Negro Leagues
Born in Nashville, Tennessee, he began playing on a local semi-pro team at age 14 and dropped out of high school in his senior year to pursue his career. He was nicknamed "Junior" during his time playing in the Negro leagues with the Baltimore Elite Giants, where he was voted an All-Star three straight years from 1948 to 1950; veteran George Scales taught him to switch hit.
Read more about this topic: Jim Gilliam
Famous quotes containing the words negro and/or leagues:
“And then, the negro being doomed, and damned, and forgotten, to everlasting bondage, is the white man quite certain that the tyrant demon will not turn upon him too?”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“By a knight of ghosts and shadows
I summon’d am to a tourney
Ten leagues beyond the wide world’s end:
Methinks it is no journey.”
—Unknown. Tom o’ Bedlam’s Song (l. 57–60)