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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
