‘You've got to be lucky, but if you have good stuff, it's easier to be lucky.’
Dodgers pitcher Sandy Koufax, who threw four career no-hitters.
Meet the Unheralded Oscar Owens...
Heading into the 1930 baseball season, Homestead Grays mainstay Oscar Owens, entering his 37th year of life, looked like a ballplayer with more of a past than a future in the game. To be fair, you could say the same for his stablemate, fellow Grays hurler Joe Williams. Williams, better known as ‘Smokey Joe’ or ‘Cyclone Joe’, made Owens look like a spring chicken in at least one regard; he would turn 44 during the 1930 campaign. Williams had long established himself as a future Hall of Famer and one of the best pitchers in the country during his prime – his sizzling fastball helped him net barnstorming victories over a small legion of white future Hall of Fame in the process.
Williams, as something of a precursor to Satchel Paige, was coy as hell about his age. Unlike Satchel, it didn’t bother Joe much if folks thought he was significantly older than he actually was – particularly if it helped the turnstiles click. During the 1930 season, Williams was often reported as being over 50 years old. ‘Satchel got the idea of making his birthday a mystery from Smokey,’ historian John Holway later wrote.
Owens, who had come to acquire the nicknames of ‘Iron Man’ and ‘Cannonball’, felt damn near euphoric when given the chance to toe the rubber. ‘He’d pitch every day if you let him,’ recalled his longtime teammate Vic Harris.
And some days, well, that’s exactly what he did. On August 25, 1923, he pitched both games of doubleheader; first, he flustered the Beaver Falls Elks, who were ‘recognized as the world’s semipro champions’ in a 6-2 Grays early afternoon victory. Owens fanned six hitters. During the second contest against a club from Fineview (a neighborhood of Pittsburgh), Owens powered seven more innings until darkness ended the game. The Grays won 11-4. On the day, he allowed only 13 hits on 16 innings for the day during the duo of victories.
The year before, on July 23, 1922, the Pittsburgh Press called Owens ‘the best Negro hurler in this section of the country’.
Williams and Owens, both righties, had been teammates on Cumberland Posey’s Grays since 1925. The anchors of the Homestead Grays rotation, though both speedball artists, could not have looked any different. Williams was tall, sinewy, with long arms, standing 6-foot-3 and tipping the scales at nearly 200 pounds. By comparison, Owens was diminutive; at 5-foot-6, he would have barely surpassed Williams’ shoulders. He weighed 160 pounds soaking wet.
Maybe a mental picture would help…Okay - think of Albert Pujols standing next to Jose Altuve.
Physical attributes aside, Owens had long earned his place on Posey’s vaunted Grays. Aside from his durability on the mound, Owens could hold his own in the field and batter’s box, often trading mound dirt for outfield grass, he hit .339/.407/.501 across nearly 400 qualified at-bats. With many Negro Leagues teams only carrying 15-20 players, this versatility was practically a prerequisite for a number of guys on any given team.
Regardless of size, age, career length, pitching repertoire, and versatility, when it came to ‘Cyclone Joe’ and ‘Cannonball’, one was without a shadow of a doubt much more famous than the other. Both then and now. While Williams would expand his profile and earning power south of the border in the offseason winter leagues, Owens would return to Pittsburgh and operate his Wylie Avenue barbershop.
While Williams’ place in baseball history and lore has long been solidified, Owens remains a relative unknown.
Heinie Groh and the Canton Terriers
Similar to Williams and Owens, longtime major leaguer Henry ‘Heinie’ Groh was nearing the end of his baseball-playing string as well. The 40-year-old Groh, employing his famous ‘bottle bat’, had enjoyed a long career with the Cincinnati Reds and New York Giants, logging nearly 1,800 hits between 1912 and 1927. Along the way, he collected two World Series checks – one with the Reds from the infamous 1919 World Series, and another with Mugsy McGraw’s 1922 Giants.
While the modern-day researcher can see that after 1927 Groh’s major league opportunities had dried up, the dependable third baseman with a .292/.373/.384 career slash line, decided to stick in the minors with hopes of returning the show.
