by John Holway
Coming off the Clark University campus in Atlanta in 1933, Cornelius was so impressive that the fans gave him the third highest vote among all pitchers in the balloting for the first East-West game that year. In 1934 Cornelius rang up several memorable games. He beat Lefty Leroy Matlock and the Pittsburgh Crawfords (Gibson, Charleston, Bell et al.) 2–1 in ten innings. He lost a thriller to Satchel Paige 3–0, although each only gave five hits.
His finest performance that year came in September when he was called on again and again to play an iron-man role in a single-handed but unsuccessful attempt to stop the Philadelphia Stars in the black World Series.
Cornelius spent his career mostly with weak clubs, but still posted a 57-60 record.
He suffered a long hospitalization, during which, as his friend Double Duty Radcliffe said, “he lay there, just melting away.” He died in 1989.
Cornelius was nursing a game leg when I called on him in his second-floor Chicago apartment in 1970. He hobbled around the apartment, fixing coffee and snacks for us, and told me with just a trace of bitterness of his many adventures, both pleasant and not so pleasant, in black baseball and after.
William “Sug” Cornelius Speaks ...
Mrs. Grace Comiskey, the White Sox owner, used to look at me and shake her head and say, “Oh, if you were a white boy, what you’d be worth to my club.” I told her, “I’m not white, I’m black.” And I said, “I don’t know whether I’d change to white if I could.” I had nothing to do with what color I was. Had I known in the beginning what kind of world I was going to be born into, I may have, but I had nothing to do with being born, I had nothing to do with the color.
I pitched for the Chicago American Giants from 1934 to 1946, and I was told many times what I’d be worth to certain clubs if I was a white boy. They had to play somewhere every day—and night if they possibly could—in order to meet what measly salaries they were paying.
If you got $500 a month, you were tops. Back in the Depression years those salaries ran from $250 a month to $500 for really top players like this boy Josh Gibson, and I doubt whether they had another man on the ball club who was getting that kind of money. During that time I was getting $350. A little later on I was up to $400, and that was it. There just wasn’t any money. The people just didn’t have the money, and I think a box seat then was seventy-five cents.
I know Satchel Paige and I used to have some awful pitching duels. Yeah, I remember one particular game I think I pitched nine and two-thirds innings. I had two men out in the tenth inning, and I gave up my first hit. I walked one man in that ball game, I think it was Cool Papa Bell. I remember I walked him, ’cause I picked him off base. Turkey Stearnes was playing right field for us, and he said to me, “You couldn’t see yourself pitching, but it was something to behold from where I was.” I don’t think over three or four balls were hit to the outfield.
They beat me in the tenth inning. Judy Johnson came up with two outs. I doubt whether Judy had five hits off me all the time I pitched against him. He hit a routine fly ball to right center field, and I rolled up my glove and started back to the dugout. But when I looked back, Stearnes was just standing there with his legs crossed. The ball could have been an easy out, but he wasn’t expecting it. Jack Marshall at second base went out for it, but it fell between them.
I walked back to the mound. My arm was tightening, and I said, “If I get by this inning, I’m going to tell Dave Malarcher, our manager, to get somebody else ready.” The next man up, Josh Gibson, hit me for a single. That pitch was that far outside—three feet—and he threw his bat at it and was lucky enough to make contact and get a single out of it. The next man came up and hit a little pop fly to left center field, and that fell in, so they beat me. After two outs.
A lot of white fans came from the Sox park over there to see that ball game. Back then we outdrew the Sox three-to-one. There was no question of that.
Satchel was something to behold. Show you fast balls here at your knee all day. They looked just like a white dot on a bright sunshiny day—a white dot. I imagine he’d win forty or fifty ball games a year, because his arm was just like rubber. After Paige was way up in the forties he pitched three innings every night for the entire week. And you very seldom beat him. I’ll just be frank with you: If Satchel had been in the majors in his prime, Satchel would have broken all records. I’m not exaggerating. The man could throw in a cup, his control was so fine.
