1916 Lincoln Giants

A Calendar, Including Newspaper Clippings, of the 1916 Lincoln Giants

1916 Lincoln Giants

Stories are placed in order of the date they appeared.

April 30, 1916

Harlem, NY
"Joe Williams's Lincoln Giants Score Sixth Consecutive Victory - Baseball in This City Has Promising Outlook. - (By Jack Trotter.) - New York City. (Special). - Now that the weather is beginning to lose its wintery bite and the cold flurries of wind are becoming a less frequent visitor, this city's colored public are beginning to throw top coats and indoor sports aside and are eagerly renewing their more than bowing acquaintance with the greatest of all National pastimes baseball. The gates of Olympic field, the old home of Colored America's best known baseball nine: the Lincoln Giants, have been thrown open now for three weeks and in celebration of its first three weeks gamble on the Metropolitan green, severely trounced each successive visitor in double headers of each Sunday. Notwithstanding the successes that have attended the Giants since the opening date, the team as a whole is in an unsettled state, many of the players now with it being only borrowed members from several local clubs of recognized abilities. Such old favorites with the baseball fans are Judy Gans, the fast left fielder; Bill Francis, the crack third baseman, Henry Lloyd, the premier shortstop; Grant, the sensational first sacker, and Wiley and Louis Santop, the formidable and hard hitting backstops are so far curiously missing from the lineups. Much of the condition to the backward season can be attributed to those people who promote colored baseball in New York. From the headquarters of Nat C. Strong, the man who directed the fortunes of the Royal Giants last season and upon whom the fans are half depending on to straighten out the now much tangled affairs in baseball came the answer to our phone call that his office at present time was not in position to issue any statements for publication. - Cyclone Joe Williams is Manager. Piloting the destines of the Giants for what promises to be the greatest season that colored baseball has ever known is that Cyclone pitcher Joe Williams. With him in the regular line up are Poles, the great little center fielder; Jesse Bragg, the crack second baseman and who is also the fastest man on bases in the colored baseball world; Harry Forbes, the Howard University sensation fills the position of shortstop; Pierce the slugging catcher; Thomas, the original home run king is playing 1st base; while Hell, is holding down left field; and Redding the Speed King pitcher, is in the right, pending the arrival of other players. Games in Sunday's doubleheader, triumphing over the Chesters by the score of 5 to 1 and beating the Ironsides by 4 to 3."

May 15, 1916

Bridgeport, CT
"Bridgeport Stars Play Lincoln Giants - The Bridgeport Stars, composed of well-known diamond stars of this city, will play the Lincoln Giants in this city Wednesday. The game will be played at Newfield Park, starting at 3:45. The lineup of the Bridgeport team will be: Silzer, rf; Bowden, 3b; Burns, 2b; Flaherty, c; Burke, lf; Hurley, cf; Horkheimer, ss; Clark 1b; Barron, Finn and White, p. The Lincoln Giants team is reputed to be the best colored team in the country. John Henry Lloyd, who shortstops for the visitors, is one of the best in the country."

May 17, 1916

Bridgeport, CT
"Lincoln Giants to Play Here Friday - Owing to the bad weather the game scheduled between the Lincoln Giants of New York and the Bridgeport Stars was not played toay at Newfield Park. Arrangements were completed this morning to have the contest take place Friday. The local boys will use Johnny Barron, Speed Finn and White in the box as they originally planned. The game will start at 3:45 in order to accommodate the U.M.C. employees."

May 19, 1916

Bridgeport, CT
"Lincoln Giants Beat U.M.C. Boys - The Bridgeport Stars, composed of U.M.C. players, gave the Lincoln Giants a fine argument but the colored wonders finally won the game at Newfield Park yesterday by 4 to 3. The score was 3 to 3 until the ninth when Redding tripled to center and scored the winning run on Forbes' single. Speed Finn started on the mound for the locals and held the visitors to two runs in the five innings he worked. Johnny Barron, who labored in the last four, gave the Giants six hits and two tallies. Jimmy Burns and Horkheimer were the leading clouters for the locals, each getting two hits. Bowden got around for Bridgeport in the first. After he forced Silzer he took second on a wild throw and scored on Flaherty's hit. Singles by Bowden, Burns and Horkheimer and Burke's double produced two for the locals in the sixth. - The Lincoln Giants pulled some pretty good lines during the contest with the Bridgeport Stars at Newfield yesterday. A local fan yelled, 'We're going to make three this inning,' and Catcher Pierce of the Giants replied, 'You couldn't make three with a lead pencil.' When the visitors arrived at the park early there were no spectators on hand. 'Here's a good time and nobody at it,' observed one of the chocolate soldiers."

