Samuel Jethroe

Samuel Jethroe, nicknamed "The Jet" (January 23, 1917 – June 16, 2001), was an American center fielder in Negro league and Major League Baseball. ‎Early life · ‎Negro league career · ‎Major League career · ‎Later life Sam Jethroe This article was written by Bill Nowlin Sam Jethroe was the National League Rookie of the Year in 1950, playing for the Boston Braves, and the first African-American to play major-league baseball in Boston. Five years earlier, he'd tried out for the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park, along with Jackie Robinson and Marvin Williams, but the Red Sox pursued none of them. Robinson went on to break the major-league color barrier and won Rookie of the Year in 1947. Near the end of his life, Jethroe struggled financially because he was denied a major-league pension for lack of sufficient service time. At 6-feet-1 and 178 pounds in his prime, the switch-hitting Jethroe (who threw right-handed) was known as the "Jet" – and many considered him the fastest man in baseball in his day. He was a better than average batter, although not nearly as accomplished on defense. After his playing career ended, when asked which year was his first in professional baseball, Jethroe told the Hall of Fame it was 1948. That was the year he first played in the minor leagues – in the outfield for the Montreal Royals, the Brooklyn Dodgers’ top farm team. He played in 76 games and hit for a .322 average, with just one homer and 25 RBIs. He wasn't as much for driving in runs, but he got on base a lot and scored 52 runs. In Montreal again in 1949, he played a full 153 games and hit for a .326 average, with 83 RBIs and a league-leading 154 runs scored. He set a league record with 89 stolen bases. His 207 base hits and 19 triples also led the International League, and he was one of the three outfielders named to the league all-star team. Under manager Clay Hopper, Montreal won league flags in 1946, with Jackie Robinson, and in 1948 with Jethroe. Jethroe’s speed on the base paths earned him the sobriquet "Jet Propelled Jethroe," later shortened to "The Jet." He was also dubbed "Larceny Legs" and "Mercury Man" and "The Colored Comet."1 Jethroe was ready for the major leagues. And for Branch Rickey, this was a chance to cash in on his outfielder's talent. But 1948 was not truly Jethroe’s first year of professional baseball. That came a full decade earlier, when Jethroe played for the Indianapolis Clowns in the Negro American League. The Boston Chronicle reported he hadn't played baseball at Lincoln High School but had been a star at softball.2 As was not uncommon in those days, he did not graduate from high school until he was 23, in 1940. While still in high school, he played for the Indianapolis Clowns in the Negro American League, in 1938; in 1940 and 1941 he played semipro ball, declining several offers from “Negro professional teams” in order to care for his mother, who was quite ill. She died on New Year’s Eve in 1941.3 Jethroe returned to pro ball in earnest in 1942 to play for the Cleveland Buckeyes, for whom he played into early 1948.4 It was a Buckeyes uniform Jethroe wore when he took part in the 1945 tryout at Fenway Park. Negro Leagues statistics aren't as complete as we would like; but that Jethroe was brought back year after year speaks to good performance, and that he was signed to Montreal and fared well there also testifies to his talents as a ballplayer. Four times he was selected to the Negro Leagues’ East-West All-Star Game, playing in seven games—two games apiece in 1942, 1946, 1947, and one in 1944. Samuel Jethroe came from a farming family in Old Zion, Lowndes County, Mississippi. His parents moved to East St. Louis, Illinois at some point, perhaps very shortly after Samuel was born. His parents were Albert "Chip" Jethroe, who at the time of the 1930 census had his own farm at East St. Louis, and Janie Jethroe, who worked as a sheller in a nut factory. She also worked some as a domestic, according to news stories contemporary to Sam's career. Sam had a sister, Rachel, who was about a year older, and a brother, Jessie, about four years younger. According to census records, Janie had been born Mary Jannie Spruil. Sam's notarized birth certificate said his mother’s name was Jannie Adams.5 We believe that Sam was born on January 23, 1917 in Lowndes County, though both he himself and the Social Security Death Index gave his birthplace as East St. Louis. He gave his year of birth as 1922, and a number of contemporary accounts indicate years ranging from 1918 to 1922; however, his reported age at the time of the 1930 census was 13 years old. We assume that those later years reflected a fictional "baseball age”; they were there to make him appear younger and thus to offer longer future potential for a team that might sign him. "I was born in 1917," he later confirmed to Rich Marazzi.6 When he came to the big leagues, it was with the Boston Braves in 1950. Fortunately, age wasn't an issue to his manager, Billy Southworth. "I don't care if he's 50, just as long as he can do the job."7 Jethroe played semipro ball while growing up, playing for both the East St. Louis Colts and St. Louis Giants. He would hitchhike to Sportsman's Park in St. Louis and peek through a knothole to watch Dizzy Dean and the Cardinals.8 And he grew up almost next door to Hank Bauer. "His backyard touched my backyard, and we'd play games, Hank Bauer's team and my team," Sam said.9 Of course, Bauer's team was all white and he went on to the major leagues, while Jethroe “would play doubleheaders for the East St. Louis Colts, then head over to St. Louis for a night game…those teams were all black…and I made hardly nothing." Marazzi writes that Jethroe, while with the Buckeyes in 1942, led the Negro American League in numerous categories – batting average, base hits, runs scored, doubles, triples, and stolen bases.10 In 1944, his .353 average led the league.