I’ve pitched against Bob Feller, Waite Hoyt, Mel Harder. I’ve faced Johnny Mize, Walt Dropo and this guy who used to catch for Cleveland who’d drink so much, Rollie Hemsley. When the season was over we would barnstorm with Feller and his group. Of course, when Feller was pitching we didn’t get any runs back. When he and Paige hooked up, that would be a 0–0 ball game; we might score some runs after those two guys went out. We’d go to California every winter and play a month with those major leaguers. We’d play a month, we’d make more money than we’d make in two or three years playing back here in the Negro leagues. I think it was the same year when Judge Landis flew to California, and that’s what broke up this barnstorming. Those guys, I think they beat Paige 1–0 in ’35 and said, “We thought you guys had a ball club.” Then they ended up losing seven straight. So Landis broke it up. Said they were a disgrace to organized baseball to let a bunch of sandlotters beat them. But we were a bunch of good sandlotters.
So we’d play the Pacific Coast clubs and the American Association. We beat those clubs. The American Association didn’t win anything when they played us. The Toledo Mudhens ran away with the American Association one year and won something like four straight in the Little World Series. We played those guys Saturday night, Sunday and Monday night, and I think they got one run. We gave them one run.
They always said that Satchel put more players in the big leagues. If they could hit Satchel, they were big-league material.
Sug Cornelius
It’s no question about it. We had the same thing the whites had. We had good hitting, good fielding; they had good pitching, and we had it over here. Only thing I think: In our baseball, we had better of everything. Let’s put it this way: If it wasn’t better, it was as good.
We played good baseball—and as bad as we would be cheated. That happened very often. I remember Joe Hauser, who was with the Philadelphia Athletics. He hit sixty-nine home runs in the minors one year. Well, at this time he was playing for Racine, Wisconsin, and we went in there to play them, and he was walking the streets that afternoon before the game: “Joe Hauser’s going to do this and Joe Hauser’s going to do that.” Candy Jim Taylor, my manager then, said, “Cornelius, you’re pitching tonight.” He said, “Joe Hauser’s a pretty fair hitter. He tears up that minor-league pitching, but he can’t hit when he gets up to the big leagues.” Jim says to me, “You keep your fast ball on his knees, and he’s not going to do too much with it.” And I had a good change-up off of my fast ball.
When Joe Hauser came to bat, everybody in the stands, I think, stood up. Well, I opened up on Joe with my change, right here, a little above the knee on the inside corner—Joe was a left-handed hitter. A beautiful pitch. The umpire says, “Ball one.” So I looked at the umpire. My next pitch I threw him my fast ball. This was to the outside corner, and I think it was on Joe so fast he just stopped and looked at me. The umpire said, “Ball two.” I started down to him, and my catcher met me half-way. He said, “He’s not going to call anything unless Joe thinks he can hit it, and Joe’s not going to swing.”
The next time I took my windup and just rolled the ball on the ground. The umpire looked at me, said, “Do you think you’re being funny?” I told him, “No, you are funny.” I said, “Now I’m satisfied. I know this is a ball.” And he was going to put me out of the game. Everybody in the stands said, “Well, we want our money back then.”
I don’t know what happened, whether Joe talked to the manager or what, but anyway the next time I threw him a fast ball, he swung and he missed, and from then on he woul
d take his cut at it. Anyway, I struck him out three times. On three pitches. I didn’t waste anything on him. So he asked me did I ever lose any ball games. I told him, “Sure.” He said, “Well, I’d like to see the guys that hit you.” I said, “Well, there are guys over in my league that would hit me if I mess around with them.”
My home’s in Georgia—Atlanta. I was born in 1907. I got my nickname from around home. All I know is, when I was big enough to know anything, my mother told me I used to eat all the sugar I could find. And they just started calling me Sugar, and when I went to school, it wasn’t Sugar anymore, it was Sug. So all down through the southern states I was known as Sug Cornelius. But when I came up this way I was Bill.
I started on the sandlot, like most kids do. Then I played in high school and a couple of years in college, Clark University. And I was a pretty good hitter, hit home runs, played up a storm. Oh yeah, I hit a lot of them, played third base, outfield, and pitched. I was an all-round athlete, because I played football, baseball, track.
