Dan Bankhead: The Forgotten Pioneer

Dan Bankhead was the first Afro-American pitcher to make it to the majors. But his career was short and by most standards, very unsatisfying. He was born in Empire, Alabama, on May 3rd, 1920. His parents, Garnett and Arie, had seven children who lived to adulthood. Dan was born Daniel, but it is believed his father shortened it at some point.

Empire is a small town about 30 miles northwest of Birmingham. It is in coal country. Dan’s dad worked as a loader and later as a miner. It was to his family a steady source of income and a step up from being a sharecropper as many African Americans were in those days in the south. Many lived in fear for their lives almost every day, and in some form, that fear would follow Dan on his travel through life and baseball.

Although not substantiated by any reports from that day, relatives said that Garnett himself was a very good player in the Cotton Belt League. But he supposedly quit after seeing a player killed by a flying baseball bat.

Dan was the third of five ballplaying brothers. The eldest brother, Sam, was a top-notch player in the Negro Leagues. He is deserving of a story of his own. He played outfield and infield from 1930-50. He was fast, versatile, and had a good bat. While he was still playing shortstop, he was the manager of the Vargos Sablos champion of the Venezuelan Winter League in 1946-47. He also managed the Homestead Grays in their last two seasons as an independent team, 1949-50. He also managed Farnham in Canada’s Provincial League in 1951 and is recognized as the first black manager of a predominantly white team.

The second brother, Fred, was an infielder who played from 1936-48. His brothers Joe and Garnett Jr. were both pitchers. Joe was with the Birmingham Black Barons in 1947, while Garnett Jr. pitched briefly with the Memphis Red Sox in 1948. He also spent some time with the Homestead Grays. His youngest brother, James, born roughly two years after Dan, apparently did not live long. He was listed in the 1920 Census but not in 1930.

Dan went to public schools in Birmingham. But in 1940 he became a professional ball player. He and a friend went to a tryout, and they were trying to catch on as infielders. Dan wanted to play SS. But he was throwing the ball so hard, the coaches told him they were going to make him a pitcher, so they did. Dan signed with the Birmingham Black Barons. He went 2-1 his first year, and 6-1 his second. He threw two scoreless innings in the East-West All-Star game in July of 1941.

In the winter of 1941-42, Dan went to the Puerto Rican Winter League for the first time. There were a lot of great Negro League players there. Josh Gibson with Santurce, Willard Brown. His brother, Sam, was with Ponce. But Dan was with the Mayaguez Indios. He won 7 and lost 8.

Returning to the Barons in 1942, he went 3-0 before enlisting in the Marine Corps. He was stationed at Camp Lejune. The Montford Point Marines as they were known, were not a combat unit. Even so, the all-black unit became important as part of the integration of the armed forces. Dan played baseball for the Monford Point team, which stayed in the states for the duration. They would tour as a morale booster. He pitched, played SS and the outfield.

At least once he got leave and pitched for the Black Barons. On June 5th, 1944, he threw a three-hit shutout over the New York Black Yankees at Yankee Stadium in the nightcap of a doubleheader striking out 17. The Barons had also won the opener. The games drew 12,000 fans. Dan, who had achieved the rank of sergeant, was released from the service on June 7, 1946. He returned to baseball, this time with the Memphis Red Sox. He once again made the roster for the East-West All-Star team. That year they played two games. He gave up two runs in the first game and got a no-decision. In the next game, he pitched three scoreless innings and got the win. He ended up with a 7-3 record. His 42 K’s led the league. But it also shows that stat keeping in those days in the Negro leagues was not kept accurately.

Sometime in the mid-40s, Dan married Linda Marquette. She was from Kansas City and had attended the Chicago Conservatory for Music. According to Dan’s son, they met while she was singing Jazz music. They had a daughter, Waillulliah, or Lulu for short. Her name was patterned after Tallulah Bankhead, a member of a prominent Alabama family. Tallulah may have been linked to the black Bankheads, since her great-grandfather owned slaves in Lamar County, about 80 miles west of Empire.

He also thought that she must have been adopted. In a 1947 article, it was noted that the child was 9 years old and that her parents had been married for 10 years. Well, that just couldn’t be since Dan would have been about 17 and Linda 15 when they got married. With his wife and child in tow, he returned to Puerto Rico in 1946-47. Pitching for the Caguas Criollos, he went 12-8 and led the league with 172 strikeouts. He also showed his speed by stealing 12 bases.

