1919 Detroit Stars season

The 1919 Detroit Stars baseball team competed in Negro league baseball during the 1919 baseball season. In their first year of competition, the Stars won the championship of independent western Negro league clubs.^[1][2] While the Seamhead website reports that the team compiled a record of 27–13, the "Game Log" below includes 44 wins based on 1919 games for which contemporaneous newspaper accounts have been located.

The Stars played their home games at

The team was established in 1919 by owner Tenny Blount (1873–1934), sometimes also known as "Teddy" Blount, with assistance from Rube Foster who owned the Chicago American Giants. Blount was an Alabama native who moved to Detroit in 1913 and became a prominent "numbers man".^[4][5][6]

Hall of Fame inductees

Three players from the 1919 Stars were later inducted into the

• Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006 by vote of the Negro League Committee.^[8]
• Oscar Charleston also joined the Stars late in the season. He was a left-handed slugger and played center field for the Stars.^[1] He died in 1954 and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1976.^[9]
• José Méndez, a native of Cárdenas, Cuba, was the team's shortstop and also appeared in 12 games as a pitcher, compiling a 2.14 earned run average.^[1] Nicknamed "The Black Diamond", Méndez died in 1928 and was posthumously inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006.^[10]

Other batters

In addition to the three Hall of Fame inductees, the Stars received strong performances from several other position players.

First baseman Edgar Wesley, a left-handed hitter from Texas, compiled a .322 batting average and a .610 slugging percentage for the 1919 Stars. In 146 at bats, he tallied eight home runs, 21 extra-base hits, and 43 RBIs.^[11]

Joe Hewitt, an infielder from Alabama, led the team with 153 at bats and ranked second with 36 runs scored and third with 36 hits.^[12]

Second baseman Frank Warfield, a Kentucky native, led the team with eight triples.^[12]

Pitchers

Sam Crawford was the team's leading pitcher, compiling a 10–4 record and 2.89 earned run average (ERA).^[1]

John Donaldson also pitched for the Stars, compiling a 2.33 ERA. Donaldson was regarded as one of the greatest pitchers of the era, appearing in approximately 700 games^[13] with over 400 wins^[14] and 5,000 strikeouts.^[15] He was voted a first-team member of the 1952 Pittsburgh Courier player-voted poll of the Negro leagues best players ever.^[16]

Season overview

During April and May, the Stars opened the season with a 13-game win streak, including victories over all-white semipro teams. In late May, an all-white team from Wyandotte, Michigan recruited Detroit Tigers pitcher Rudy Kallio to start a game against the Stars;^[17][18] the Stars scored eight runs off Kallio.^[19] The local semipro champion, the Maxwells, lost two games to the Stars in the first half of the season, then recruited major league pitcher Ralph Comstock to start a July 13 games against the Stars.^[20] With Comstock pitching a strong game for the Maxwells, the Stars lost their first game to a white team by a 4–3 score.^[21] The Stars played a total of six games with the Maxwells in 1919, winning three games and losing two.

The Stars' principal rivalry for the western championship of Negro league baseball came from Rube Foster's Chicago American Giants.^[2][22] The Giants won two of three in a series played in Chicago in June. When the teams met for a series in Detroit in early July, the Stars won three games. The also played a seven-game seriesin late July and early August that was billed as the championship series.^[23] The Stars won five games to take the championship.

As noted in the "Game Log" below, the Stars also played multiple series with other Negro League teams, including the Cuban Stars, Dayton Marcos from Ohio, and the Hilldale Club from Pennsylvania.

In the last game of the season, the Murray All Stars recruited Detroit Tigers pitcher Bernie Boland; Boland held the Stars scoreless.^[24][25]

Roster

Name	Image	Position	Height	Weight	Bats	Place of birth	Year of birth
Oscar Charleston		CF	5'8"	185	Left	Indianapolis, Indiana	1896
Sam Crawford		P	6'1"	200	Right	Dallas, Texas	1892
John Donaldson		LF	6'1"	180	Left	Glasgow, Missouri	1891
Frank Duncan		LF	6'1"	180	Left	Macon, Georgia	1888
Bill Francis		3B	5'5"	140	Right	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania	1879
Jelly Gardner		LF	5'7"	160	Left	Russellville, Arkansas	1895
Willie Green		3B
Joe Hewitt		SS	5'7"	140	Left	New Market, Alabama	1885
Pete Hill		CF	5'8"	170	Left	Buena Vista, Virginia	1882
Dicta Johnson		P	5'7"	134	Right	Elizabethtown, Illinois	1887
Tom Johnson		P	6'0"	180	Right	Bryan, Texas	1889
Dave Malarcher		3B	5'7"	150	Both	St. James Parish, Louisiana	1894
José Méndez		SS	5'10"	152	Right	Cárdenas, Cuba	1885
Bruce Petway		RF	5'10"	159	Both	Nashville, Tennessee	1885
Andrew Reed		3B
Vicente Rodríguez		C	5'11"
Candy Jim Taylor		3B	5'5"	165	Right	Anderson, South Carolina	1884
Frank Warfield		2B	5'7"	160	Right	Pembroke, Kentucky	1899
Edgar Wesley		1B	5'11"	215	Left	Waco, Texas	1891
Frank Wickware		P	5'10"	180	Right	Girard, Kansas	1888

Statistics

The following batting and pitching statistics are drawn from the Seamheads web site which appear to be incomplete.^[1]

Batting

Note: Pos = Position; G = Games played; AB = At bats; H = Hits; Avg. = Batting average; HR = Home runs; SLG = Slugging percentage

^[1][26]

Pitching

Note: G = Games; IP = Innings pitched; W = Wins; L = Losses; PCT = Win percentage; ERA = Earned run average; SO = Strikeouts

^[1][26]

Game log

References