Back in the summer months down home there in Georgia, we had a bunch of school kids, some of them in high school, and we used to play out to Spills Field—that was the home of the Atlanta Crackers. We outdrew the white clubs. When news got around that I was going away the next year to play baseball, the fellow who owned the ball club came out to the house and sat down and talked with me. He gave me one hundred and some dollars a month for me to stay there.
Later I went to Nasvhille, Tennessee. A fellow by the name of Tom Wilson owned the Nashville Elite Giants at the time, and I started out with him. Must have been 1929. From there I came to Memphis in ’30, and I was traded to the Birmingham Black Barons in ’31. You know, back in those days things were kind of lean, and figuring on going back to school, I left my money there, didn’t take it out. After our last road trip, when I came back I couldn’t find any of the owners. They had disappeared with my money. Strawbridge and Buck Adams, those were the two guys that owned the Black Barons at that time. And a funny thing, I’ve never been able to catch up with those guys.
Well, I stayed out of baseball. I didn’t play in ‘32. I went back to Memphis in ’33, and we played the Black Barons, and I went downtown and talked to the sheriff. Anyway, I tied up the gate receipts, but I got fired for doing that, and I ended up having to pay the cost of the court too!
So in ‘33 I came here to Chicago, and I pitched up until ’46, after I came from the Service. We started out playing at the old American Giants park at 39th and Wentworth. We played at the old park a number of years. They messed it up—they were going to have dog racing there—so then we started playing our games out at Comiskey Park.
We had a wonderful ball club here in Chicago. Most major-league clubs now, they carry something like nine pitchers. Well, maybe we’d have four, or we’d have five pitchers. And there was no word about somebody going out relieving you. Man, you’d go out and do a job; there was no relief. I guess on an average of a season I’d pitch thirty to thirty-five ball games, and very few of those ball games I got knocked out.
I sit many a day and look at those guys pitch today and say it’s a disgrace the way they’re messing up pitching. A man can’t pitch over four or five innings now. I pitched every three days. And I’ve pitched many a doubleheader. I would pitch on Sunday, I’d pitch again Wednesday. I’d do that to keep razor sharp. When we’d have a couple of rain-outs or something like that, I’d have too much rest—four or five days’ rest and you don’t have anything on the ball. You just think you do.
I weighed about 167 or 168 pounds. And I had an exceptional good fast ball for a guy my size. I had a good drop ball, a good what they called back in those days “out-curve.” And I could throw it on the corner and wake up at twelve o’clock at night and throw strikes. I never worried about that. I used to just get out and take me a paper cup and just practice for, oh maybe two hours, working my curve ball at that thing. Sometimes I’d break it in there on this corner, on that corner, on the three-and-two. A lot of guys won’t throw a curve ball on the three-and-two. But it was no different to me, it was only a pitch. In pitching, to be successful, you have to master control. Once you get that, then you practice your other stuff.
I threw everything—fast ball, curve ball, and I had a screw ball which I never threw too much, because those kind of pitches would mess your arm up. In fact, I’ve always felt that if you had a good fast ball and were able to throw 85 percent of your pitches where you wanted to, you don’t need anything else. When you lose the zip on your fast ball, then that’s when your screw balls and your knuckle balls come in.
I had a quick curve ball, then I could slow it—had a wonderful change of pace. I was a right-hander, but usually I had better success with left-handers than I did with right-handers. I’d get left-handers out. I used to strike out say thirteen, fourteen, fifteen men in a ball game, and most of those were left-handers.
In one all-star game, 1936, I relieved with three men on. Jimmy Crutchfield and Chester Williams were the two men I faced. Crutchfield said he’d never seen a drop ball like the one I threw him for strike three, and he said he’d never see another one like that as long as he’d play baseball. It tickled me. I opened up on him with a fast ball, and I got two strikes on him. He said, “I know what you’re going to throw me, I’ll be waiting for it.” And I threw it to him. And he missed that ball that far—three feet. Chester Williams came up and I threw three side-arm curve balls on the outside corner of the plate, three inches off the plate, and he swung at each one of them. When he swung at the first one, I said, “Well, if he’s going for them, I’ll throw him another.” When he went for that, I was out in front, and I made the last one just a little worse than the other two. And he went for that.
