Provincial League (Canada) Cabinet Photos w/ 1st Black Player in Quebec (UPDATE!)

[baseball tourist]

Originally Posted by Jobu

With the help of John Thorn and his friends (portions of their text is pasted below), all three of these photos now have more info!

The single player appears to be S. (or T. based on a newspaper article) Smith, the first African American player in Quebec history. He played for Montreal in 1899 and for St Jean in 1900. Here are his stats (clicking on the teams gives you the team stats):

http://web.archive.org/web/201007131...-smithnoir.htm

There is even a short newspaper excerpt about him from 1899:

Attachment 386448

http://web.archive.org/web/201106300..._1899smith.htm

The composite photo of St. Hyacinthe is from 1902 when they won the pennant but lost the playoffs to the Montreal Mascottes two games to none. St. Hyacinthe would go on to win the playoffs the following year.

The players in the field have*GABBC on their uniforms. It stands for Granite Association Base Ball Club. The Granite Mills used to sponsor the club from 1894 until 1897. The club was fittingly called the Saint-Hyacinthe Granites during those years. Here is an 1986 team photo with those same uniforms on:

Attachment 386445

I'd like to say thank you again to everyone who helped id these guys!

Awesome items and great research!

[Rhotchkiss]

Bryan, I have no info for you, but that cabinet is unreal. It looks like it could have been taken last week. Very cool piece

[GaryPassamonte]

Agree on the single player cabinet. Great image!

[steve B]

That's got to be one of the nicest portrait style photos of a player I've seen.
Most are fairly ridgidly posed and very formal, this looks like the photographer was messing with him and snapped the pic just as he was getting a "come on man!" look from him

[Jobu]

Thanks guys! It is definitely one of those photos that it is hard to take your eyes off of.

[h2oya311]

Wow! That first cabinet is simply unreal! Congrats!

[Jobu]

We have a full name and a bio for Mr. Smith! Thanks to digging by Patrick Carpentier and Christian Trudeau, Mr. Smith's full name was Taylor Smith. He spent a lot of his time playing on black teams in Pennsylvania beginning in 1884 before heading north to become the first Black player in Montreal.

There is a perfect line from a newspaper article that matches the personality he is showing in his photo:

"Pitcher Smith of the Cuban Giants has a set of ivories that hoodooed the Stars yesterday and every time he smiled one of his six by nine smiles he rattled the men at the bat so that they did not plug him to the extent expected."

The bio comes from James E Brunson III's Black Baseball 1858-1900.


Bio Part 1

Taylor Smith part 1 - crop.jpg

Bio Part 2

Taylor Smith part 2 - crop.jpg

Composite

1899 Quebec Mascottes Newspaper Composite.jpg

Mr Taylor Smith

Taylor Smith - Provincial League St Hyacinth lg.jpg