Efforts To Resurrect Donaldson's Baseball Career After His Death
At age 60, Donaldson was voted a first-team member of the 1952 Pittsburgh Courier player-voted poll of the Negro leagues best players ever.
Donaldson died at age 78 in Chicago and is buried in Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois. He was buried in an unmarked grave at the cemetery, until Jeremy Krock, of Peoria, Illinois, raised enough money for a proper headstone via the Negro Leagues Baseball Grave Marker Project. He started the project with Jimmie Crutchfield and lead to John Donaldson, and has continued to more than 20 other unmarked graves.
Donaldson was nominated for a special ballot of pre-Negro leagues candidates for inclusion in baseball's Hall of Fame. A 12-member voting committee, appointed by the Board of Directors and chaired by former Major League Baseball Commissioner Fay Vincent, however, did not choose Donaldson for membership in the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, in a vote in February 2006.
As of 2011, researchers working as a networking team calling themselves "The Donaldson Network", living and working in several states around the United States, have located Donaldson's 4,409 career strikeouts and 378 career wins as a pitcher.
Read more about this topic: John Donaldson (pitcher)
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