The No Hitters & Two Perfect Games

Below is a brief account of ten different no-hitters that Robert Gilkerson was associated with, either as a player, a manager or a team owner.

 

HORACE JENKINS - July 24, 1909

Illinois Giants 3, Chicago Wrigleys 1

Robert Gilkerson left his hometown of Pittsburgh in early July 1909 and headed to Chicago hoping to take his baseball career to the next level.  He played at least one game for the Chicago Union Giants when he arrived but soon joined the Illinois Giants.  In one of his first games with the new team, Gilkerson assisted in a no hitter while playing second base.  On July 24th, his new teammate, Horace Jenkins, struck out nine men, giving up a run on two errors, but allowed no hits against the Chicago Wrigleys.

JAMES HARVEY - July 4, 1911

Chicago Union Giants 2, Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin 0

By 1911, Gilkerson was back playing for the Chicago Union Giants full time.  In fact he was the team's captain that year and was playing second base when James Harvey threw a no-hitter in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin on July 4th.  According to the South Bend Tribune, "Harvey pitched a no-hit, no run game, only one man reaching second base."  The Chicago Union Giants won the game 2-0.

BILLY NORMAN (Perfect Game) - July 21, 1913

Chicago Union Giants 10, Guthrie Center, Iowa 0

Robert Gilkerson was spiked in a game in June 1913 that ended his season at second base.  That year however Gilkerson was also the team's manager.   Less than a month later in Guthrie Center, Iowa, the Union Giants defeated the local team 10 to 0.  On the mound that day was William Rufus Norman.  According to the Omaha Daily Bee, "The most remarkable game of the season was played at Guthrie Center, only twenty-seven men facing the colored phenom, Norman, during the entire game and not a man reaching first base."  No line or box score for the game has been identified.  While the score was reported in several other newspapers, none made mention of it being a no-hitter.

EDGAR BURCH - May 28, 1917

Lost Island Lake Giants 5, Toulon, Illinois 0

Gilkerson's playing days ended in 1913 but he stayed on with the Union Giants for several more years as the traveling business manager.  In 1917 however he severed ties with the Chicago club and started his own team.  They had yet to adopt the name of Gilkerson's Union Giants and instead went by a few different monikers that summer.

While playing in Illinois, he often passed his new team off as the "Chicago Union Giants."  This was the case in Toulon, Illinois where the Stark County News reported, "The Chicago Union Giants held Toulon to a no hit, no run, game Monday afternoon on the local grounds, while the Giants secured five runs and could have run up a larger score had they been so minded."  The paper did not record the name of the pitcher.  In Iowa however, Gilkerson's team was known as the Lost Island Lake Giants.  The Des Moines Register provided a line score for the exact same game (above) where that team name is used and Edgar Burch is credited with the no-hitter.

EDGAR BURCH & RUBE CURRY (Combined) - June 8, 1919

Gilkerson's Union Giants 7, Sutherland, Iowa 0

In early 1919, Gilkerson's team was still playing near Ruthven, Iowa and still promoting themselves as either the historic Union Giants of Chicago or the Ruthven Union Giants.  By the end of the season, they settled on Gilkerson's Union Giants.  In one of the first games of the season Edgar Burch and Rube Curry threw a combined no-hitter against the Sutherland, Iowa team in front of 1,500 people.  According to the Ruthven Free Press, "Burch pitched the first six innings and did not allow the visitors a hit, and Curry who threw the last three also held them hitless."

RUBE CURRY (Perfect Game) - August 31, 1919

Gilkerson's Union Giants 11, Wellsburg, Iowa 0

The best bit of pitching in a Union Giants uniform however came in the second half of the 1919 season when Rube Curry pitched a perfect game against the Wellsburg, Iowa team.  The Des Moines Register recorded the achievement this way, "The winning pitcher was never in danger at any time during the full nine innings.  The locals failed to put a man on first base, either by the free walk route or by a hit."  The Sioux City Journal reported the win a few days later:  "Wellsburg lost to the Union Giants 11 to 0.  Curry, pitching for the Giants, did not permit a Wellsburg runner to reach first base."

Even a decade later the Kansas City American Sports made note of the accomplishment:  "Currie also pitched a no-hit, no-run game against Wellsburg, while he was playing with the Union Giants in 1919.  He didn't allow a man to get to first."

