Lafayette Washington (January 26, 1915 – April 11, 1975) was an American

Negro league The Negro leagues were United States professional baseball leagues comprising teams of African Americans and, to a lesser extent, Latin Americans. The term may be used broadly to include professional black teams outside the leagues and it may be ...

pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the Baseball (ball), baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of out (baseball), retiring a batter (baseball), batter, who attempts to e ...

in the 1940s. A native of

Alma, Arkansas Alma is a city in Crawford County, Arkansas, United States. It is located within the Arkansas River Valley at the edge of the Ozark Mountains; the city is the sixth largest in the Fort Smith metropolitan area. The population was 5,419 at the ...

, Washington made his Negro leagues debut in 1940 with the

St. Louis–New Orleans Stars The St. Louis–New Orleans Stars, originally the Indianapolis ABCs and then the St. Louis Stars, were a major Negro league baseball team that played in the Negro American League from 1938 through 1941. They disbanded for the 1942 season due to f ...

. He went on to play for the

Birmingham Black Barons The Birmingham Black Barons were a Negro league baseball team that played from 1920 until 1960. They shared their home field of Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama, with the white Birmingham Barons, usually drawing larger crowds and equal pres ...

and

Cincinnati Clowns The Indianapolis Clowns were a professional baseball team in the Negro American League. Tracing their origins back to the 1930s, the Clowns were the last of the Negro league teams to disband, continuing to play exhibition games into the 1980s. The ...

, and finished his career in 1946 with the

Seattle Steelheads The Seattle Steelheads were a Negro league baseball team from Seattle, Washington. Owned by Abe Saperstein, they were also known as the Harlem Globetrotters and Cincinnati Crescents, though occasionally the teams split and played each other. Fo ...

. Washington died in

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

in 1975 at age 60.

References

External links

an
Seamheads
1915 births 1975 deaths People from Alma, Arkansas Baseball players from Arkansas Birmingham Black Barons players Cincinnati Clowns players St. Louis–New Orleans Stars players Seattle Steelheads players 20th-century African-American sportspeople {{negro-league-baseball-bio-stub