Negro League Player & Team Stories

Baseball accounted for just a small slice in the pie graph of Catto’s brief but powerfully impactful life.

A pivotal figure in pre- and post-Civil War American history, Octavius Valentine Catto (February 22, 1839 – October 10, 1871) was born a free Black man during slavery days in Charleston, South Carolina on February 22, 1839. His mother Sarah Isabella Cain was a mixed-race member of prominent family belonging to the Brown Fellowship Society, a benevolent organization for African American and mixed-race people affiliated with the St. Philip's Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. His father, William T. Catto, began his life in slavery but earned his freedom working as a machinist and was later ordained a Presbyterian minister.

The Catto family migrated from South Carolina to Baltimore when Octavius was five years old and later settled in Philadelphia in the free state of Pennsylvania where slavery had been gradually abolished by the end of the Revolutionary War.

William Catto was among the original members of Philadelphia’s Banneker Institute, an African American literary society established in Philadelphia in 1854, named for 18th century American astronomer, almanac author, mathematician and naturalist Benjamin Banneker.

In 1854, at the age of 15, Octavius enrolled at Philadelphia’s Institute for Colored Youth (ICY), the city’s first school for African American students where he studied, Latin, Greek, geometry and trigonometry.

He graduated as valedictorian of his class in 1858 and continued his education with a year of post-graduate study in Washington D.C. He returned to Philadelphia in 1859 and became a faculty member at ICY and was elected Recording Secretary of the Banneker Institute.

Catto quickly became one of the most powerful and influential voices of Philadelphia’s African American community. The outbreak of the Civil War inspired Catto’s activism for the abolition of slavery and civil rights for all citizens. Together with Frederick Douglas and other Black leaders, he joined in efforts to recruit the first Black men to serve in the United States Army. He rose to the rank of major in the Pennsylvania National Guard during the Civil War.

He is most widely known and acknowledged as an esteemed American scholar, educator and American civil rights activist but is also recognized as an early pioneer in Black baseball.

Ask any baseball fans to name the first Black player in the major leagues, and they will immediately tell you Jackie Robinson. Many will also recall that former Rookie of the Year, two-time MVP and Triple Crown winner Frank Robinson was baseball's first black manager.

The name Emmett Ashford does not come so quickly to mind, despite his pioneering effort that is equally significant to both Robinsons in its context as Major League Baseball’s first Black umpire.

Nearly 20 years after Jackie Robinson made his barrier-breaking major league debut and a full generation into African American players’ integration of the major leagues, Ashford made his big league debut on Opening Day in Washington D.C. on April 9, 1966.

Known for his widely theatrical calls, a stylish wardrobe that often-included cuff-linked shirts and a uniquely entertaining approach to the usually somber umpire profession, Ashford reached the majors at the age of 51 in 1966.

Although Ashford is not honored by the National Baseball Hall of Fame, he is the only high-profile baseball personality to be buried in Cooperstown, NY., in a scenic sloping hillside cemetery overlooking about a half-mile from the National Baseball Hall of Fame. The engraving on Ashford's stone is inscribed: *"He believed an umpire should have integrity, perseverance, dedication as an American League umpire, 1965-1970. He added drama to baseball with his zestful flamboyant style."*

Hall of Fame catcher and one of Major League Baseball’s breakthrough pioneers, Roy Campanella became the sixth Black player to integrate the major leagues, making his debut with Brooklyn Dodgers on April 20, 1948. Prior to signing with the Dodgers, Campanella spent nine years in the Negro Leagues, eight of them as a catcher for the Baltimore Elite Giants.

Born in Philadelphia on November 19, 1921, to an Italian American father and an African American mother, Roy Campanella struggled as a child to understand where he fit racially. It did not take long, however, for him to learn the harsh reality captured by Booker T. Washington's observation: *"It takes 100 percent of white blood to make a white man and only a drop of Negro blood to make a Negro."*

Consequently “Campy” came to identify himself as black first and although by the time he was nine years old he had become completely enamored with baseball, he had almost no knowledge of the Negro Leagues whose ranks he would join soon.

By the time Campy was 15, he was being paid $60 a-month to play for the Washington Elite Giants under the tutelage of future Hall of Fame catcher Biz Mackey.

On May 20 1949, a year and a month after Roy Campanella made his debut as MLB's first Black catcher with the Brooklyn Dodgers, "Campy," and pitcher Don Newcombe became MLB's first Black battery on the day of "Newk's" big league debut.

In his 10 years with the Brooklyn Dodgers, Campanella hit 242 home run and won three National League MVP awards.

The bronze-cast lettering on Josh Gibson’s Hall of Fame plaque in Cooperstown credits him with hitting almost 800 home runs in league and independent baseball during his 17-year career and cites his four Negro League batting crowns.

The most prolific home run hitter in Negro Leagues history and among the greatest hitters professional baseball has ever known. In the segregated baseball circles of their times Gibson was known to some as “the Black Babe Ruth,” while others knew Ruth as the “White Josh Gibson.”

In 1972, Gibson became the second Negro Leagues player elected to the Hall of Fame one year after Satchel Paige was the first. Gibson is also a member of at least four other Halls of Fame including, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Mexico, and Puerto Rico.

Gibson was born in Buena Vista, Georgia on December 21, 1911, his father moved the family to Pittsburgh, PA when Josh was 12. He made his Negro League debut in 1929 and spent most of his career playing for his hometown Pittsburgh Crawfords and the Homestead Grays, who called both Pittsburgh and Washington D.C. home.

In 2024, Major League Baseball re-evaluated Negro League statistics from 1920-1948 and incorporated them in MLB’s historic record. While some of the home runs that he hit in exhibition and non-league games were not included in the updated compilation, his lifetime batting average was elevated to a Major League record of .372, he is also the all-time leader in slugging percentage (.718), and OPS (1.117).

But Josh Gibson’s legacy reaches far beyond statistics. Fellow Hall of Famer and Negro Leagues star Monte Irvin said of Gibson, “I played with Willie Mays and against Hank Aaron. They were tremendous players, but they were no Josh Gibson.