LUTHER FARRELL - September 20, 1922

Gilkerson's Union Giants 5, Whitehall, Wisconsin 0

By 1922, Curry and Burch were gone from the rotation and Luther Farrell was the new ace of Gilkerson's Union Giants.  In a game in Whitehall, Wisconsin near the end of the season, Farrell blanked the locals in a 5-0 win.  According to the Winona Daily News, "Luther, the colored southpaw ace, was the shining light of the game.  His fast and wicked shoots completely baffled the Whitehall batters with the result that not a single hit was collected off his delivery in the nine frames.  Only one Whitehall player reached first during the game.  That was on a walk.  Luther whiffed ten batters."  The Chicago Whip's recap of the game recorded 12 strikeouts for Farrell.

LUTHER FARRELL (No Hit One Hit Loss) - June 26, 1923

Tomahawk, WI 2, Gilkerson's Union Giants 0

In early July 1923, the Chicago Defender reported that Luther Farrell pitched another no-hitter in Wisconsin, however this time it was for a loss.  The Tomahawk Leader's recap of the game however, printed two days after the fact, included this rebuke of the no-hitter:  "The remarkable feature of the game was that Tomahawk won although they only got one safe hit and that was by Wangler who beat out an infield hit to the bag."  Wangler's hit did not contribute to the score however.  The Leader confirms that Tomahawk's two runs were achieved without a hit.

TOM COX - July ?, 1925

Gilkerson's Union Giants 14, Guttenberg, Iowa 0

Charles "Tom" Cox was in his second season pitching for Gilkerson when he threw a no-hitter in Guttenberg, Iowa according to the Chicago Defender.  The line score was printed on July 18th but the date of the game was not provided.

ADMIRAL WALKER - August 22, 1926

Gilkerson's Union Giants 4, Newton Maytags 0

In his second year with the Union Giants, Admiral Walker pitched a no hitter against the Newton Maytags of Newton, Iowa in August.  Several newpapers noted that 36 assists were made by the two teams in the game.  The next season, Walker would go on to pitch for the Kansas City Monarchs.

FRED SIMS - August 26, 1926

Gilkerson's Union Giants 10, Lone Rock All Stars 0

A few days after Walker's no-hitter, Union Giants pitcher Fred Sims threw another one in Thornton, Iowa.  This time it was against the Lone Rock All Stars... or was it Rockdale?  Multiple newspapers reported the win over the All Stars, an African American team based in Lone Rock, Iowa.  The newspapers in Davenport, Iowa however reported, "Jimmy Sims hurled a no-hit, no run game at Thornton, Ia., yesterday, the Gilkersons defeating Rockdale by the score of 10 to 0.  The Giants secured 14 hits, including two home runs by 'Steel Arm' Davis."

The Cuban Players

There were at least seven different Cuban players on the Union Giants over the years, including one Hall of Famer.  For most seasons, starting in 1922, Gilkerson had one or two Spanish-speaking players on his roster at a time.  In 1929 and 1930, he had three.  In 1935, shortly before the team folded, Gilkerson even briefly changed the name of his team to the Cuban Giants.

Robert Gilkerson's connection to the baseball-loving island went all the way back to his playing days.  In October 1910, while Gilkerson was still playing for the Chicago Union Giants, the Benton Harbor News-Palladium reported that Gilkerson and the team had just "returned from a trip to Cuba, where they played a series with the Havana team."  

In 1911, the Escanaba Daily Press reported in November that Gilkerson himself was preparing to leave for Cuba where he played for a Cuban team during the winter months.  How much time he actually spent on the island however, is not well documented.  Once he became a team owner, it would be years before Gilkerson signed anyone born on the island.

The Cuban player that spent the most time with Gilkerson's Union Giants was Rogelio Crespo (pictured above, on right).  He was with Gilkerson for a total of ten seasons: 1922-1925, 1928-1930 and again from 1932-1934.  During his long run with the Union Giants, Crespo likely helped bring other Cuban players to the team.  When he wasn't barnstorming with the Union Giants, Crespo played for various teams back in Cuba as well as the Cuban Stars (East).   In fact, several of the Cubans that eventually played for Gilkerson also spent time on the Cuban team from New York.

