Brown’s lone big league homer made history

Some called him “Sonny,” in reference to his reputation as a “Sunday player;” someone who preferred to play on Sundays when the stands were full.

Perhaps his most well-known nickname, one that graces his plaque in Cooperstown, is “Home Run” Brown. The moniker was bestowed upon him, like many Negro Leagues nicknames were, by Josh Gibson. Brown excelled as a hitter and regularly maintained a batting average above .300, though his 77 official career home runs (across all levels) would not make him an obvious choice to bear that nickname. But a home run helped secure Brown’s place in the record books, so perhaps Gibson was on to something after all.

It was Game 2 of a doubleheader on Aug. 13, 1947, between the cellar-dwelling St. Louis Browns and the Detroit Tigers. Like most August days in St. Louis, the heat that Wednesday was unrelenting. The temperature had peaked at 95 degrees that afternoon as the two teams faced off in Game 1 – a lackluster 7-1 loss for the Browns, their 70th of the season – and the evening offered little relief.

The Tigers carried a 5-3 lead going into the bottom of the eighth of Game 2, and after Hal White walked Jake Early, future Hall of Famer Hal Newhouser took the mound in relief. Newhouser had held the Browns scoreless 15 straight times since Opening Day in 1945, and the St. Louis Star and Times noted he “usually [won] games from the Browns merely by having his name announced as the Detroit pitcher.”

Browns manager Muddy Ruel had originally sent up Joe Schultz – who became better known as the manager of the Seattle Pilots in their only American League season – to hit for pitcher Sam Zoldak. But when the left-handed Newhouser replaced White, Ruel called on Willard “Home Run” Brown to replace the left-handed hitting Schultz.

It was Brown’s first plate appearance of the day, and just the 63rd of his major league career, having been signed by the Browns the previous month. But Brown was no baseball rookie. The then-32-year-old had begun his professional career more than a decade earlier when he was called up from the Negro minor league Monroe Monarchs to the Kansas City Monarchs in 1935.

Before serving two years in the U.S. Army during World War II, the lanky outfielder proved himself to be one of the finest hitters in the Negro Leagues and helped carry the Monarchs to five pennants. But it was in Latin America that Brown truly thrived. Like many Black ballplayers prior to the integration of the major leagues, Brown played baseball year-round, traveling south to Mexico and Puerto Rico during the winter off-seasons and establishing himself as one of the best hitters of the time.

Brown returned from service in 1946 and a year later, just a few months after Jackie Robinson broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier, the St. Louis Browns signed him and Monarchs teammate Hank Thompson. The Associated Press reported that, of all the Black players signed that season, “Outfielder Brown was considered to be the prize package of the lot, with only his age against him.”

On July 20, 1947, the Brown and Thompson became the first Black teammates to play on a major league team, and less than a month later Brown found himself poised to make history once again.