• About
  • Charleston Bio
  • Charleston Chronology
  • Stats
  • Buy the Book!

Oscar Charleston: Life and Legend

Oscar Charleston: Life and Legend

Tag Archives: Pittsburgh Courier

Honus Wagner on Charleston, and Charleston on the color line

29 Monday May 2017

Posted by Jeremy Beer in Evaluation, Indianapolis Clowns, Managing Career

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

baseball integration, Homestead Grays, Honus Wagner, Oscar Charleston, Pittsburgh Courier, Wendell Smith

Just came across this testimony on Oscar Charleston’s abilities from Honus Wagner, as quoted (or remembered by) Wendell Smith, crusading sportswriter for the Pittsburgh Courier.

The quote from Wagner is wonderful. But more wonderful is the direct, contemporary quote from Oscar about not getting the chance to play in the majors. This is the only place I have seen where he addresses the issue personally and directly.

(August 21, 1954, Pittsburgh Courier, p. 12)

I believe Oscar played against Wagner’s “All-Stars” in an exhibition game in 1929 or 1930, when Oscar was with the Homestead Grays. Wagner was, of course, long retired by then. But presumably he knew an elite ballplayer when he saw one. And he may well have seen or played against Charleston before then, although I have not come across such a game.

Within four months after Smith published this column, Charleston was dead. Wagner died the next year, in December 1955.

Oscar Charleston, the man

24 Thursday Nov 2016

Posted by Jeremy Beer in Biography, Harrisburg Giants, personality and habits

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Dizzy Dismukes, Jimmy Lyons, Morty Clark, Oscar Charleston, Pittsburgh Courier, William Dunn

Over the last two days, while doing research in the Pittsburgh Courier files of the mid-1920s, I came across two wonderful nuggets. Each helps to reveal something about the personality and habits of Oscar Charleston, and about how others viewed him. This was during the peak of his career, while he was playing, managing, and essentially acting as the general manager of the Harrisburg Giants.

First, this June 20, 1925, excerpt from William Dunn’s column.

oc-versatility-personified

So: Oscar could sing! And take your money at billiards! And seemed, at least, to be happily married and well-liked by those who knew him, even as he remained somewhat hard to get to know.

Second, an April 3, 1926, anti-liquor article in the Courier that uses Oscar as its main example of how avoiding drink leads to success:

One of the outstanding characters of the diamond who shuns liquor is that great and colorful king of the diamond, Oscar Charleston, fielder supreme, the peer of whom is yet to be located. Year after year Oscar has gone on piling up achievements which make him a place in the hall of fame of Negro baseball for all time, aiding the game by his clean and sane method of living and playing the game. The answer is plain. Oscar could not have maintained such a remarkable record of performance if he had been a drinker, and this, we think, is one of the greatest factors of his success.

Dizzy Dismukes, too, we are told, also is a non-drinker. By contrast, the author argues, alcoholism drove former Charleston teammates Specs Clark and Jimmy Lyons out of baseball.

Dismukes and Charleston seem to have been friends. Charleston’s photo album contains a number of photos of his wife Jane with Dizzy’s wife in Cuba. Teetotaling may have been one thing that bonded the two men.

Recent Posts

  • Charleston news
  • Baseball and Barbecue and other stuff
  • The New York Daily News
  • Reviews and radio
  • Baseball by the Book . . .

Archives

  • February 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • March 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • February 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015

Categories

  • Biography
  • Brown Dodgers
  • Cuba
  • Cuban baseball
  • Early Life
  • Evaluation
  • Harrisburg Giants
  • Homestead Grays
  • Indianapolis ABCs
  • Indianapolis Clowns
  • Lincoln Stars
  • Managing Career
  • personality and habits
  • Philadelphia Stars
  • Philippines
  • Pittsburgh Crawfords
  • Podcasts
  • Post-Career Reception
  • Reviews
  • Toledo/Indianapolis Crawfords
  • Uncategorized
  • Videos

Oscar Charleston: Life and Legend

Oscar Charleston: Life and Legend

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Blog at WordPress.com.

Cancel

 
Loading Comments...
Comment
    ×