I was excited to share with the Buck Leonard Association my recent discovery of Buck Leonard‘s brief ties to Wilson County’s baseball history and, in turn, to learn of an exciting collaboration between the Association and the Connecticut-based Monk Youth Jazz and STEAM Collective.
Finding the Elm City Negro Giants was surprising enough, but to read that their first baseman was future Negro League legend Buck Leonard?!?
News and Observer, 13 August 1930.
For more links between Wilson County and the baseball-star Leonard brothers, see here and here and here.
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In the 1920 census of Toisnot township, Wilson County: Ed Ricks, 41; wife Nannie, 38; children Siddie, 20, Annie, 17, Maggie, 11, Mamie, 10, Raph, 8, and Ruth Ricks, 5; and niece Albie Walston, 17.
In the 1933 Washington, D.C., city directory: Ricks Ralph clo clnr Economon Bros r2137 L nw
On 17 June 1936, Ralph Ricks married Cornelia Harrell in Washington, D.C.
In the 1940 census of Washington, D.C.: Cornelia H. Ricks, 23, cook, and husband Ralph, 28, cleaning shop presser, lodgers.
Ralph Ricks registered for the World War II draft in 1940. Per his registration card, he was born 16 September 1911 in Elm City; lived at 1530 Swann Street, N.W., Washington, D.C.; his contact was mother Nannie Ricks, 1742 – 6th Street, N.E., Washington, D.C.; and he worked for Joseph Westline.
On 4 August 1942, the Daily Times printed two short pieces on the extraordinary match-up at Wilson’s Municipal (now Fleming) Stadium — the Homestead Grays vs. the New York Black Yankees!
Grays’ catcher and power hitter Josh Gibson in an undated photograph. AP.
Wilson Daily Times, 4 August 1942.
Buck Leonard at bat, 1945. He and Gibson were known as the Thunder Twins. Now regarded as among the best ever to play the game, neither played Major League baseball. Photo courtesy of National Baseball Hall of Fame.
The Homestead Grays in 1942, the year they visited Wilson. Getty Images.
Black Yankees Leslie “Chin” Green and Jimmy Ford, 1942. Detail, Getty Images.
Pittsburgh Courier, 21 September 1925.
Charles “Pop-Eye” Leonard is not well-known, but his brother Walter F. Leonard — better known by the nickname Charles gave him, “Buck” — was a legend. The Leonards were natives of Rocky Mount, North Carolina, 18 miles north of Wilson. I have not been able to discover much about Charles, but a bio brief about Buck in Jason T. Powers’ Bringin’ Gas and Dialin’ 9: A Seven Score Addition to the National Pastime, volume 1, describes the brothers’ relationship, and Buck’s attempts to steer his brother away from baseball.
The Wilson Braves, presumably, were affiliated with an African-American minor league.