On
August 25 last year, I posted an article on this blog entitled: “Clarence
“Choo Choo” Coleman: Seeing both a baseball sunset and a new dawning”. It celebrated Coleman’s 78th
birthday (born August 25, 1937 in Orlando, Florida).
I
received an email from Coleman’s niece who saw my blog post. She indicated his
family had begun the process keeping his name and his story alive for baseball fans. A web site was in the making and other
activities were being planned.
However
on August 15th, ten days before his 79th birthday, Coleman
died in Orangeburg, South Carolina.
In
memory of “Choo Choo” Coleman, I have re-posted last year’s article. To me his baseball life was unique. He experienced the sunset of Negro League
baseball in the 1950s and had a role in the history of a Major League franchise’s
new dawning.
Clarence “Choo Choo” Coleman: Seeing a sunset and a new dawning
The on field
statistics of Clarence “Choo-Choo” Coleman; born August 25, 1937 in Orlando,
Florida, do not make his baseball career anything special. But it is the timing of when he played and the
teams in which he was on that draws interest when his name is mentioned. He experienced the sunset of Negro League
baseball and the dawning of a new Major League franchise.
Coleman was
first signed in 1955 by the Washington Senators who had their Class D minor
league team in Orlando. The Senators
were in the American League which as a whole by 1955 as compared to the
National League was slower in signing African American and dark skinned Latino
ballplayers. The “invisible color line” which kept Major League baseball
segregated for nearly half the 20th Century had been erased in 1947,
but there were still two American League teams without Black or Latino players
the year Coleman was signed; the Boston Red Sox and Detroit Tigers.
Going nowhere
in the Senators’ minor league organization, Coleman signed with the Indianapolis
Clowns midway through the 1956 season.
By the mid-1950s, integration had killed Negro League baseball by
draining it of the best players and stealing the interest of black baseball
fans. The Clowns had become the “Harlem
Globetrotters” of baseball when Coleman joined them. The former Negro American League (NAL) team
hectically travelled from city to city to compete against semi-professional and
amateur squads while performing on field antics designed to generate laughs for
fan entertainment.
By 1960, however, there were Major
League teams still interested in "Choo Choo".
The 5’9”, 165 pounds undersized catcher was signed by the Los Angeles
Dodgers that year and was then drafted by the Philadelphia Phillies in
1961. Coleman made it to the Major Leagues
in time to be on the worst team in baseball that season. The Phillies lost
107 games. Making his debut on April 16,
1961, Coleman hit .128 playing in 34 games
The next season "Choo Choo" would
become a part of baseball history for the wrong reason as he was chosen by the
National League expansion team New York Mets.
The team was 40 – 120 its first season.
And although Coleman had his best year statistically; batting .250 with
six home runs and 17 RBIs in 55 games, he became a part of the popular baseball
lore about the hapless 1962 Mets. His
nickname “Choo-Choo”, that Coleman says he got being a fast runner as a
child, made him a fan favorite.
He was
demoted to the minor leagues after he hit .178 in 1963; 3 home runs, 9
RBIs in 106 games. Coleman returned to
play briefly for the team in 1966, which would be his last season in the Major
Leagues.
To read more
on the history of Negro League baseball, order “Last Train to Cooperstown: The
2006 Baseball Hall of Fame Inductees from the Negro League Baseball Era”, at (http://booklaunch.io/kevinlmitchell/last-train-to-cooperstown)
