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Article

Aaron, Hank  

Peter Valenti

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
15 March 2013
Published online:
31 May 2013

baseball player and executive, was born Henry Aaron in the Down the Bay section of Mobile, Alabama, the third of eight children of Herbert Aaron and Estella (maiden name unknown). His parents had left the Selma, Alabama, area during the Depression for greater opportunity in Mobile's shipbuilding industries. In 1942, as the family grew and Down the Bay became more crowded with wartime job seekers, the Aarons moved to a rural suburb of Toulminville. Working as a boilermaker's apprentice, Herbert Aaron suffered through the frequent layoffs that plagued black shipyard workers before wartime demand dictated full employment. Ever resourceful, Herbert Aaron bought two lots in Toulminville, hired carpenters to frame out the roof and walls of a house, and set about with his family to find materials to finish the property. The Aarons continued to live in the house even as Henry achieved superstardom.

Making balls from such scavenged ...

Article

Aaron, Hank  

Paul Finkelman

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
09 February 2009
Published online:
01 December 2009

baseball player, baseball executive, civil rights advocate, and businessman. Henry Louis “Hank” Aaron was born and raised in Mobile, Alabama, the son of Herbert and Estella Aaron. He was a member of the second generation of black baseball players to enter the major leagues following Jackie Robinson's breaking of the color line in professional baseball in 1947. Aaron began playing for the Milwaukee Braves in 1954; at about the same time Willie Mays joined the New York Giants and Ernie Banks joined the Chicago Cubs. They were among the last black players who began their careers in the Negro Leagues. In 1974 Aaron broke Babe Ruth's lifetime home run record of 714. When he retired from baseball in 1976 after twenty three seasons Aaron held the career records for most home runs 755 most runs batted in 2 297 most total bases ...

Article

Aaron, Henry Louis (Hank)  

Alonford James Robinson

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
07 April 2005
Published online:
01 December 2006

The third of eight children, Henry Louis Aaron was born in Mobile, Alabama, to Estella and Herbert Aaron. His first experience with professional baseball came in the Negro Leagues, as he moved up through the ranks with the Pritchett Athletics, the Mobile Black Bears, and the Indianapolis Clowns. In 1952, the Boston Braves of the newly integrated major leagues signed Aaron to play shortstop in their farm system. Moving from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, to Jacksonville, Florida, Aaron made it to the majors in 1954, playing for the Milwaukee Braves (now the Atlanta Braves).

Aaron is considered by some to be the best baseball player in history. Over his twenty-three-year major league career, Aaron compiled more batting records than any other player in baseball history. He holds the record for runs batted in (RBIs) with 2,297, and was a Gold Glove Winner in 1958, 1959 ...

Article

Abbott, Cleveland Leigh  

Betti Carol VanEpps-Taylor

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
15 March 2013
Published online:
31 May 2013

Tuskegee athletic coach, was born in Yankton, South Dakota, to Elbert B. Abbott, a stonemason, and Mollie (Brown) Abbott. Abbott grew up in Watertown, South Dakota, attending Watertown public schools, where he was a superior student and athlete. He graduated from high school in 1912 with an unheard-of sixteen Arrow letters in athletics.

Abbott entered South Dakota State College in Brookings, South Dakota, in the fall of 1912, selecting a dairy science major and joining the athletic program. His outstanding athletic and academic performance attracted the attention of the college president Ellwood Perisho, an acquaintance of Booker T. Washington Washington promised Abbott a job at Tuskegee contingent on his continued scholastic excellence Abbott did not disappoint maintaining his high marks and earning fourteen athletic letters in four years in track football baseball and basketball In this last he played center captained the team and was named All ...

Article

Abdul-Jabbar, Kareem  

Robert Fay

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
07 April 2005
Published online:
01 December 2006

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was born Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr., in Harlem, New York. Raised in a middle-class household and educated at Catholic schools in Manhattan, the young Alcindor was introduced to Basketball at age nine and played competitively throughout elementary and high school. Alcindor was six feet eight inches (2.05 meters) tall by the time he was fourteen years old and became a star center for Power Memorial Academy, leading the high school to two city championships. He continued his dominant play at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), where he led the university's team to three consecutive National Collegiate Athletic Association championships. He lost only two games in his college career. An outspoken political activist who was influenced by the Black Power Movement, Alcindor changed his name in 1971 after converting to Islam. A popular NBA star from 1969 to 1989 Abdul Jabbar thwarted opponents ...

