The 1943 edition of the Homestead Grays of the Negro National League is regarded by many observers as one of the greatest teams in the history of baseball.
After all, how many teams can point to five members of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown on their roster?
You can add another name to that list of “Hall of Fame Grays” because New Orleans native John Wright, the ace of the Grays pitching staff during that championship season, was inducted posthumously into the Allstate Sugar Bowl Greater New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame in 2022.
“We are overjoyed that Johnny Wright is getting this recognition,” said Bob Kendrick, President of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Mo. “Hopefully it will pique the interest of others who may not be familiar with his outstanding baseball career and his barrier-breaking role and that they will want to learn more about him.”
Born in New Orleans in 1918, Johnny Wright attended Hoffman and McDonogh 35 Schools and started his professional career with the New Orleans Zulus in 1936. In 1937 the Newark Eagles, while barnstorming in the South, discovered and signed Wright.
The slender hurler joined the Homestead Grays in 1941 – the best move of his professional career.
Midway through the 1943 season, Wright sported a 13-1 won-loss record and pitched before 51,000 fans in the East-West All-Star Game at Chicago’s Comiskey Park. He finished the season 26-4, one of the best seasons on the mound in Negro League history. Not included in those 26 wins on the hill were exhibition victories over white teams like the New Cumberland Army club with six major leaguers on the roster and a nine-hit, 10-3 complete-game victory over a semi-pro club of former big leaguers called the Brooklyn Bushwicks.
Another significant outing by the 170-pounder came in June of 1943. Wright held the fabled Kansas City Monarchs to six hits in a 10-2 win defeating the great Satchel Paige before 20,000 fans at Griffith Stadium in Washington D.C.
With hall of famers Josh Gibson, Buck Leonard, Jud Wilson, Ray Brown and Cool Papa Bell in the lineup, the Grays defeated the Birmingham Black Barons 4-3 in the best-of-seven Negro League World Series in 1943. Two of the Grays victories came courtesy of shutouts by Johnny Wright. A 9-0, five-hit blanking put the Grays up 2-1 in the series. He got the call again after the Barons pulled even at 2-2 and he delivered with another shutout, holding the opposition to six hits in an 8-0 victory.
The late Walter Wright (no relation), who pitched in the Negro Leagues and is a member of the New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame, recalled the first time he saw John Wright.
“Johnny was 18 years old and he struck out the first six batters he faced. He had a hellacious fastball and an assortment of breaking pitches. He had great control.”
After the season, the man nicknamed “Needle Nose” enlisted in the United States Navy where he played for the Great Lakes Blue Jackets, the all-black team at the naval training center in Illinois. Wright fashioned an 8-2 record with the Blue Jackets with an earned run average under 3.00.
After being assigned to Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn he went 15-4 with the lowest ERA of any pitcher in the armed forces.
As part of a Negro League All-Star team facing the Brooklyn Dodgers in an exhibition at Ebbets Field in September of 1945, Wright held the Dodgers to two hits in five innings of work. The Dodgers took notice. After signing Jackie Robinson in October – breaking baseball’s color barrier – Brooklyn signed Johnny Wright three months later on January 29, 1946.
John Wright (left) with Jackie Robinson during their time in Montreal.
Both new signees were assigned to the team’s Montreal farm club. Robinson went on to a Hall of Fame career, however, Wright did not perform well and was demoted to Three Rivers where his performance improved, but not sufficiently enough. In January of 1947 the Dodgers released Wright and he returned to the Homestead Grays.
“John had all the ability in the world,” Jackie Robinson said when interviewed about Wright. “But John couldn’t stand the pressure of being one of the first. If he had come in two or three years later when the pressure was off, John could have made it in the Major Leagues.”
“When Negro League players who didn’t make it in the major leagues it rarely had to do with talent,” said Kendrick. “It had to do with being given a fair opportunity and having to deal with the immense social pressure they were confronted with. The fact that Johnny Wright was selected to be with Jackie in Montreal says what kind of player he was. Not making it to the majors does not diminish what he gave to this game.”
In his return to the Grays in 1947, John Wright went 8-4 and was selected for the North-South All-Star Game at Pelican Stadium in New Orleans. He helped the Grays win their final Negro League World Series title over the Birmingham Black Barons in 1948.
John Wright died on May 4, 1990, in Jackson, Mississippi.
Story by Ro Brown of the Greater New Orleans Sports Awards Committee.