He went back to Memphis in 1947 and got to be on the same team as his brother, Fred. He pitched three innings in the All-Star game and got the win. Dodger scouts George Sisler and Wid Mathews were aware and alerted Rickey. Brooklyn needed pitching. They had traded Kirby Higbe because he would not play on the same team as Jackie Robinson. So, Rickey and Sisler traveled to Memphis to see Dan pitch. After a game where he struck out eleven and lifted his record to 11-5, Bankhead and his wife fed the visitors dinner. Shortly thereafter, Rickey announced that Bankhead had been purchased from the team for $15,000 dollars.

The Richmond Afro-American, showed a picture of the part owner, B.B, Martin, shaking hands with Linda Bankhead after the deal was announced. The slender, graceful woman, who was not African American, was noted as a former singer for jazz great, Fletcher Henderson’s Orchestra. She and her daughter and their pets were on their way to Brooklyn in early September. She noted she was only a baseball fan when her husband pitched.

His debut was less than encouraging. He came in to relieve Hal Gregg in the second inning. He was, at that point, very nervous. His first pitch to Wally Westlake came in too far and hit him in the elbow. Everyone was worried that drilling the Pirates outfielder would start a race-driven fight. But Westlake simply took his base. He went on to allow 8 runs, 6 of them earned on ten hits in his 3.1 innings of work that day. But he also hit a homer off of Fritz Ostermueller in his first at-bat.

In a well-honed turn of phrase, Red Smith wrote, ” The Pirates launched Bankhead by breaking a Louisville Slugger over his prow.” Dan himself told writer, Sam Lacy, “ I should be fine after all this newness wears off. Unlike Jackie Robinson, Dan had not undergone any prior tutoring about what he was going to face in the majors. Jackie was college educated, a former captain in the Army, and had a fiery determination to just go out and beat you. Dan was described by Red Barber as a ” nice quiet kind of person.“

It was also believed that due to where he grew up, Alabama in the 20s and 30s, he was fearful of what might happen if he did hit a white player. Blacks were still getting lynched in the south then. He had no doubt seen or heard about it. For whatever reason, that fear was real, and many think it affected the way he approached pitching to white players. And remember, there was no Campanella there to guide him that first season.

He only pitched in three more games that season but nevertheless made the World Series roster. His only appearance was in game six as a pinch runner. He scored when Pee Wee Reese singled in him and Eddie Stanky. That would ice the game for the Dodgers. It took a great catch by Al Gionfriddo to keep it that way.

In 1948 the Dodgers trained in Puerto Rico. It marked the first time that black and white players stayed in the same hotel. This was a welcome change for Jackie. Not only was the hotel luxurious, but fans would line the street as Jackie and Dan walked by and cheer them as if they were the hometown players. Bankhead was moved to the outfield for a while because of his speed and hitting prowess. But that was abandoned, and he concentrated on pitching.

He was sent to Nashua, New Hampshire. He fired a seven-inning no-hitter in July against the Springfield Cubs. He blazed his way to a 20-5 record with a 2.35 ERA and 243 strikeouts to lead the league. He barely missed winning the pitching triple crown, a 2.33 ERA by Harry Schaffer. In August, he was promoted to St. Paul, the Dodgers AAA affiliate. Satchel Paige opined that he threw harder than Bob Feller. He finished the season in fine form, going 4-0 for the Saints.

In 1949, after another winter season in Puerto Rico, he went to the Dodgers other AAA affiliate, Montreal. He won 20 games again against just six losses. He led the league in strikeouts with 176, but he also walked 170 which helped balloon his ERA to 3.76. He earned the nickname “The Wild Man of the International League.” He also hit .323 with a homer and 26 RBI’s. He helped the third-place Royals with 2 wins in the playoffs before they were beaten by Indianapolis in the Little World Series. And he had a sore arm to boot.

He again played winter ball in Puerto Rico and at some point played in a barnstorming tour with a team put together by Luke Easter. Rumors swirled over the winter that he was going to be traded, first to the Braves, and then to the White Sox. But Rickey kept him, and in 1950 he would get all of his major league wins.

The first came in relief of Don Newcombe on April 28th. He won his first four decisions, including a shutout of the Cardinals on June 18th at Ebbets Field. Just when it looked like he was ready to settle in as a solid member of the rotation, his arm troubles worsened. He pitched the rest of the way sporadically and finished 9-5 with a 5.50 ERA. Walks again were a huge problem.

He and his wife spent the winter in the Dominican Republic, where they welcomed their son, William. Dan was playing with Escogido, one of the four long-running teams in the country. His arm problems worsened, and he pitched only 14 innings for the Dodgers in 1951. In July, the team announced they had sold his contract to Montreal and recalled Clem Labine to take his place.

