"Holland was brought up on the Indianapolis lots and is one of the best colored hurlers this city ever put out." Indianapolis News, September 15, 1922
Bill Holland by Reputation
(Warning: some mild, yet necessary language)
"Toughest pitcher for me to face?" Longtime Negro Leagues second baseman Dick Seay asked. "For me, it was Bill. He was a tough pitcher. Good curveball, good fastball. Now, he wasn't fast like Dick Redding and (Smokey) Joe Williams, but he had a good curveball, good control."
Seay would know. After all, the three-time East-West All-Star had not only shared a dugout bench with Redding, but with Hall of Fame hurlers Leon Day and Satchel Paige as well.
Negro Leagues legend 'Cool Papa' Bell called Holland one of the four best pitchers in Negro Leagues history. The other three? Paige, Williams, and 'Bullet Joe' Rogan. All three are members of the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Standing 5-foot-9 and tipping the scales at a stocky 180 pounds (the word 'chunky' has also been bandied about), he pretty much had to pitch with a chip on his shoulder; frankly, he didn't resemble much of a ballplayer. Longtime pitcher Webster McDonald marveled at how Holland was even able to get his short fingers to fit into a mitt. But he had the tools to get you out. It was Satchel Paige himself who gave Holland a career-defining assessment:
"Bill Holland didn't have no fastball, but he had screwballs, knuckleballs, sliders, and sinkers, stuff like that. He could throw any pitch. He had the right motion, didn't nobody pick up his ball...he was hard for me to beat - he was hard for anybody to beat."
See, Satch knew he was the greatest. He nearly always spoke with that level of self-confidence. Yet Holland proved a tough nut for him to crack in a way that few were - and he was explicit in sharing that fact. Though Holland was a quiet, humble, reserved man when not pitching (he’d often go straight home after games and rest up for the next one), he did confirm Satch's assertion, writing to the Indianapolis Recorder in 1958 that he had squared off against Paige five times over the years - winning three, losing one, and tying one.
Satch's assessment of Holland's fastball also proved astute; in 1919, Indianapolis ABCs owner C.I. Taylor passed on him, telling him he was too small and his fastball lacked the necessary velocity - saying it 'wouldn't break a window pane.' Yeesh.
But it wasn't Holland's pitching repertoire nor his reputation that carried him to a career in baseball that lasted nearly a quarter century. No, his career endured and his reputation followed because on the baseball diamond Bill Holland may have been the grittiest, meanest, most competitive hurler in the country. An absolute bulldog.
After being snubbed by Taylor and the ABCs in 1919, he defeated them on the Fourth of July in 1920 - hurling a complete-game, three-hitter in front of 6,000 spectators in Muncie, Indiana. During the incredibly public display of dominance, Holland held ABC stars Oscar Charleston and C.I.'s brother Ben Taylor to just one hit in six at-bats. When C.I. came up himself in a late inning pinch-hit attempt, Bill sent him back to the dugout, too.
I often find myself reading the second half of Dick Seay's assessment of Holland through gritted teeth, voice a full octave lower.
"Mean? Yeah. You hit him, and the next time you came up there, you had to duck. And you knew it. He'd look at you mad, let you know he was going to throw at you. 'Get ready to duck now.'"
"He didn't like to lose. He didn't think anybody should beat him," star outfielder Ted Page once shared when recalling Holland.
Longtime shortstop 'Country Jake' Stephens, himself an All-Star in 1935, once told Negro Leagues luminary historian John Holway "I'll take Bill every Sunday, and I don't care who you pitch against him, he'll lick him. Just once a week. Might go 20 innings, but he'll win."
"(Holland) was one of the greatest of all pitchers," Stephens continued. "But he was a hard loser."
Losing would damn near bring his piss to a boil. While Stephens acknowledged Holland as one of the Negro Leagues greatest pitcher, he also consented that the man didn't take kindly to a loss.
While this attribute typically served him well, it also had the potential to cloud his judgement. While pitching in the early 1930s, Holland was protecting a 1-0 lead in the ninth inning. With two runners on base, his third baseman John Beckwith booted a ball - allowing both runners to score and costing Holland and the team the game. Holland threw his glove in the air and stomped around the diamond, all while berating Beckwith. Beckwith, known as the ‘Black Bomber’ could also be accused of having a poor grip on a fiery temper, was not amused. Holland wouldn't let it go, still jawing with him in the locker room after the game. Holland took his shirt off and approached his third baseman (who was nearly six-foot tall and weighed over 200 pounds of raw power) - Beckwith knocked him absolutely flat.
Soon after his playing career began, he acquired the nickname 'Devil', well, for obvious reasons I suppose.
In what has become something of a litmus test for all Negro Leagues baseball players, the 1952 Pittsburgh Courier poll, Holland was named to the 'Roll of Honor‘ of the prestigious list.
