A Mystery Solved

One of the absolute coolest items of memorabilia from the tenure of The Spartanburg Sluggers at Duncan Park Stadium is a colorful handmade poster announcing “BaseBall,” a game between the Sluggers and the Greensboro Red Birds on “Monday Nite May 26th at Duncan Park.” The heavy stock on which the image is painted is dark green; the lettering is partly pink-orange-ish, partly yellow, and something like red for the name of the opposing team.

The large printed words on the poster are neat, and the names of the two teams are rendered creatively: the “Red Bird’s” is semi-cursive, and the letters “g” in “Spartanburg Slugger’s” are displayed in a sort of comic-book font style. “Duncan Park,” the name of the venue, is printed in a heavy, sans serif style with the letters rocking at contrasting angles as if they are dancing. As indicated here, the plurals are misspelled, as often occurs, with an apostrophe before the “s” at the end.

There is also an outline drawing of a ballplayer on the poster. The lines are a sort of creamy white color. The player’s uniform is pinstriped, with highlights in the orange-ish pink, and he is wearing what look like boots in the same color. He has just slammed a ball with a mighty swing, and—wonder of wonders!—he is left-handed. The symbol of his smash—an outlined giant starburst—surrounds the date of the game.

But there is something missing on this poster: the year of the advertised contest! Presumably the fans who saw the poster on a wall or telephone pole somewhere in the old Black business district downtown or in the cafe of team owner Little Newt Whitmire knew what year they were living in, but fans in 2023 have no clue. And they want to know.

The poster comes from the collection of Luther Norman, Little Newt’s son-in-law, who also possesses a trove of other Sluggers and Whitmire family memorabilia: gloves, catcher’s gear, old wooden bats, photos, newspaper articles, and more, some dating back to the second decade of the twentieth century. But Luther didn’t know what year the tilt between the Sluggers and the Red Birds occurred.

Neither did the Spartanburg County Public Library, which today archives the poster and which had it restored and properly preserved for display during a program on Negro Leagues Baseball some years ago. Brad Steinecke, the Assistant Director of Local History at the Library and an experienced researcher and font of knowledge about all things Spartan, had tried to trace the date of the game in question. He searched microfilm of The Daily Herald and The Journal and Carolina Spartan and also database and other print sources but without luck.

I searched for this elusive fact as well. During the course of my research in some of the same sources that Brad had consulted—and others—I was able to document more than 350 Sluggers’ games, not only by the dates on which they occurred but also by the locations where the games were played and the opponents the Sluggers faced. An unexpected bit of good luck was that the Library subscribed to the NewsBank online database near the end of my research, and this happy event speeded up my review of previously discovered materials in issues of the local papers.

Around the middle of October 2023 I tried NewsBank once more in a Boolean search using “Spartanburg Sluggers,” the limiting AND,and “Greensboro Red Birds” within the date range from 04/01/1920 to 08/31/1952 to see what might pop up. I hit the search button and waited. It didn’t take long. In a few seconds I got 3 hits, all referencing the same game. The brief stories presented in issues of Spartanburg newspapers dated May 28th and 29th and June 2nd all referred to the game played a few days earlier between the Sluggers and the Red Birds on “Monday.” Monday of course was May 26, 1952, almost certainly the elusive date of the game advertised on the poster.

To be sure, May 26.1952, cannot be identified with absolute 100% certainty as the correct date. It is at least possible that the Sluggers might also have played the Red Birds on a May 26th of a different year. To try to be sure, I searched again. And again. No additional hits. Was it possible that a game occurred in a different year and not have been covered by a Spartanburg newspaper? Of course. Was it possible that a game had been played but its date not recorded? Of course. Was it possible that a game had been played but recorded as occurring on the wrong date? Of course. All  of these possibilities were fairly regular happenings in the coverage—or noncoverage or attempted coverage—of Negro Leagues and semipro Black teams. But was it probably about 99% certain? I think so!

And the outcome? The Sluggers won by a score of 5-4 after scoring two runs in the bottom of the ninth inning. The winning pitcher was Louis Booker, a Sluggers mainstay, caught by Bus Glenn, another dependable regular, who also went two for five in the game. Bus’s kinsman Ray Glenn went three for five.

The Sluggers played regularly until 1953, and I have actually documented one game played in June 1961. A week after the game against the Red Birds the Sluggers played the Charlotte ABC’s, starting their ace Lefty Bob Branson, “the Satchel Paige of the South.