After stints with the Charlotte Hornets and Hartford Senators in 1928 and 1929 respectively, Groh purchased the Canton Terriers of the Central League on March 1, 1930. The new owner would install himself as they everyday third baseman, as well as field manager and de facto general manager. The steady Groh needed to wear many hats for his new investment; it was reported that the team had no players under contract for the upcoming season, set to begin the following month.
To Groh’s credit, he soon assembled a seemingly competitive team – including the likes of 10-year minor league veteran left fielder Tom Lovelace (who appeared in one game in 1922 with the Pittsburgh Pirates) and first baseman Earl Chesbro (another 10-year veteran of the minors who slugged 22 home runs with the Salina Millers in 1923). Most notably, Groh also picked up 21-year-old pitcher Emil ‘Dutch’ Leonard, who would go on to win nearly 200 major league games and be named to five All-Star games.
Groh bounced his Terriers between Dayton, Ohio and Richmond, Indiana’s Exhibition Park for spring training sessions, though they would spend most of their time in Richmond. Exhibition Park was built in 1917 to house the Richmond Quakers, who coincidentally also had belonged to the Central League before the team (and league for a time) folded due to the expected player shortage stemming from the United States entering World War I.
By 1930, Richmond’s ‘2,500 seat gem’ Exhibition Park had already played host to no fewer than four Negro Leaguers who would eventually make it to the Baseball Hall of Fame, including Oscar Charleston, Ben Taylor, and Cristóbal Torriente, and Jose Mendez. Though an errantly discarded cigarette during a 1935 dry spell claimed the stadium with a fire, no fewer than 14 Negro Leaguers destined for Cooperstown had already stopped through Richmond.
The city, also known as the ‘cradle of recorded jazz’, was the home to Gennett Records – who had put the early recordings of Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, Bix Beiderbecke, and Blind Lemon Jefferson on wax, so to speak.
Cumberland Posey and the Homestead Grays
With their own season’s league play set to begin shortly after the team was scheduled to return to Pittsburgh on April 28, Posey began scheduling additional tune-up games – including a pair of games against the St. Louis Stars in St. Louis on April 19 and 21. As the team continued back east to Pennsylvania, Posey also scheduled an afternoon game against Groh’s Canton Terriers in Richmond on April 22.
Posey, himself a future Hall of Famer, boasted three more Hall of Famers on the roster – including Williams, Charleston, and third baseman Judy Johnson. A fourth, the teenaged hitting sensation Josh Gibson would join the team at catcher later that season.
During the first game against the St. Louis Stars on April 19, Williams proved why he was still among the best in the game. Despite staring down a Stars lineup that featured Hall of Famers 'Cool Papa' Bell and Willie Wells, as well as other standouts in Dewey Creacy, John Henry Russell, and Ted ‘Double Duty’ Radcliffe, Williams dazzled, scattering four hits while striking out five in the Grays 4-1 victory.
Two days later, Williams again took the mound against the Stars, and guided the Grays to a 6-2 victory.
Shortly after the second game against the Stars ended, the Grays piled in their team transportation and began the journey to Richmond, Indiana. Though the trip was well over 300 miles, they were due for their next game in less than 24 hours.
Just as the Grays were sleepily pulling into Richmond the morning of April 22, the morning edition of the Richmond Item blared HOMESTEAD GRAYS TO BATTLE CANTON HERE TODAY. The subheading of the game preview stated that “Original ‘Cyclone’ Joe Williams will be in the lineup for visitors”. The article also mentioned Williams’ blazing fastball, and recalled the time he bested Lefty Grove in an exhibition.
Despite a weather report out of Indianapolis stating a low of 35 degrees for the day was in store, Groh insisted the game be played against the Grays.
The Grays, road-weary from driving through most of the night and morning, and immediately shivering when they got off the ‘team bus’, which was actually a pair of Buicks for the 1930 season, were probably less than thrilled.
Joe Williams, though the top bill for the game, had already thrown two complete games in the previous three days. After taking the first step into the frigid East Central Indiana day, he looked at his manager Posey and said…
‘To hell with this.’
Alright, maybe not. But given all the factors mentioned, Williams was not going to pitch. It’s all very likely that, despite Richmond’s pregame press and assurances, it was just simply Joe’s day off. Enter Oscar Owens, who would ‘pitch every day, if you let him.’
