Joe Black was born on Feb. 8, 1924, leaving behind a legacy as a trailblazer both on and off the baseball field. Black rose to prominence during a time of immense social and racial challenges, making significant contributions to the sport and the community.
A native of Plainfield, New Jersey, he demonstrated early promise, earning a football scholarship to Morgan State College. Although Morgan did not have a baseball team, Black was still a three-sport athlete in college — playing end and defensive back for the football team, center on the basketball team, and competing in the high jump and hurdles on the track team. Black graduated in 1950. His commitment to education and empowerment in the African American community was later recognized when he was honored with an honorary doctorate from Shaw University.
Black's path to the major leagues was anything but conventional and paved with excellence. He spent parts of six seasons with the Baltimore Elite ["ee-light"] Giants of the Negro National League from 1943-1948, where in 1944, he was briefly a teammate of Roy Campanella his future teammate with the Dodgers, from 1952-1955. His time with the Elite Giants was interrupted by a two-and-half year stint serving the in the U.S. Army Medical Corps during WW II. He led the Elite Giants in games and innings pitched in official league games in 1947. He was the staff ace in 1948 with an 8-3 record a 1.91 ERA and was a member of the 1949 Negro League National Champion Elite Giants in 1949. Black was finally called up to the majors at the age of 28.
Baltimore Elite Giants Players, 1940s
Photo by John W. Mosley, Courtesy Temple University Libraries
He spent a season in the minors before the Dodgers promoted him to the major leagues in 1952, five years after teammate Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color barrier. Crossing over from the Negro Leagues, Black made his major league debut on May 1, 1952. At the time he was the 25th Black player to make it to the major leagues.
He was dominant out of the bullpen, chosen Rookie of the Year after winning 15 games and saving 15 others for the National League champions. He had a 2.15 ERA but with 142 innings pitched, fell eight innings short of winning the title. Strapped for pitching, the Dodgers brought Black out of the bullpen and started him three times in seven days in the 1952 World Series against the New York Yankees.
He won the opener with a six-hitter over Allie Reynolds, 4-2, and then lost the fourth game, 2-0, and the seventh, 4-2. The next spring after the World Series, the team urged Black to add some pitches to his strong fastball and tight curve. He lost control of his two basic pitches in the process and didn't regain his dominance until 1955, when he won 10 straight games at the start, a record at the time. After three more seasons with Brooklyn, Black drifted to Cincinnati and Washington and was out of baseball by 1958. In six seasons, he compiled a 30-12 record, half of his wins coming in his rookie season.
After his career ended, Black became an executive with Greyhound in Phoenix. In addition to lobbying for Black players, he remained in baseball through his affiliation with the commissioner's office, where he consulted with players about career choices. He wrote a syndicated column, "By The Way," for Ebony magazine and an autobiography, Ain't Nobody Better Than You. He was a board director of the Baseball Assistance Team and worked for the Arizona Diamondbacks in community relations after they joined the NL in 1998.
Black's induction into the New Jersey Sports Hall of Fame, the Morgan State Athletics Hall of Fame, the Black Athletes Hall of Fame, and the New York State Sports Hall of Fame serves as a testament to his extraordinary contributions to sports and his enduring legacy as an athlete.
Joe Black, the Brooklyn Dodgers' right-hander who became the first Black pitcher to win a World Series game, died in May 2002 at the Life Care Center of Scottsdale of cancer. He was 78.
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Morgan State University, founded in 1867, is a Carnegie-classified high research (R2) institution offering nearly 140 academic programs leading to degrees from the baccalaureate to the doctorate. As Maryland's Preeminent Public Urban Research University, and the only university to have its entire campus designated as a National Treasure by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Morgan serves a multiethnic and multiracial student body and seeks to ensure that the doors of higher education are opened as wide as possible to as many as possible. For more information about Morgan State University, visit www.morgan.edu.
