The Negro League baseball history fact for today

Clinton “Casey” Jones was born on July 19, 1918 in the Mississippi River delta area near Clarksdale, Mississippi.  He played the majority of his fifteen year Negro League baseball career (1940 – 1955) with the Memphis Red Sox.  The 6’ 2”, 195 pound catcher was a battery mate for two of the better Negro League pitchers during that period of time, Verdell Mathis and Don Bankhead.   Named Negro American League Most Valuable Player (MVP) in 1950, Jones played in two Negro League All Star Games; 1950 and 1953.   After the racial barriers were eliminated that kept black players out of white organized baseball, Jones never signed with a Major League club as did Bankhead and other Red Sox teammate Bob Boyd.