The game, for which ‘a small crowd of shivering fans’ witnessed, started strangely enough for the Grays. During the top of the first inning, first baseman and Negro Leagues legend Oscar Charleston sent a frozen rope streaking towards the right field fence. The ball was absolutely scorched; nearly splintering the planks of the outfield wall. However, Terrier right fielder Bill Ardnt quickly gathered the ball and fired it to second, nabbing Charleston by almost ten feet.
I guess Arndt must have been playing him deep.
‘Boy, pick up your feet and put them down faster!’ a Black fan yelled to Charleston as he was walking back to the dugout.
During the bottom half of the first inning, Oscar Owens made his way to the mound.
It was cold. Ostensibly, he hadn’t slept well sharing a Buick with eight other men and his uniform hadn’t been laundered in days. The Grays had been on the road for nearly a month – crisscrossing the South after a spring training session in Hot Springs, Arkansas and now finally making their way back to Pittsburgh. Owens, and all the other Grays, were probably ready to be back in Western Pennsylvania – some may have even been aware they were less than 300 miles from home while in Richmond.
Owens retired the first two hitters, Dick Harrell (who would log a .298 batting average that season) and Groh. After issuing a free pass to center field prospect Felber, he induced a sharp grounder from first baseman Earl Chesbro to his own first baseman Charleston. The grounder had pulled Charleston off the base – and as he had hundreds if not thousands of times before, Owens ran to cover the bag. He muffed the toss from Charleston and Chesbro was safe on his error.
Dammit!
With now two runners on, Owens settled down to retire outfielder Tom Lovelace to end the first.
His teammates picked him over the next couple innings. Second baseman George ‘Tubby’ Scales led off the second by sending a Harvey Reese offering into the gap for a double. Scales easily scampered home on another two-bagger by catcher Buck Ewing to give the Grays a 1-0 lead.
Owens retired the side during the bottom of the second.
Grays shortstop ‘Country Jake’ Stephens led off the third with a single – which he scurried home for the second run of the game on a Judy Johnson RBI double for a 2-0 Grays lead.
Owens struck out the side in the third – including Heinie Groh.
After Reese yielded two runs and five hits in the first three innings, Groh handed the ball of to a pitcher named Joyce, who pitched the next three innings and allowed no runs on only two hits.
Owens retired the next nine hitters – including setting Groh down on strikes for a second time. After his early walk and fielding mishap, Owens had retired 16 straight hitters.
For the final third of the game, Groh assigned pitching duties to Dutch Leonard, who allowed only one hit in the final three frames – striking out one.
Though a pitching duel ensued for the final six frames, it was Owens who commanded the field – retiring the final 25 Terrier hitters in order, striking out eight, to record a no-hitter in Richmond, Indiana on April 22, 1930 against the Class B Canton Terriers.
The game, perhaps the finest display of pitching city had ever and would ever see, had lasted exactly 92 minutes.
‘Yesterday’s game is the first no run, no hit affair witness in Richmond within the recollection of the oldest fans and it was too bad the chilly weather kept down the attendance,’ the Richmond Item reported the next day. ‘Owens used a fast breaking ‘hook’ with his fireball, seldom resorting to a change of pace. His was a midseason performance and the Terriers will not see any better pitching during the league season.’
With likely little fanfare, the Grays packed up their Buicks, each seating nine men, and left the Rose City for home (with a quick stop in Springfield, Ohio to defeat their local semipro White Sox 4-0).
According to the May 3, 1930 issue of the Pittsburgh Courier, the no-hitter was Oscar’s eighth of his career. ‘Nowhere in the annals of organized or semi-professional ball has it been listed that any twirler ever hurled eight no-hot, no-run games,’ the paper exclaimed.
Groh’s Terriers would compile a 65-73 record (.471) and a fourth-place finish during league play in 1930.
The Grays would register a 45-15-1 (.750) mark during the 1930 season.
Oscar Owens would play one more season, sticking around with the 1931 edition of the Grays – regarded as one of the finest Negro League teams in history. ‘Smokey Joe’ Williams finally retired after the 1932 season at age 46.
By the early 1940s, Owens eventually found his way to the Washington DC area, where he owned a barbershop for many years, which turned into a frequent hangout for ballplayers both young and old.
Owens died of a heart attack on April 30, 1960 at the age of 66.