Article

Abdul-Jabbar, Kareem  

Marty Dobrow

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
15 March 2013
Published online:
31 May 2013

basketball player, was born Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor, the son of Ferdinand Lewis “Al” Alcindor, a police officer with the New York Transit Authority, and Cora Alcindor, a department-store price checker. The almost thirteen-pound baby arrived in Harlem one day after the major league debut of Jackie Robinson in Brooklyn; as with Robinson, fiercely competitive athletics and the struggle against racial injustice would define much of his life.

From a young age Alcindor was introspective and intense He had an artistic sensibility drawn in part from his father a stern and silent cop who played jazz trombone and held a degree from Juilliard An only child in a strictly Catholic household he moved from Harlem at age three to the Dyckman Street projects on the northern tip of Manhattan a racially mixed middle class community In third grade he was startled to see a class photo that featured him not ...

Article

Abebe, Bikila  

Haggai Erlich

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
08 December 2011
Published online:
30 September 2012

Ethiopian athlete, was born on 7 August 1932 in Jato, a village located some eighty miles from Addis Ababa, outside the town of Mendida in Shewa Province. His father died before he was born, and young Abebe was adopted by Bikila Demisse, a shepherd. Having completed his studies at age twelve at the local traditional school, he followed in his adopted father’s footsteps. At the age of twenty, he decided to venture out of peasantry and made his way on foot to the capital, to join the Imperial Bodyguard. In 1954 he married Yewibdar Welde-Giyorgis, with whom he fathered four children. He distinguished himself as a talented player of gena, a traditional Ethiopian hockey game, but remained an anonymous soldier until the age of twenty-four. At that time, while guarding the departure of the Ethiopian delegation to the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne he decided to begin competing ...

Article

Acevedo, Fernando  

Jesús Cosamalón

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
01 June 2016
Published online:
30 September 2016

was born in the province of Chincha, Peru, on 26 June 1946. Even as an adolescent, he stood out in the sprint competitions held by his high school in his home province, La Gran Unidad Escolar “José Pardo,” especially in the 100- and 200-meter dashes. When he was 17 years old he began to train with Luis Derteano and excelled in regional track events. In 1969, in the city of Quito, Ecuador, he set the Peruvian national record for the 100-meter dash at 10.2 seconds, and he achieved the same time at the Bolivarian Games of 1970 in Maracaibo, Venezuela. However, both results were measured manually, and were thus not official. Acevedo’s official 100-meter record is 10.43 seconds, which was recorded electronically in La Paz, Bolivia, in 1977. During the Sixth Pan American Games, held in Cali, Colombia, in 1971 Acevedo won the bronze medal in ...

Article

Ali, Muhammad  

Gerald Early

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
15 February 2001
Published online:
01 December 2006

Despite the considerable achievements of such important African American athletes as Jesse Owens, Joe Louis, Wilma Rudolph, Jim Brown, and Jackie Robinson, the young brash prizefighter from Louisville, Kentucky, may very well have eclipsed their significance. He surely eclipsed their fame as, at the height of his career in the early and middle 1970s, Muhammad Ali was, without question, the most famous African American in history and among the five most recognized faces on the planet.

Born Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr., in 1942 (named after both his father and the famous Kentucky abolitionist), the gregarious, handsome, and extraordinarily gifted boxer garnered world attention by winning a gold medal in the 1960 Olympics. He further stunned the sports world by beating the heavily favored Sonny Liston to win the heavyweight title in 1964 and shocked white America by announcing right after that fight that ...

Article

Ali, Muhammad  

David K. Wiggins

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
04 July 2001
Published online:
01 December 2006

Born as Cassius Clay in Louisville, Kentucky, Muhammad Ali first gained international attention when he won the gold medal in the light heavyweight division at the 1960 Rome Olympics. In 1964 he captured the heavyweight championship for the first time in a surprising sixth-round technical knockout of Sonny Liston. Shortly after that fight, Ali announced that he had joined the Nation of Islam (Black Muslims), the black separatist religious group led by Elijah Muhammad. Ali's religious conversion provoked much controversy in America, especially among whites who abhorred his membership in a group that spoke of “white devils” and the superiority of the black race. He further infuriated many Americans when he refused induction into the armed forces in 1967, during the Vietnam War, on religious grounds. His stand resulted in the revoking of his heavyweight crown and conviction for draft evasion. In 1970 the U S Supreme ...