Oscar Charleston was another long-ball hitter. He didn’t hit me at all. I never will forget one night, we had this split season with a play-off, you know. Well, the Pittsburgh Crawfords and the American Giants had had a couple of games rained out. We ended up one game in front of Pittsburgh, and we had to play those two games off, and I pitched against Satchel. I think we beat Satchel 5–2. They had always been telling me what a good curve-ball hitter Charleston was. In the ninth inning, who did I strike out? I struck out Charlie, with a good drop ball. Like this boy Connie Johnson, used to pitch for Kansas City. I saw him pitching to Ted Williams one day, and he threw Ted a curve ball. Ted swung at that, missed, and threw his bat away, flipped the bat up in the air. I think it cost him a $20 fine by the umpire. He was talking to reporters the next day, and he said that was a picture-book curve ball. No pitcher has ever thrown a better curve ball than that. It was one of those straight overhand curves, first it was there and then it wasn’t. And that’s what I struck Charlie out with. After he swung and missed, he just stood at home plate and looked at me. I said, “I told you one day sooner or later I was going to throw you that curve ball.” And I threw it to him.
We played the Philadelphia Stars in our World Series, it must have been in ‘34. We didn’t beat them. Here’s how it happened: We opened up in Philadelphia the first two games of the series. It rained the first day there, so we didn’t play but one game, and we beat them. When we came here to Chicago, Trent beat them 3–0 on a Saturday. What we didn’t want to do was to go back East. You know, riding in the bus all those years, you get tired of it. I never will forget, I begged Dave Malarcher until about eleven o’clock Saturday night to let me pitch Sunday. Up until game time Sunday, he said he didn’t know. But he started Bill Foster, and I had to come in and relieve him in the first inning with the bases loaded and nobody out. I got two outs and I gave up a single, which gave Philadelphia a two-run lead, and that’s the way the ball game ended, 2–0.
I came back the next day Monday and pitched nine innings and had Philadelphia shut out until the ninth inning. I gave up a run in the ninth, and we won 2–1. So it ends up we went back to Philadelphia with a two-game lead. In other words, we need one game to clinch it. They beat Trent and they beat Foster, so
that tied the series. It was up to me in the last game.
The next afternoon, in Connie Mack Stadium there in Philadelphia, I believe with Philadelphia coming to bat in the eighth inning, I had given up one scratch hit, a swinging bunt down the third base line with a man on third with two outs. I had Philadelphia 3–1, and Dave Malarcher came to the mound and asked me how I was feeling. I told him fine. “Well,” he said, “you’ve pitched wonderful, wonderful. I’m going to pitch Foster the eighth inning, if necessary I’m going to pitch Trent the ninth inning.” I said, “Cap”—we all called him Cap—I said, “I feel all right, there’s nothing wrong with me.” But he said, “Well, I’ve made up my mind.” So he called Foster in. They tied the score on Foster before he got anybody out. And it was just lucky that Trent came in and he got the side out. Well, you know they have a law in Philadelphia, and they stopped the ball game at 1:30 or something in the morning, still tied.
We had no pitcher for the next day, so I came back the next day. I gave up one run in the first inning, and in that ball game I doubled three straight times with nobody out, and in the eighth inning I’m still behind 1–0. So they said to me, “Hold ‘em one more inning.” Well, I was hot for Malarcher because I felt—well, I knew—I would have beat them that night before had he not pulled me and put in Foster. So I rolled up my glove and put it in my pocket and told him, “You hold’em.”
Malarcher told me, “You don’t walk out of my ball game.” I didn’t want to say anything, so he said, “You’ll never pitch any more baseball for the American Giants.” I told him, “That’s okay with me too.” So Philadelphia went on and beat us.
Well, R. A. Cole owned the club at that time, and the next year Dave wasn’t going to manage the club unless they got rid of me. They ended up getting rid of him. Then everybody on the club wanted to manage, and they ended up doing nothing. That was ‘35. And I think in ’36 the ball club broke up, players went different directions. Some went to Philadelphia, some went to different clubs out East.