The reason that Gilkerson kept bringing Crespo back year after year wasn't his connections however, it was his versatility and his reliability.  Most seasons, Gilkerson had him playing at different spots in the infield, either second base, shortstop or third base.  In 1923, 1925 and 1933 however, he was primarily an outfielder for the club.  While other players came and went over the course of a season, Crespo rarely missed a game.

One rare exception was in August 1924 when Crespo was spiked at third base in a game against the Twin City Red Sox of Sauk City, Wisconsin, a team that featured Happy Felsch, former member of the Chicago Black Sox.  The hard slide split Crespo's leg open "from knee to ankle."  According to the Fennimore Times, "Crespo was taken to the Cunningham hospital, where eight stitches were put in to bind the wound."   He was back on the field in a couple of weeks. 

In later years, the Union Giants traveled to Canada regularly, sometimes multiple times a season.  Crespo and the other Cuban players generally went along without incident.  In July 1932 however, having already visited Canada once that season, Crespo refused to travel north of the border.  The Bellingham (WA) Herald reported, "Al Crespo, Giant second sacker, stayed here last night, refusing to go to Vancouver with the team.  Crespo, it appears, was born in Cuba, and fearing any 'foreign entanglements' arising from questioning by the immigration authorities of Canada, he decided to stay here while the team was across the line."   Even though the Union Giants continued to travel to Canada the next two seasons, Crespo doesn't appear in any Canadian box scores after this point.

In 1923, Gilkerson added a second Cuban to the squad when catcher Frank Cárdenas joined the Union Giants.  Cárdenas was behind the plate from May until October of that year.  Cárdenas did not return in 1924 but pitcher David Gómez joined the Union Giants, pitching for the team that entire summer.  Gómez also stayed just one season.  He would go on to pitch for the Cuban Stars (West) for the next several years.

In June of 1925, the Union Giants briefly had an outfielder and backup catcher by the name of Abreu, sometimes spelled Abrew, Abru, or Abrean in box scores.   I originally thought this could have been Eufemio Abreu, however Eufemio was playing pretty consistently for the Cuban Stars (West) in June of 1925.  Perhaps a young Juan Abreu?  For now, it remains a mystery.  Whoever he was, he only stayed with Gilkerson's club for about a month.

Crespo left the Union Giants in '26-'27 to play for the Cuban Stars (East) once again.  When he returned in 1928, he was joined in the infield by Pelayo Chacón, a teammate from the Stars.  Crespo played second base and Chacón was at third for almost the entire season for the Union Giants.

Ogden Standard-Examiner
July 27, 1931

Chacón left in '29 but Frank Cárdenas returned to the team as catcher that year.   The big addition in 1929 however was Cristóbal Torriente.  Torriente stayed with the team, on and off, for three years, primarily as a pitcher but also playing the outfield.  The veteran player was well past his prime at this point in his career but he could still pitch and hit and was often billed as the star attraction on Gilkerson's squad.  

With Cárdenas behind the plate and Torriente on the mound, the Union Giants had a distinct advantage, which was pointed out by the Sioux City Journal, "When the Cuban battery is working they talk over the situation in Spanish, much to the discomfiture of opposing hitters."  The Sioux City newspaper however also reported that Cárdenas had been on the injured list for part of the 1929 season.  

In 1930, Gilkerson got a new Cuban catcher to pair with Torriente, José María Fernández.  Fernández however was only with the team during the first half of the season.   As reported in the Chicago Defender, Fernández and pitcher "Yellowhorse" Morris both left Gilkerson to join the Chicago American Giants in early July.  Torriente also appears to have left the team around the same time.  He returned in 1931 for most of the season.

The last Cuban (sort of) to play for Gilkerson was pitcher Juan Padrón during the ill-fated 1935 season.  According to Seamheads, Padrón was actually born in Key West, Florida.  The Grand Rapids Press described him as "a Cuban of Spanish and West Indian descent.  He speaks Spanish fluently.  He goes back to Cuba each winter, after playing baseball during the summer months in the United States, and plays quite a few games at Havana each winter."

