Marshall Bridges: The last Negro League pitcher in a World Series

“Smokey” Joe Williams, Leon Day, Hilton Smith, and other fantastic pitchers who toiled their entire careers in the Negro Leagues never received the opportunity to appear on professional baseball’s biggest stage; the World Series.   When Jackie Robinson erased Major League Baseball’s “invisible color line in 1947 opening the door for African American and dark-skinned Latinos to play, many of the better Negro League pitchers were passed their prime.  However, there were four former Negro Leaguers who did take the mound in a World Series game.  Three are familiar names in Negro League baseball history.  The fourth and last one, Marshall Bridges who was born June 2, 1931 in Jackson, Mississippi, reflects how slow the process of integration took in the Major Leagues during the 1950s.


On October 10, 1948 Satchel Paige became the first African American to pitch in a Major League World Series game.  He pitched 2/3 of an inning in Game 5 for the    Cleveland Indians in the 1948 World Series giving up no runs or hits.  The Indians lost the game to the Boston Braves 11 – 5, but won the World Series 4 games to 2.   

Don Newcombe pitched in the 1949, 1955, and 1956 Series for the Brooklyn Dodgers.  The team’s leading hurler and innings workhorse during the regular season, Newcombe seemed to run out of gas in the World Series against the Dodgers’ main nemesis each of those years; the New York Yankees.  In five World Series’ starts, he lost four with an ERA of 8.59. 

On October 1, 1952, Joe Black of the Brooklyn Dodgers defeated the New York Yankees 4 - 2 to become the first African American pitcher to win a World Series game.  He pitched a complete game giving up only six hits in the first contest of that year’s Series.  Black, however, lost Game Four and the deciding Game Seven by the identical score of his victory, 4 – 2.

Marshall “Sheriff” Bridges began his professional baseball career as a pitcher and first baseman for the Memphis Red Sox of the Negro American League.   Signed by the New York Giants in 1953, the hard throwing left hander spent five seasons pitching in the minor leagues.  When he turned 28 years old, Bridges finally made his Major League debut with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1959 winning 6 games while losing 3.  He finished second in strikeouts among Cardinal relief hurlers with 76 in 76 innings pitched.  The Cardinals released Bridges in August of 1960 and he finished the season with the Cincinnati Reds.  The next season, Bridges did not make a mound appearance when Cincinnati lost to the New York Yankees in the World Series four games to one.  However, due to a surprising shift of fortune it would be different for him the next year.

A little more than 2 months after the Series, the Reds traded Bridges to New York and he went on to become the top relief pitcher for the 1962 Yankees.  In 52 relief appearances, Bridges had his best Major League season winning eight games while saving 18 others and helping the Yankees capture the American League pennant.  The “Sheriff” made two appearances in the World Series pitching a total of three and two- third innings as the Yankees defeated the San Francisco Giants to win the World Championship.  On a negative note, he made a place in baseball history by  surrendering the first World Series grand slam home run hit by a National League player, Giants’ second baseman Chuck Hiller, in the Yankee’s 7 – 3 Game 4 lost. 





After being shot in the leg by a 21 year old married woman (Carrie Lee Raysor) in a bar during spring training the next season, Bridges fell out of favor with the Yankees.  Although there had been off the field incidents involving Yankee star players Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford, Bridges had crossed the double standard of behavior line that his fellow African American teammate Elston Howard had for seven years been able to toe.   Appearing in only 23 games in 1963, Bridges was traded to the Washington Senators after the season.

To read more on the history of Negro League baseball read “Last Train to Cooperstown:  The 2006 Baseball Hall of Fame Inductees from the Negro League Baseball Era”. (http://booklaunch.io/kevinlmitchell/last-train-to-cooperstown)


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