Great-grandfather of Sun City resident inducted into baseball hall of fame
He was a fearless, aggressive catcher who caught bare handed. He compiled a .312 lifetime batting average in the original dead-ball era. He played when the rules allowed five strikes and eight balls. Batters could usually tell the pitcher where they wanted the ball pitched.
White’s family attends his induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown. (Photo Provided)
While most of his team¬mates were rowdy and profane, he didn’t cuss, argue with umpires, drink alcohol, or misbehave off the field. He constantly read his bible. They called him Deacon.
He was one of baseball’s true pioneers and played a large role in launching the National League of Major League Baseball, which still exists today.
He was James “Deacon” White. A baseball historian once said of him, “In base¬ball’s earliest professional seasons, Deacon White stood out as one of the game’s great players.”
Sun City’s Joan Watkins is White’s great grand-daughter. She, her family, and a host of their friends waited more than 120 years to see him recognized for his efforts. On July 28 of this year, that dream was fulfilled when he was inducted into baseball’s Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. The honor came more than 140 years after he started playing baseball and 74 years after his death in 1939. He is the first 19th century player to be inducted.
“The long wait made our celebration all the more worth it,” Watkins said. “There were more than 50 family members there and a lot more friends. It was one of the greatest moments of my life. It was made even better when my brother Jerry was chosen to deliver the actual induction speech at the Cooperstown ceremony.”
Both Jerry and Joan told the Sun Day that their grand-grandfather was deserving but was probably inadvertently overlooked.
“There was an effort to get him elected in the early years of the Hall of Fame, but it didn’t happen,” Joan said. “The Veterans Committee of the Hall of Fame had to evaluate the career of a man who played the game more than a century ago,” Jerry said.
Jerry Watkins, a resident of Wheaton, Illinois, is also an ardent Cubs fan.
White’s great-grandson Jerry Watkins at Hall of Fame display. (Photo Provided)
“I have to tell you the truth,” he said. “In my heart I never believed this day would come. The day we would stand here and honor my great-grandfather James “Deacon” White as a member of the baseball hall of fame … but you have to remember one thing about Cub fans: we’re good at waiting.”
At Cooperstown in July, Jerry, Joan, and their family members met and talked with Williams, Banks, and other Hall of Famers Barry Larkin, Wade Boggs, Tommy Lasorda, Andre Dawson, and Hank Aaron.
White also may be one of the few baseball Hall of Famers to get in through the efforts of his family and friends.
“A lot of things just came together in the last year or so for him,” Joan Watkins said. “Some pastors wrote letters to Hall of Fame officials, sportswriters, and even baseball historians. Family members did also. Peter Morris was one such historian, and I think he helped alert members of the Veterans Committee to my great-grandfather’s accomplishments.”
Baseball experts generally agree White was the first batter in the first game in the history of professional baseball in 1871. He was the inaugural batter in the first game of the National Association, which was formed in 1870 and, a few years later, was renamed the National League. He also got the first hit in pro ball – a double – in that at-bat. On that day, he was a member of the Cleveland Forest Citys, against the local Kekiongas.
A native of Caton, New York, just a few hours from Cooperstown, he grew up in the shadow of the Civil War and played ball with his brother Will and his cousin Elmer, both also became professional players.
He played 20 seasons for seven teams: the Citys, Boston Red Stockings, Chicago White Stockings, Buffalo Bisons, Cincinnati Reds, Detroit Wolverines, and Pittsburgh Pirates. He started his career in his early 20s and played until he was 41.
“My dad told me that he remembered his grandfather as having hands that were gnarled and twisted like tree branches from years of catching baseballs bare-handed,” Jerry Watkins said.
The only way to measure White’s exploits is to compare them to his contemporaries. Twice he led the National League in hitting, compiling a lifetime .312 average. He led the league in RBIs three times and drove in 988 runs in a 20-year career. He led the league in RBIs for the first time in 1876, and the only other catcher to do that was Roy Campanella in 1943, 77 years later. White starred on five consecutive league championship teams from 1873 to 1877. He amassed 2,064 hits in 20 seasons, including 98 triples and 24 home runs. His best year was 1876, when he hit .387 with 11 triples and only three strikeouts in 266 at-bats.
Although some of the information about his annual earnings is sketchy and incomplete, historians believe that he was paid about $1,500 in 1873, and his annual earnings grew to $3,500 at age 41 in 1889.
A devout Christian, he was a lifelong member of the Advent Christian denomination. He and his wife Alice had one daughter, Grace. When Grace reached college age, White sent her out to Mendota, IL, to attend Mendota College, an Advent Christian institution. When White retired from baseball in 1890, he and Alice moved to Mendota. Alice worked as a house parent at the college and Jim worked on the grounds for many years.
Today Mendota is Aurora College, where Joan Watkins teaches medical social work part-time. Grace and her husband moved their printing business to Aurora, where it remains today. James White died in 1939 at the age of 91. Most of his descendents have attended Aurora College.
Perhaps the best praise of White came from Hall of Fame pioneer Henry Chadwick, the only sportswriter inducted into the Hall of fame and the man who reported on baseball games in White’s time.
“What was most admired about White was his quiet and effective way of doing his work,” Chadwick wrote once. “Kicking [complaining] is unknown to him. In one thing he stands as pre-eminent, that is the integrity of his character. Herein lay as much of his value to his team as his great skill as a catcher.”
This coming Sunday Sept. 29, at 1 p.m., a special recognition event for White, Jerry and Joan, and their family will be held at Aurora College. An old-timer’s baseball game will be played, and a street on the campus will be officially named after “Deacon.”
