Elston Howard Marquee

He was nineteen when he played twenty games in the outfield for the Kansas City Monarchs in 1948, and the surviving box scores, which are partial, give him twenty hits in eighty at-bats. The Yankees did not field a Black player until April 14, 1955, eight years after Brooklyn brought up Jackie Robinson, and he was the one.

New York used him in the outfield first and moved him behind the plate: 285 games in the outfield, 85 at first base, 1,138 as a catcher. He had 155 hits and batted .347 in 1961. In 1963 he hit 28 home runs, drove in 85, won a Gold Glove and was Most Valuable Player, the first Black player in the league to win it.

The Yankees won the pennant in nine of his ten seasons from 1955 through 1964. He made nine straight All-Star teams from 1957, won a second Gold Glove in 1964, and was traded to Boston in 1967. He finished with 1,491 hits, 168 home runs and a .274 average, and died in December 1980 at 51.