Article

Ali, Muhammad  

John Gennari

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
07 April 2005
Published online:
01 December 2006

As the dominant heavyweight boxer of the 1960s and 1970s, Muhammad Ali won an Olympic gold medal, captured the professional world heavyweight championship on three separate occasions, and successfully defended his title nineteen times. Ali's extroverted, colorful style, both in and out of the ring, heralded a new mode of media-conscious athletic celebrity. Through his bold assertions of black pride, his conversion to the Muslim faith, and his outspoken opposition to the Vietnam War, Ali became a highly controversial figure during the turbulent 1960s. At the height of his fame, Ali was described as “the most recognizable human being on earth.”

Ali's 1981 retirement from boxing did not diminish his status as an international public figure. Despite suffering from Parkinson's disease, Ali remained on the world stage as an adherent of the Nation of Islam an advocate of children and war victims and a proponent of international understanding ...

Article

Ali, Muhammad  

Gerald Early

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
15 March 2013
Published online:
31 May 2013

world champion boxer and political activist, was born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. in Louisville, Kentucky, the eldest of two sons raised by Cassius Clay Sr., a sign painter and something of a frustrated artist, and Odessa Grady, a domestic. Young Clay began to take boxing lessons at the age of twelve because someone had stolen his bicycle and he was determined to exact revenge against the perpetrators. He never discovered who stole his bike, but he did blossom as a young fighter, taking instruction from the Louisville policeman Joe Martin. His brother, Rudolph Arnette Clay (Rudolph Valentino Clay in some sources and later Rahaman Ali), also took up boxing, but, lacking his brother's talent, never became a significant presence in the sport.

Clay became a gym rat feeling that he could succeed in boxing as he never could in school Although he showed no special ability in his ...

Article

Ali, Muhammad  

Luther Adams

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
09 February 2009
Published online:
01 December 2009

boxer, civil rights activist. Perhaps one of the most recognized people in the world, Muhammad Ali was born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. to Cassius Marcellus Clay Sr. and Odessa (Grady) Clay in Louisville, Kentucky. He was named in honor of his father and the white Kentucky abolitionist Cassius M. Clay. Clay attended the all-black Central High School in Louisville, Kentucky, graduating 376th out of a senior class of 391. Ali has been married four times: to Sonji Roi, Kalilah Tolona (formerly Belinda Boyd), Veronica Porsche, and Yolanda Ali. He has been married to Yolanda since 1986, and has seven daughters and two sons, including Laila Ali, a boxer in her own right.

Article

Allen, Marcus  

Pellom McDaniels

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
15 March 2013
Published online:
31 May 2013

professional football player and sports analyst, was born in San Diego, California, to Harold “Red” Allen, a carpenter and general contractor, and Gwen Allen a registered nurse Developing an interest in football at the age of ten Allen began to utilize the work ethic stressed by his parents who sought to instill in their children a strict understanding of dignity courage and self reliance Allen s parents believed that for their children to become successful they must adhere to far reaching tenets of character and faith by first actively demonstrating an understanding of hard work team work and unyielding discipline Allen understood at an early age the significance of working hard and the possibility of achieving unforeseeable dividends This ingrained ability would propel him beyond his own notions of success on the football field and into a realm of stardom as a national and international sports figure ...

Article

Allen, Newt  

Leslie Heaphy

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
15 March 2013
Published online:
31 May 2013

infielder for the Kansas City Monarchs Negro Leagues baseball team, was born Newton Henry Allen in Austin, Texas. The names and occupations of his parents are unknown. Allen attended Lincoln High School, Kansas City, Missouri, and played ball for the Kansas City Tigers while still in school, before leaving to play for the Omaha Federals in 1921. While handling the middle of the infield for the Federals, Monarchs owner J. L. Wilkinson saw the youngster play and signed him to his All-Nations ball club. After only one season with the All-Nations, Allen was promoted to the Monarchs in 1923.

Allen played for twenty-three seasons in the Negro Leagues. Most of his playing time was spent at either second base or shortstop for the Kansas City Monarchs, one of the original teams in the Negro National League established in 1920 In addition to playing for Kansas City Allen ...

