Remembering Ed Charles - Part 1

For the past months I have juggled coaching a baseball team of eight to twelve years old kids while teaching a course on the history of Negro League baseball; “Negro League Baseball:  The Deep Roots of African Americans in America’s National Pastime”, and visiting 

grandchildren in Texas. 

  

Included in this summer’s curriculum of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Kansas, the course discussed the deep historical roots African Americans have in the sport due to the Negro League baseball era.  Although he did not play in the Negro Leagues, I briefly mentioned former Major League player Ed Charles in the introductory section of the course.  I wanted to give the students a brief history of how as a kid I fell in love with baseball.  Edwin Douglas Charles had a part in that history.  In my course preparation research, I discovered Charles had died last March 15th in the East Elmhurst section of the New York City borough of Queens. The former third baseman was 84 years old.

A baby boomer born and raised in the Kansas City area, I became a baseball fan through following the Kansas City A’s in the late 1950s; a team that consistently finished near the bottom of the American League standings.  Much to the chagrin of Kansas City baseball fans, the A’s functioned as a player development team for the New York Yankees at that time.  They would trade their best players to New York; Hector Lopez, Harry “Suitcase” Simpson, Roger Maris, Bob Cerv, Ralph Terry, and Clete Boyer, in exchange for utility players or those past their prime.  I saw Hank Bauer, Don Larson, Marv Throneberry, Johnny Kucks, Norm Siebern, and other former Yankees dawn an Athletics uniform.    The A’s finished the 1960 season in last place and were the only Major League team without an African-American or dark-skinned Latino ballplayer.

In 1961, Charlie Finley purchased the team and the next season racially diversified it adding to the roster John Wyatt, Jose Tartabull, Diego Segui, Orlando Pena, Manny Jimenez, and Ed Charles.  A product of the depression era and post-World War II “Jim Crow” south, born April 29, 1933 in Daytona Beach, Florida, Charles had been obtained in a trade with the Milwaukee Braves.  The team signed him in 1952 while still the Boston Braves, but for 10 seasons he labored in its minor league system.  That included stops at the A to AAA levels in places such as Jacksonville, Louisville, Wichita, and Vancouver. 

Although the “invisible color line” had been erased, Charles along with other African-American and dark-skinned Latino players in the 1950s experienced the racial prejudice that existed in professional baseball’s minor league systems.  Overall he hit .291 in the minor leagues and showed occasional home run power.  But Charles played 3^rd base, the position manned during that period by 2-time National League home run leader and future Hall of Fame inductee (1978) Eddie Mathews.  Charles had the versatility to play 2^nd base, but there is no evidence the Braves thought about a shift despite the inconsistent performances at the position in 1959 and 1960 during Red Schoendienst’s absence due to illness.  The A’s would finally give Ed Charles, at 29 years old, the opportunity to prove himself as a Major League player.

Given that opportunity, Ed Charles over the next five years became an above average, solid ballplayer on a team that consistently finished near last in the American League. Also, he caught the eye of a ten year old baseball fan that would hold on to a love for the sport that would extend beyond the trading card collection years to more than half a century.

 Part Two of my tribute to Ed Charles is in my next blog post.  I promise it will not be three months before it appears!