St. Louis Argus, Sep 4, 1931

Padrón had been living and playing in Michigan since at least 1930.  In Grand Rapids in 1931, Padrón pitched in several exhibition games against Major League teams, including both teams in the World Series that year, the St. Louis Cardinals and the Philadelphia Athletics.  Against the Cardinals, Padrón pitched a 10-inning complete game, striking out seven batters and allowing just six hits and one run, which was enough for the win.  A month later, the Cardinals went on to win the World Series.

At the start of the 1934 season, Padrón was leading a team in Michigan called the Cuban Giants.  The team disbanded by June and several of the players, none of them actually Cuban, joined up with Gilkerson mid-season.  In 1935, Padrón joined Gilkerson as well.  The team started out as the Union Giants as usual but by June of 1935 they were now calling themselves the Cuban Giants.  The Green Bay Press-Gazette said the team was "formed out of former Cuban and Hawaiian players."  In truth, Padrón was the only member of the team with any Cuban heritage.  Gilkerson's entire operation came to end before the end of the summer.

Clarence Lee Moore

Source:  National Baseball Hall of Fame

Clarence Lee Moore was a born in El Dorado, Arkansas but played an important role in Black baseball in Asheville, North Carolina in the 1940's as the owner and manager of the Asheville Blues.  His life and career are well documented in the 2012 Black Ball article, "Wonder Team of the Carolinas" by Pamela Mitchem. 

Here I want to focus on the few seasons, early in his career, that Moore played for Gilkerson's Union Giants.  According to Mitchem's article, Moore "spent three years with the Chicago Union Giants, with whom he reportedly earned $300 a month and played against Happy Felsch, one of the 1919 'Black Sox' stars banned from the big leagues more than a decade earlier."  

In the footnotes to the article, Mitchem adds, "Moore also told interviewers that the team played for substantial cash north of the border: We played in Canada; the first prize was $20,000.  I knocked in the winning run against a good left-handed pitcher."

First, I should point out, Mitchem's article misidentifies Gilkerson's team as the "Chicago Union Giants," an all too common mistake.  The other quibble I have with the article is the description of the above photo which Mitchem includes as "an undated photograph of Clarence Moore in his Chicago Unions uniform."  I believe this is wrong, though I recognize it may have been mislabeled by the Baseball Hall of Fame, Mitchem's source for the photograph.  According to Mitchem's own article, Moore attended Virginia Union University in Richmond for three years on a baseball scholarship.   I believe the photo is actually Moore in his college uniform and not with the Union Giants.

Beyond these clarifications, here is what I can confirm and add to Moore's baseball biography:  C.L. Moore played first base for Gilkerson's team in 1927, 1928 and again in 1934.  During that time, he took part in several tournaments in Canada and definitely played against Happy Felsch and other major league players, just as Mitchem wrote.

Moore first joined the Union Giants in July 1927 while the team was playing in Iowa.  Two months into the season, the Union Giants were going through a bit of a rebuild.  After adding Moore, Gilkerson acquired southpaw, Ted Shaw, who had been pitching for the Chicago Giants.  Shortly after that, Gilkerson picked up three players from the Sioux City All Stars: catcher Walter Harris, pitcher and outfielder Earl "Iron Horse" Harrison, and outfielder Raymond Sharp.  These five men, with Moore playing first base, would stay on with the Union Giants for the rest of the season.

The 1927 team would prove to be one of the best teams Gilkerson ever assembled.  The other players already on the squad included Eddie Dwight in the outfield, Dave Thomas at second base, Charley Akers at shortstop, and "Newt" Joseph at third base.  An additional pitcher traveling with the team was Fred Sims from Iowa.  In August, Gilkerson added pitcher "Eggie" Hensley and outfielder ? Jones.  Clarence "Pops" Coleman was the team's manager, although he did some catching and even played first base, early in the season.

Winnipeg Tribune, Aug 20, 1927

The July additions quickly had an impact.  Before the end of the month, Ted Shaw threw both games of a double header against two different teams in Winnipeg, Manitoba.  He struck out 20 men that day and only allowed two hits in the 2nd game.  The Union Giants won both games easily.

In August, Moore went 4-for-4 at the plate in a game against the House of David team in Winnipeg.  Collectively, the Union Giants had three home runs and four doubles that night, winning 9-4 in front of 5,000 people.   

