James "Fireball" Colzie (July 12, 1920 – March 23, 2010) was an American

Negro league baseball The Negro leagues were United States professional baseball leagues comprising teams of African Americans. The term may be used broadly to include professional black teams outside the leagues and it may be used narrowly for the seven relativel ...

pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("Pitch (baseball), 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, ...

. He played mostly for the

Indianapolis 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. Th ...

and the

Atlanta Black Crackers The Atlanta Black Crackers (originally known as the Atlanta Cubs and later briefly the Indianapolis ABCs) were a professional Negro league baseball team which played during the early to mid-20th century. They were primarily a minor Negro league ...

. He served in the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of th ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

.Baseball in War Time
/ref> On July 20, 1947, the Clowns' team bus was struck by a car, resulting in Colzie dislocating his knee. Colzie sued the driver of the car and was awarded $4,000. His son, Neal Colzie, was a

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a Professional gridiron football, professional American football league in the United States. Composed of 32 teams, it is divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National ...

player.

References

External links

an
Baseball-Reference Black Baseball stats
an
Seamheads
1920 births 2010 deaths Indianapolis Clowns players Atlanta Black Crackers players Baseball pitchers Baseball players from Georgia (U.S. state) United States Army personnel of World War II People from Montezuma, Georgia Military personnel from Georgia (U.S. state) African Americans in World War II United States Army Air Forces personnel of World War II 21st-century African-American sportsmen 21st-century American sportsmen African-American United States Army personnel 20th-century American sportsmen {{Negro-league-baseball-pitcher-1920s-stub