Hilton Smith

Hilton Lee Smith (February 27, 1907[1] – November 18, 1983) was an American right-handed pitcher in Negro league baseball. He pitched alongside Satchel Paige for the Kansas City Monarchs between 1932 and 1948. He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2001.

Hilton Smith
Pitcher
Born: (1907-02-27)February 27, 1907
Giddings, Texas
Died: November 18, 1983(1983-11-18) (aged 76)
Kansas City, Missouri
Batted: Right Threw: Right
Negro league baseball debut
1932, Monroe Monarchs
Last appearance
1948, Kansas City Monarchs
Negro league statistics
Win–loss record71–31
Run average3.37
Earned run average1.68
Teams
Negro leagues
Other
  • Bismarck (1935–1936)
Career highlights and awards
  • 6× All-Star (1937, 1938, 1939, 1940, 1941, 1942)
  • Negro League World Series champion (1942)
Member of the National
Baseball Hall of Fame
Induction2001
Election MethodVeterans Committee

Early life

Born in Giddings, Texas, Smith began his career in black baseball's equivalent of the minor leagues with the Austin Black Senators in Austin, Texas. Smith made the dean's list as a student at Prairie View A&M College in 1928 and 1929. He was an outfielder in his first college season and a pitcher in his second year.[2]

His big league debut was with the Monroe Monarchs of Monroe, Louisiana in 1932. In 1934, Smith wed Louise Humphrey. They had two children.[3]

Semi-pro career

From 1935 to 1936, Smith pitched for the Bismarck semi-professional team organized by Neil Churchill. In 1935 his teammates included Satchel Paige, Ted "Double Duty" Radcliffe, Quincy Trouppe, Barney Morris, and Chet Brewer. In August, the team won the national semipro championship in Wichita, Kansas. In 1936, Paige, Radcliffe, and Brewer departed and Smith became the ace of the Bismarck team. They returned to the national championship, where Smith won four games, but Bismarck failed to repeat as champions.[4]

Negro league career

In late 1936, Smith signed with the Kansas City Monarchs. From 1937 until his retirement in 1948, Smith was a star pitcher on the Monarchs. He possessed an outstanding curveball, but was overshadowed by his more flamboyant teammate Satchel Paige. Often Paige would pitch the first three innings of a game, leaving Smith to pitch the remaining six. Also, unlike Paige, Smith was a very good hitter.

Post-playing career and death

After retiring from baseball, Smith worked as a schoolteacher and later as a steel plant foreman. He also scouted for the Chicago Cubs. Smith had a quiet, reserved temperament, but in his later years he stood up for Negro Leaguers in their struggle to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. He died in 1983 in Kansas City, Missouri. It was not until 2001 that he was posthumously inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Notes
  1. During his lifetime, Smith claimed that his birth-date was 1912, which is the date shown in several references such as Riley, p. 723. Nearly 20 years after his death, however, historian Larry Lester discovered information and confirmed that his actual birth-date was February 27, 1907; see Thornley, p. 136.
  2. "Hilton Lee Smith inducted into the Prairie View A&M Sports Hall of Fame". Prairie View A&M University. Retrieved January 3, 2015.
  3. Porter, David, ed. (2000). Biographical Dictionary of American Sports: Q-Z. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 1434–1435. ISBN 0313311765. Retrieved January 3, 2015.
  4. McNary, Kyle P. (2001). "North Dakota Integrated Baseball History". Pitch Black Baseball. Archived from the original on July 25, 2008. Retrieved November 22, 2009.

References
  • Clark, Dick; Lester, Larry (1994), The Negro Leagues Book, Cleveland, Ohio: Society for American Baseball Research
  • Hogan, Lawrence D. (2006), Shades of Glory: The Negro Leagues and the Story of African-American Baseball, Washington, DC: National Geographic, ISBN 0-7922-5306-X
  • Riley, James A. (1994), The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues, New York: Carroll & Graf, ISBN 0-7867-0959-6
  • Thornley, Stew (2006), Baseball in Minnesota: The Definitive History, St. Paul, MN: Minnesota Historical Society Press, ISBN 0-87351-551-X
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