Connie Johnson Marquee

He pitched for the Kansas City Monarchs from 1940 to 1942 and again after the war, alongside Satchel Paige, before the major leagues signed a Black pitcher. Chicago finally brought him up in 1953, when he was already thirty, and he did not get regular work until Baltimore acquired him in 1956, at thirty-three.

He went 14-11 with a 3.20 earned run average and 177 strikeouts for Baltimore in 1957, his best season, throwing what teammates called one of the best curveballs in the league. Eleven major-league seasons gave him 68 wins against 50, a 3.68 earned run average, 1,012 innings and nine shutouts, on top of the years the color line kept off his record entirely.

He was 6 feet 4 and threw hard enough in his Negro Leagues years that some who saw both said he was faster than Paige. He retired to Georgia after baseball. He died in 2004, at eighty-one.