseball for the 1916 season. In Indianapolis, the ABC club fractured into two different teams: one directed by C.I. Taylor, the 1915 club’s manager; and another controlled by Tom Bowser, the 1915 team’s owner. For the 1916 season, these two Indianapolis ABCs teams fought for supremacy in the Indianapolis market. Interestingly, Taylor, the African American manager, won out over Bowser, the White owner. After the 1916 season, Bowser sold his ABC club to Warner Jewell (another White businessman). In 1917, information about Bill Smith appeared once again in the same Indianapolis newspaper (using the exact same headshot as the 1916 article). Basically, this 1917 article is a retirement announcement by Smith. But Big Bill also very obviously uses it to get some free publicity for his new vocation:

Article #4: 1917 Newspaper Clipping from Big Bill Smith’s Scrapbook at the Baseball Hall of Fame [probably from the the Indianapolis Freeman].

[HEADLINE] Ex-Baseball Manager Becomes Contracting Painter In This City. [PARAGRAPH] William T. Smith, one of the well known baseball managers, has located permanently in Indianapolis and has become a contracting painter.  “Big Smithy” as he was called by ball players, comes of a family of painters who are well known throughout the south where they conduct large businesses along that line. Mr. Smith has managed successfully several of the big colored ball clubs at various times, and when he first came to the city a few weeks ago, it was generally surmised that he was to take the managerial end of the Jewell A.B.C.’s.

With this announcement of his retirement, Bill Smith’s baseball career came to pretty much an end. However, his name would be mentioned several times in the future when Negro Baseball in Indianapolis was at a crossroads. In 1926, the Negro National League was trying to re-establish the Indianapolis ABCs as a viable club (the club had slowly disintegrated following C.I. Taylor’s death in 1922). William T. Smith was mentioned for lending a helping hand. In 1937, the first year of the Negro American League, the new organization also tried to start up an new team in Indianapolis (naming it the “Athletics” rather than ABCs), Once again, William T. Smith was mentioned as helping out. However, for all intents and purposes, all Bill Smith’s experiences in his long and storied baseball career found no outlet after he stopped playing in 1915. In general, the Negro Leagues (and the larger world of Blackball itself) had unfortunately very few opportunities for its veterans to continue their careers at the top.

Conclusions

Using this four articles and his obituary from the Indianapolis Recorder, [see Post 27], it is now possible to write a pretty good biography for Big Bill Smith. William T. Smith was born in Nashville, Tennessee, in the year 1869. His family ran a Painting Contractor business and was relatively well-off. Smith attended Fisk University, an African American college in Nashville. There Bill Smith was a baseball star with his battery mate Frank C. Leland. Of course, Frank Leland was instrumental from 1887 until 1901 for the success of the Chicago Unions, one of the era’s top Black teams. After 1901, Leland continued to run various Chicago Clubs (Chicago Union Giants, Chicago Leland Giants, and finally just Chicago Giants) until his death in 1914. Bill Smith began his baseball career in 1885, when he was just 16, with the St. Louis Black Sox. Big Bill Smith turned professional in 1893 with the Cuban Giants. In 1897, Smith joined the Cuban X Giants. In 1902, Smith was at the peak of his abilities for the X Giants. In 1905, he managed the Brooklyn Royal Giants. In 1906, he built the New York Quaker Giants. In 1910, he handled the New York Black Sox. In 1913, Smith was hired to run the Schenectady Mohawk Giants. Finally in 1915, Bill Smith founded the Chicago Black Sox. After retiring, Smith settled in Indianapolis & was a painting contractor himself until about 1926. In 1936 or so, Bill Smith opened a male social club called the “Wagon Wheel” in Indianapolis. In 1940, William T. Smith died of cancer. Of course, this obituary needs to be fleshed out but it hits most of the highlights… except for one.

All of the current biographies of Big Bill Smith credit him with playing for the Chicago Unions from around 1891 to 1898. However, in the four articles that are reprinted above (and his obituary also), there is only one mention of the Chicago Unions and that reference simply states that the Unions were one of the three top African American teams in the 1890s.* It is incontrovertible that a William Smith played for the Chicago Unions during this time period. And it makes perfect sense that Bill Smith would travel to Chicago and play for Frank Leland, his old friend and battery mate from Fisk University. So why didn’t Big Bill Smith list the Chicago Unions as one of the teams that he played for? This question will be the subject of our next post about Big Bill Smith.

*Of course, there were not just three top teams in the 1890s. Early on, there were the Cuban Giants, the New York Gothams, and York Colored Monarchs. Later on, there were the Chicago Unions, Cuban Giants (once again), Cuban X Giants, and Page Fence Giants [Chicago Columbia Giants after 1899]. There was also, briefly in 1893, the Boston Monarchs.