When 94 players were presented to the screening committee for possible induction in the Hall of Fame in the mid-2000s, Holland's was on the list (the 1952 poll proved instrumental in the process). Though he missed the cut when the 'field' was reduced to 39, 17 of the candidates were indeed inducted in 2006. Of the 17 inducted, first baseman Mule Suttles, third basemen Jud Wilson and Ray Dandridge, outfielder Turkey Stearnes, catcher Louis Santop, and pitchers Leon Day, Jose Mendez, and Ray Brown were all on the 'Honor Roll' (pictured).
According to Seamheads...Bill Holland by the Numbers
Seamheads, the premier database for Negro Leagues baseball statistics, lists only four pitchers who struck out more hitters against qualified competition than Holland (1,096) - Dick Redding (1,269), and a trio of Hall of Famers in Joe Williams (1,571), Satchel Paige (1,524), and Bill Foster (1,263).
One would be remiss not to mention that Holland's 116 victories against qualified competition (likely to be well over 300 across all competition over his career, asserts Holway) ranks more than Paige, Day, and Hilton Smith - all Hall of Famers.
Of non-Hall of Fame Negro Leagues hurlers, Holland's 116 victories rank fifth-most. Among non-Hall of Fame Negro Leagues pitchers with at least 1,500 innings, Holland's ERA+ (114) ranks third.
Holland hurled more complete games over his career (173) than Hall of Famers 'Bullet Joe' Rogan (154), Ray Brown (145), Jose Mendez (144), Martin Dihigo (124) Andy Cooper (113), Satchel Paige (112), and Rube Foster (95).
In something of an odd quirk, his 14 saves rank fifth all-time.
Holland's Early Life and Career
Holland was born Elvis William Holland on February 28, 1901 in Alexandria, Indiana, which rests about fifty miles northeast of Indianapolis. He would soon move to the east side of Indianapolis, where he grew up in the same neighborhood as Negro Leagues legend Oscar Charleston. Like Charleston, Holland spent much of his time on the baseball sandlots. He was a member of the 'Eastern Stars' - a sandlot team stocked with fellow east siders. There was a cross-city Western Stars as well - according to Holland, all the girls would turn out at the showdowns between the teams. "They tried to get some of our girls, and we'd run them back," he later recalled.
Holland grew up watching the vaunted Indianapolis ABCs, then owned by C.I. Taylor. Holland hung out around Northwestern Park and fetched as many errant foul balls as he could, often gaining entry into games for his efforts. He was standing on the roof of a nearby house peering over the grandstand when the infamous melee between Charleston and the ABCs and the Donie Bush All-Stars broke out - a scuffle the local rags called a 'near race riot'.
His first recorded baseball action was played in Richmond, Indiana on Labor Day weekend in 1918. Holland, only 17, suited up for the Richmond Giants - an amalgamation of past, present, and future Black baseball standouts such as Charleston (he played a few games with the Giants early in the season until the Indianapolis ABCs took him east on a tour later in the summer), Connie Day, George Board, Jack Hannibal, Jim Lynch, Will Jones, and Otis Francis. He pitched 20 innings in less than 24 hours, registering two complete games, only five earned runs, and 24 strikeouts. Much of his competition was a decade his senior, others had spent time in the minor leagues.
“Holland, a youngster, did the hurling for the Giants,” the Richmond Palladium-Item wrote after his debut. “His pitching was the best seen on the local diamonds this year in a Sunday game.”
Holland's reputation was spreading - pitching in 1919 both again for the Giants and Jewell's ABCs (something of a farm team for C.I. Taylor's ABCs). Though Taylor passed on Holland for his own ABCs when the Negro National League was formed in 1920, Detroit Stars owner Tenny Blount only too happily offered him a three-year contract. Though he spoke graciously of the legendary Taylor decades later, the teenaged Holland probably seethed when he heard that Taylor passed on him because he deemed him too small and that he didn't have enough smoke on his fastball.
Holland made Taylor regret letting the native-born Hoosier escape to the Motor City; according to excellent research conducted by Detroit Black baseball historian Richard Bak, Holland absolutely lit up the record books (Bak's research includes all competition).
Detroit Stars career records (rank):
Complete Games - 48 (2nd)
Wins - 39 (2nd)
Innings - 531.2 (2nd)
Strikeouts - 249 (2nd)
Detroit Stars single season records (rank):
Wins - 16, 1922 (1st)
Innings Pitched - 204, 1922 (1st)
Complete Games - 18, 1922 and 1923 (1st)
Strikeouts - 95, 1922 & 86, 1921 (2nd & 3rd)
Holland is the runner-up in most quantitative career marks to Hall of Famer Andy 'Lefty' Cooper. Holland, Cooper, and wily veteran 'Big Bill' Gatewood anchored the rotation in 1920. Bill Force arrived in 1921 to compliment the front-line starters.
