Dan Bankhead

[GeoPoto]

We have previously highlighted some of the lives and baseball cards of the players who became the first black men to play for one of the 16 MLB franchises. Several of these men have been inducted into the MLB Hall of Fame. Several others also had MLB careers long enough for them to appear on a substantial number of baseball cards, photographs, and other memorabilia. Today we focus on a player whose time in MLB was brief, resulting in a limited number of collectable items. He also was not the first black Dodger.

Today's focus is on: Daniel R. "Dan" Bankhead. Pitcher with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 and 1950-1951. 9 wins and 4 saves in 3 MLB seasons. He was the first African American to pitch in MLB. Before signing with Brooklyn, he played for the Birmingham Black Barons and the Memphis Red Sox in Negro league baseball.

Bankhead only made it on one baseball card during his MLB career. Today and tomorrow, I will borrow excerpts from Bankhead's SABR biography and show the two items I have, which are interrelated. If anyone has Bankhead items in their collection, I would love to see them. For anyone interested in more on Dan's life and MLB career, I recommend the excellent SABR biography written by Rory Costello:

Until the Negro Leagues were officially recognized as major leagues in December 2020, Dan Bankhead was on record as the first African American to pitch in the majors. He remains best known for that fact, as well as another: he and four brothers all played in the Negro Leagues. However, Bankhead’s big-league career was brief and unsatisfying, and so he received scanty mainstream press coverage. Even the Black newspapers never profiled him in any depth. He also passed away at the young age of 55 in 1976, before Negro Leagues and Brooklyn Dodgers historians could record his personal memories. Fortunately, family and friends helped to connect the dots.

These dots were widely scattered – as with many Black ballplayers in his day, Bankhead’s career was multinational. He starred in Puerto Rico, made detours to the Dominican Republic and Canada, and then knocked around Mexico well into his 40s. Always a respectable hitter, Bankhead played the field abroad in addition to pitching. Outside the US, he was also a coach and manager.

Though Bankhead was clearly talented – he drew Bob Feller comparisons – he was hindered by control problems and an old injury. Authors Larry Moffi and Jonathan Kronstadt also pinpointed a crucial problem: “Like many of baseball’s first Black players, he was thrown into white baseball with the physical tools to succeed but little or no emotional support.” Jackie Robinson was Bankhead’s roommate when the pitcher first joined the Dodgers, four months after Robinson broke the color barrier. In his biography of Robinson, Arnold Rampersad said it bluntly: “Some observers, including Blacks, thought that [Bankhead] choked in facing white hitters.”

Negro Leagues star and raconteur Buck O’Neil offered a more nuanced view. Author Joe Posnanski was there for a conversation between Buck and Satchel Paige’s son Robert:

“See, here’s what I always heard. Dan was scared to death that he was going to hit a white boy with a pitch. He thought there might be some sort of riot if he did it. Dan was from Alabama just like your father. But Satchel became a man of the world. Dan was always from Alabama, you know what I mean? He heard all those people calling him names, making those threats, and he was scared. He’d seen Black men get lynched.”

Also, while Dodgers broadcaster Red Barber described Bankhead as “a quiet, pleasant man,” there were other sides of his personality. Sometimes he simply did not act in his own best interest – he lost two jobs abroad under a cloud. His brothers Sam and Garnett Bankhead both died by gunshot following quarrels (aged 70 and 63, no less); Dan too had a temper, which a weakness for women allegedly provoked. His family life was at times tumultuous. Yet as he battled illness and lived hand to mouth in his final years, this man attained peace. . . .

[GeoPoto]

. . . Dodgers scouts George Sisler and Wid Matthews were aware (of Bankhead's success in the 1947 East-West All-Star Game), and they alerted their boss, Branch Rickey. Brooklyn was short on pitching – ironically, they had unloaded starter Kirby Higbe because he refused to play with Jackie Robinson – so Rickey again turned to the Negro Leagues. On August 22, as Rickey biographer Lee Lowenfish wrote, “he and Sisler then traveled to Memphis to observe Dan Bankhead. . . . After the game [in which he struck out 11 and lifted his record to 11-512], Bankhead and his wife fed the visitors dinner, and soon thereafter Rickey announced that the pitcher had been purchased from Blue Sox [sic] owner J.B. Martin for $15,000.” . . .

. . . Lowenfish continued, “Rickey was happy that Dan Bankhead’s color did not attract overwhelming press attention when the pitcher arrived in Brooklyn. The executive always hoped for the day when merit, and not color of skin, determined a person’s chance for success.” However, author Jules Tygiel differed, writing that “[Bankhead] received a terrific workout from photographers and newshounds.”

Rickey would have preferred to test his new pitcher in the minors first, but he needed a live arm more. The 27-year-old’s NL debut came at Ebbets Field on August 26. One news story estimated that Black fans made up roughly a third of that day’s crowd of 24,069. A very nervous Bankhead entered in the second inning in relief of Hal Gregg.

The new Dodger allowed eight runs (all earned) on 10 hits in his 3⅓ innings of work that day. In one of his well-honed turns of phrase, sportswriter Red Smith wrote, “(T)he Pirates launched Bankhead by breaking a Louisville Slugger over his prow.” However, the hurler displayed his all-around ability by homering off Pittsburgh’s Fritz Ostermueller in his first NL at-bat.

After the game, Bankhead told pioneer Black sportswriter Sam Lacy, “I think I’ll be okay as soon as this newness wears off. Today it seemed like I was wearing a new glove, new shoes, new hat, everything seemed tight.”

Dodgers manager Burt Shotton mixed praise (“speed, a good curve, and control”) and criticism (“the boys were calling all his pitches”) in his post-game remarks. He said he “wanted another look before I form an opinion one way or another.” Bankhead pitched just three times more over the remainder of the season, though, with no decisions and a 7.20 ERA in 10 innings overall. Nonetheless, he remained on the Dodgers roster for the World Series. He made one appearance as a pinch-runner in Game Six. Bobby Bragan had doubled off the Yankees’ Joe Page to score Carl Furillo and put the Dodgers up 6-5. The future big-league manager recalled what happened next:

“Bankhead would have scored from second a few pitches later when Eddie Stanky singled to right but Dan fell down rounding third and just scrambled back to the bag in time. When Pee Wee Reese singled to center both Dan and Eddie scored to ice the game.” (Not quite – it took Al Gionfriddo’s famous catch off Joe DiMaggio to hold the lead.)