Article

Alou, Felipe  

Adam W. Green

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
15 March 2013
Published online:
31 May 2013

baseball player and manager, was born Felipe Rojas Alou, in Haina, Dominican Republic, to Jose Rojas, a carpenter/blacksmith and grandson of a slave, and Virginia Alou, a homemaker and Caucasian daughter of a Spanish migrant. The second Dominican-born player in major league baseball, Alou was one of three baseball-playing brothers and became the first Dominican to manage in the big leagues.

Alou grew up with five younger siblings in a fifteen-by-fifteen-foot house his father had built in the village of Haina. For much of his childhood, food came from where Alou and his family could scavenge it: using bamboo poles and construction wire to fish in the Haina River or climbing coconut trees and scouring for other fruit. Baseball equipment was scarce in the poor village, and Alou and his brothers would play with lemons or coconut husks for balls and their hands for bats.

Alou traveled to ...

Article

Alou, Felipe Rojas  

April Yoder

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
01 June 2016
Published online:
30 September 2016

best known in the United States as the oldest of Major League Baseball’s Alou brothers, was born 12 May 1935 on a farm in Bajos de Haina, Dominican Republic. The oldest of six children of José Rojas, a blacksmith and carpenter, and Virginia Alou, a homemaker, Felipe Rojas Alou attended high school in Santo Domingo. In 1954 he represented his country in the javelin and discus in the Central American and Caribbean Games held in Mexico. After beginning his studies in pre-med at the University of Santo Domingo, Alou returned to Mexico for the 1955 Pan-American Games, this time on the baseball team. His performance in Mexico helped the Dominican Republic win a gold medal and inspired many professional baseball teams in the United States to offer him contracts.

At first Alou rejected the offers to play in the United States because he wanted to continue his studies But after ...

Article

Alou, Jesús Rojas  

April Yoder

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
01 June 2016
Published online:
30 September 2016

best known as the youngest of Major League Baseball’s Alou brothers, was born on 24 March 1942 in rural Bajos de Haina, Dominican Republic. The fourth of six children born to José Rojas, a carpenter and blacksmith, and homemaker Virginia Alou, Jesús María Rojas Alou attended secondary school in Santo Domingo. He left school at the age of 15, before completing his degree, to play professional baseball. Horacio Martínez, the scout who signed his brothers Felipe and Mateo, saw the potential for the youngest Alou to play in one of US baseball’s major leagues (the American League and the National League) despite his preference for fishing over formalized baseball.

Alou began his career in the Dominican Republic as a bullpen pitcher for the Leones del Escogido Escogido Lions and spent his first season in US baseball as a pitcher with the San Francisco Giants affiliate in Hastings Nebraska During the ...

Article

Alou, Mateo Rojas  

April Yoder

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
01 June 2016
Published online:
30 September 2016

was born on 22 December 1938 in Bajos de Haina, Dominican Republic. The third of six children born on the farm of José Altagracia Rojas García, who also worked as a carpenter and blacksmith, and Virginia Alou, Mateo Rojas Alou began playing baseball as a child. By the age of 18, he had risen to the highest level of amateur baseball in the Dominican Republic: Double A. By this time, in 1956, his older brother Felipe had already signed with the New York Giants, and managers and coaches across the country predicted that the younger Rojas Alou would follow in his brother’s footsteps. A year after he returned from Mexico, where he played alongside rising Dominican stars such as Manuel Mota and Juan Marichal in the first Youth Baseball World Series in 1956 Mateo signed a professional contract with the Giants scout Horacio Martínez the same scout who ...

Article

Alston, Thomas Edison  

Adam W. Green

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
30 September 2012

baseball player, was one of four sons born to his father, Shube Alston, in Greensboro, North Carolina. Alston went to the all-black Dudley High School in Greensboro. Upon graduating, he joined the United States Navy in April 1944 and trained at Great Lakes Naval Training Station in Illinois. He served on a cargo ship for a year and a half before being discharged in March 1946. Alston enrolled in North Carolina A&T State University, where he began to play baseball competitively. At 6 feet 5 inches and over 200 pounds, Alston was physically suited to a number of school sports, and the school's athletic director attempted to entice him into playing basketball and football as well, but Alston balked. He received his degree in physical education in 1951.

Before graduation Alston began his foray into semiprofessional baseball first for the Goshen Greensboro Red Wings and then for ...