Holland Heads to Cuba
Like many Negro Leagues players both before and well after Holland, he headed south to play in the Caribbean Winter Leagues after baseball circuits in the states had closed up shop for the season. During the winter of 1923-24 Holland suited up for the Leopardos de Santa Clara - widely-regarded as the best team in Cuban baseball history. In just a 47-game schedule, they ran away with first place by 11.5 games, en route to the Cuban League Championship. The elite team, which boasted three members of the Cuban Hall of Fame and wo members of the Baseball Hall of Fame (Charleston and pitcher Jose Mendez), was paced by the pitching of Holland. Now 22 years old, he led the entire league in wins (10), winning percentage (.833), strikeouts (55), while boasting a 2.71 earned run average.
Across the unheralded career of Holland, I believe the Santa Clara chapter tends to be the most overlooked - ace pitcher for one of the most dominant teams in Caribbean history.
1930: The First Black Pitcher to Start a Game in Yankee Stadium
Holland rounded out most of the 1920s with the Brooklyn Royal Giants (1925-28). Like most of the teams for nearly the rest of his career, the Royal Giants were not very good - a .354 winning percentage (40-73) against qualified competition during Holland's tenure with the team. In 1929, Holland jumped from Queens to The Bronx, suiting up for the New York Lincoln Giants in 1929 and 1930.
1930 was not only the best season of Holland's career, but also the most historically significant. Records vary, but Holland won somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 games (14 against qualified competition) while losing only three.
One of his victories came on July 6, when he became the first Black pitcher to start a game at Yankee Stadium. His Lincoln Giants won 15-4. He later said the day was the very proudest of life.
His Lincoln Giants met the Homestead Grays in the Eastern Championship that season. Bill pitched five games in eight days, defeating the Grays twice, who boasted four future Hall of Fame players and Hall of Fame manager Cumberland Posey. This was the very series that Josh Gibson, then just a teenager, had reputedly hit a ball nearly out of Yankee Stadium (an alleged 505-foot shot that landed in the back of the bullpen) off Lincoln Giants pitcher Connie Rector.
Lincolns catcher Larry Brown later said that the next game, when Gibson walked up to the plate for his first at-bat, Holland was quick to put a pin to the young phenom's balloon, saying "Well, you done hit Connie in the bullpen, let's see you hit me in there."
As Brown later recalled, "Josh didn't even get on base."
1931-1941: The New York Black Yankees
Unfortunately for Holland, the Lincoln Giants folded after the 1930 season, he would find himself suiting up for the perhaps the worst team of the 1930s for the last eleven seasons of his career: the New York Black Yankees.
Without a doubt, the lack of success the Black Yankees during this time cost Holland a better shot at the Baseball Hall of Fame. The Black Yankees during this time registered a winning percentage of .435 in qualified games (160-208).
Between 1920-1930, Holland won 91 games. That number dropped precipitously between 1931-1941, where he only saw 25 victories against qualified competition. Over 78% of his victories were won in the first half of his career. Despite the perceived lack of success, Holland practically owns the franchise pitching record book - finishing first or second in nearly every meaningful category in team history.
New York Black Yankees career records (rank)*:
Wins - 25 (2nd)
Winning Percentage - .455 (1st)
Complete Games - 42 (2nd)
Strikeouts - 245 (2nd)
ERA - 3.89 (1st)
ERA+ - 117 (2nd)
*According to Seamheads, among all pitchers with at least 110 IP against qualified competition.
Holland, as a measure of respect, was named to the 1939 East-West All-Star Game at age 38 for his first appearance. The game had begun a half dozen years earlier in 1933.
Holland stuck around with the Black Yankees through the 1941 season before retiring to close out a 24-year career. When he retired, we now know (thank you again, Seamheads) that he ranked 9th all-time in wins by a Black pitcher against qualified competition. This, of course, counts competition in the 'Latin leagues' as well.
"I had my day," Holland later told John Holway, "And I was a well-paid ballplayer back in my day. I don't have any regrets." In a newspaper interview he gave in the late 1950s, he told former Indianapolis baseball player-turned-journalist Tiny Baldwin that he maxed out at $400 a month.
Bill Holland died in New York on December 4, 1973 at age 72. You know, the passage of time has been incredibly kind to the remembrance of some ballplayers legacies - others, perhaps less so. I don't think a grand explanation of what category Holland's fits is needed - but maybe that can change.
"He'll make it into the Hall of Fame someday," Dick Seay said. "Bill Holland was a pitcher."
Friend speaks my mind.
Additional Reading/Notes
Now, that was fun wasn't it? I guess that officially kicks off the 'Bill Holland Hall of Fame Campaign' - and I am not joking! Please share this with your friends - it's high time Devil has a booster group.
Perhaps the most substantial work that involves Holland is Black Giants by John Holway, published in 2010. It is available on the Google Play Store.
I chronicled his early career with the Richmond Giants in my book Blackball in the Hoosier Heartland. Inscribed copies are available in the blog's store for just $20 (shipping included).