He would never make it back to the majors. Perhaps the most lasting memory of his time in the majors came from a clubhouse debate. He imparted a piece of down-home wisdom to his one-time roommate, Jackie Robinson when he said,” Not only are you wrong Robinson, you are loud wrong.“

He later offered a reason as to why his performance for the Dodgers was like it was. Financial pressure was brought on by an inability to find an apartment that would accept children. So they had to live in an expensive hotel which ate up a lot of his salary. “No one wanted to take my kids, nobody wanted them, but I did.”

Back in Montreal, things were not much better. It took him a month to get his first win. He worked mostly out of the pen and went 2-6. His arm troubles persisted through the next season, and the Dodgers finally released him.

He went back to the Dominican where the summer season was held from 1951-54. He did not last long, but in August, he was named the manager of Escogido, replacing the manager who had gone to the states to scout talent.

He was trying for the team’s first win against three losses in August when an aggressive base running play backfired. He went to third, where the umpire called him safe, the third baseman threw the ball to the ground arguing. Dan got up but was thrown out at home plate. The catcher, Zoilo Rosario, who was irate, fired the ball at Dan’s head but missed. Dan turned around, picked up Rosario’s catcher’s mask and hit him right on top of the head with it. It opened a wound that would require three stitches. In the free-for-all that followed, Bankhead was knocked cold. After peace was restored, Bankhead and Rosario were fined and jailed.

He continued to have problems with management. A lot of it concerning his salary. He was known to be a tough negotiator going back to his Negro League days. He played in Canada for a while in 1953, where his manager was an old teammate, Al Gionfriddo. Al’s big memory of Dan was the way he used to stamp the hell out of the rubber before he pitched.

The following year, Dan went to Mexico, where he spent the bulk of his remaining 13 years in the game.

He usually played in the field during those years. His days as a fireballing pitcher were behind him. He played for various teams. There seems to be a gap in his playing in 1958, and his son William remembers him going to jail for some sort of domestic dispute. But he and his wife never divorced. William said that through all the years of playing in Mexico, he would return home for what William described as pit stops.

In 1960 and 1961, his name would occasionally pop up in American newspapers. He was playing for a Mexican League team, and they regularly played Texas League teams. In August of 1961, he was pitching for Saltillo, a team that lasted only one season despite drawing large crowds thanks to pitcher Luis Tiant.

He started the winter of 1962 managing in Mexico, but he was fired 10 games into the season. He then went to Puerto Rico after ten years away. He was 3-0 pitching for Caguas when he was named manager on December 9th after Preston Gomez resigned. Within three days, though, Caguas released him and named Jim Rivera manager, and Dan went to Ponce Leones.

His son, William was with him on that trip. He remembers his dad gave him a white horse to ride. ” I used to ride the horse and shoot iguanas with a BB gun. ” William recalled that he left the club after another domestic dispute with Linda. Juan Navarro said, ” I cannot say if it happened or not-I do not remember anything like that, but he did a hell of a job pitching for an older guy. Do you say he was 42? I thought he was 50.”

He stayed as a player-manager in the different Mexican Leagues until mid-1967. His time in baseball came to an end. Some friends from his childhood in Alabama stepped in to help. Like many of his day, his life was baseball, and he was ill-suited for any other occupation. Also, things had gone downhill for him in Mexico.

His son said he was pitching more than baseballs. Too many kids, too many intimacies. There are several kids down in Mexico that I know of, and you cannot live in a foreign country without money.

Much insight on the remaining years comes from Doc Settles. His mother and aunts grew up with Dan in Alabama, and they offered him a helping hand. The nearest oasis was Houston. Settles said, ” my mom and sisters were not looking for anything, and this was just someone from home, and there was a connection there by marriage too.”

Dan came to Houston trying to get his life back on track. He would play catch with Settles and talk to him for hours about baseball and the Mexican Leagues. He was fluent in Spanish, and as he aged, he got even lighter colored.

He worked for a time for a delivery service. Sometime in the 19’70s, he was diagnosed with lung cancer. He was in and out of the VA Hospital in Houston. He spent his final years reflecting on his life and being at peace. He died on May 2, 1976, one day short his 56th birthday. In 2006 his name was mentioned again in a dispute over his baseball memorabilia. His sons, William, and Dan Herbert were involved in the dispute as William alleged the items were obtained by improper means by the Negro Leagues Museum.

If Bankhead were playing today, I honestly believe he would be a pitcher along the lines of at least Newcombe. He received little emotional support and was not really prepared for the majors, he was also thrust into the majors with no prior minor league teaching. I also think that medicine today would have figured out what was wrong with his shoulder that caused all of his arm problems. Remember, Koufax and Drysdale both had to retire because of arm problems. With Sandy, it was his arthritic elbow. With Don, it was a rotator cuff which today is easily repaired. Bankhead should receive more credit than he does for such a long career and for being the forgotten pioneer.

Cover Photo Credit: Getty Images