The team returned from Canada before the end of the month and closed out the season in Minnesota and Iowa, winning the majority of their games in the final stretch.   In fact, the Union Giants won almost 84% of their contests that year, finishing the season with an impressive record of 118-22-2.

In May 1928, it was announced that Clarence Moore, "the sensational left handed first baseman of Union University," had joined the Atlantic City Bacharach Giants.  He played in at least one game for the team according to Seamheads.  By June however, he was back at first base with Gilkerson's squad.  Most of the team around him was new however, including two Cubans in the infield, Rogelio Crespo at second base and Pelayo Chacón at third base.  Gilkerson also added pitcher Joe Johnson (aka Joe Lillard), outfielder C. Smith and super utility players,  Clarence Everett and ? Marshall.  While in Canada, Gilkerson also had a mysterious submarine pitcher known only as Duff.  

The Union Giants took multiple trips north of the border that year where they clashed with local all-star teams, as well as the House of David and Happy Felsch's All Stars of Plentywood, Montana.  According to the Bismark Tribune, the Plentywood team featured six former major league players:  "Happy Felsch, formerly with the White Sox; Hruska, former American association player; Clarke, former Chicago Cub pitcher; Allen, second baseman for St. Louis at one time; and Happy Forman, once a pitcher for the Cincinnati Reds."

Their first meeting was in July in Virden, Manitoba in the semifinals of a local tournament.  The game was a "nip and tuck affair" however the Union Giants rallied in the bottom of the ninth to win the game 6-5.  The big blow was a long home run by outfielder Sharp that reportedly went "over the cars in center field."   The Union Giants went on to win the entire tournament which came with a $600 prize (far below the amount Moore mentioned).

The Union Giants and the Plentywood All Stars met again in August for a four game set in Winnipeg.  The former major leaguers got the best of the Union Giants this time, winning three out of the four games.  In the second contest, Moore knocked in one of the Union Giants' four runs, helping to win their only game in the series.  

In addition to his hitting skills, Moore was known for his abilities at first base as well.  Earlier in the month, in a game against the House of David, the Winnipeg Tribune applauded Moore's fine glove work at first base:  "Moore made a beautiful play to end the seventh, when Evitt heaved the ball across low.  Moore scooped it up on the bounce in grand style.  Evitt almost swallowed his glove."

A few weeks before the Union Giants finished their season in Iowa, Moore appears to have split off from the team.  Perhaps, he needed to head to North Carolina where he was attending school at Shaw University in the fall.  As the baseball season came to an end, Gilkerson reported his team's record for the 1928 season as 103 wins, 23 losses and 3 ties.

It is unclear where Moore spent his summers for the next few years, possibly remaining in North Carolina.  In July 1931 however, a notice in the Chicago Defender indicated that Moore had signed with Happy Bingham's All Stars in Madison, Wisconsin.  (Bingham and Gilkerson had been partners in 1917 when Gilkerson broke away from the Chicago Union Giants to start his own team.)

Moore eventually returned to the Union Giants in 1934 for one last tour with the team.  The box scores are limited but Moore appears at first base from late May until early September.  The Union Giants started out the season on shaky ground, losing at least nine games in a row to the tough Bismark, ND team, but they were able to end strong.  On September 9, 1934, the Chicago Defender reported that the team had won 67 out of their last 76 games.  The 1934 season would end up being the last full season for Gilkerson's Union Giants.

As for Moore, Mitchem's article says that he spent "parts of two years, 1935 and 1936, as the left handed-hitting first baseman and captain of the Page, North Dakota, team, part of an integrated, informally organized league that included the Dakotas and Minnesota."  On June 28, 1936, the Fargo Forum reported that C.L. Moore and two other members of the Page baseball team were injured when their car overturned, after hitting loose gravel, while returning from a Canadian tour.  In the week after the accident, the Page team went on to play with borrowed players from the Fargo-Moorehead Independents.  It is unclear how long it took Moore and the others to recover from the accident.  That summer would mark the end of Moore's playing days in the Upper Midwest.

That next spring, Moore began his long tenure as coach, manager, mentor and eventual team owner in Asheville.

Journal and Guide (Norfolk), April 17, 1937

For more about Moore's time in North Carolina:

Mitchem, P. (2012). “Wonder Team of the Carolinas.” Black Ball: A Journal of the Negro Leagues, 5(1), 33–51.