May 28, 1916

Harlem, NY
"Lincoln Giants Split With Royal Giants In A Double Header. - New York City Special. - The redoubtable Lincoln Giants' great winning streak was broken right in the middle last Sunday on the home grounds, and by no less a team than the famous Royals, whose makeup for this year is composed of many of the men who were team mates only as far back as last year, of the fellowed they caused to grovel in the dust in the last game of an exciting double-header. The first game was taken by the Lincolns in a walkaway style, winning with a shutout of the visitors by a score of 6 to 0. Next Sunday's games of the Lincoln Giants will be a double header with the crack Cuban Stars of Havana."

New York, NY
"Food for Fans. - Cannon Ball Dick Redding shut out the Royal Giants in the first game of the double header last Sunday, holding them to five hits. In the second game the Royal giants hit Cyclone Joe Williams for fifteen hits, sending the Lincoln Giants down to defeat by a score of 4 to 2. The Lincoln Stars carried off both of their double headers, defeating the Jeffersons by a score of 9 to 0, and Mike Donlin's All Professionals 7 to 2. In the opening game of the season the Jeffersons defeated the Lincoln Stars, so this evens up the series. Record crowds turned out at Lenox Oval and Olympia Field to see the games. This is certainly a great baseball time in New York. Charleston has certainly made a big hit with the fans at Lenox Oval. With the bases full and two out in the seventh inning Charleston ran back to the fence in left center and made a wonderful one-hand catch just as the ball was going over for a home run. Santop made his first appearance behind the bat on Sunday when he caught two games. Top has been playing left field all along and has been hitting the ball on the nose. A team known as the Cuban Stars was scheduled to play at Ridgewood on Sunday, but for some reaon or other did not appear. Charleston, Parks, Pettus, Santop, and Johnson are certainly some hitters to face.

June 17, 1916

Harlem, NY?
"The Lincoln Giants went down to defeat in the Tri-County League on Saturday at the hands of the Morristown team. The Lincolns are now in last place."

June 18, 1916

Harlem, NY
"The Lincoln Giants and Royal Giants, in Double Header, Break Even. - Last Sunday at the Olympic Field, the camping grounds of Captain Joe Williams' team, the Lincoln Giants for the second time this season met the crack Royal Giants in a stirring double-header, repeating their first efforts by winning one game and losing one. The Lincoln Giants during the first game were literally swamped by their rivals, losing by the large score of 12 to 3, but came in the last tilt of the day and trounced the Royals, 9 to 1."

"Food for Fans. - The Royal Giants gave the Lincoln Giants a bad beating in the first game on Sunday and then went down to defeat before Cannon Ball Redding."

June 19, 1916

Poughkeepsie, NY
"June 19 - Lincoln Giants vs Poughkeepsie Cubans."

June 20, 1916

Poughkeepsie, NY
"June 20 - Lincoln Giants vs Poughkeepsie Cubans."

June 21, 1916

Poughkeepsie, NY
"June 21 - Lincoln Giants vs Poughkeepsie Cubans."

June 22, 1916

Poughkeepsie, NY
"June 22 - Lincoln Giants vs Poughkeepsie Cubans."

June 23, 1916

Poughkeepsie, NY
"June 23 - Lincoln Giants vs Poughkeepsie Cubans."

July 2, 1916

Harlem, NY
"Lincoln Giants Hands The Royals a Nifty Lacing. - New York City Special. - With Dick Redding on the pitcher's mound last Sunday for the Lincoln Giants that team breezed home victors in a double-header for the first time out of four starts this season. The Lincolns gathered fifteen hits off Lefty Harvey in the second game, ending in the Royals' defeat by the score of 13 to 6. Next Sunday the Lincoln Giants will encounter the High Bridge team and the New York Fire Department."

"Cannon-Ball Redding, the greatest of all Colored pitchers, has not lost a game this season."

July 16, 1916

Harlem, NY
"Lincoln Giants Annex Two Games Last Sunday. - Cyclone Joe Williams, aided by the mighty bat of Pierce, the Giants' backstop, won a thrilling and hard contested game from the Carlisle Indians last Sunday before one of the biggest crowds ever turned out to witness a Sunday baseball game. The Giants in the curtain raiser defeated the New London baseball club by the score of 9 to 2."

July 23, 1916

Harlem, NY
"Danbury vs. Lincoln Giants. - Sunday next at Olympic Field the Danbury Club will make its first appearance against the Lincoln Giants in the opening game of a double header. In the final game the well-known Ironsides, of Newark, champions of New Jersey, will face the Lincoln Giants."

July 29, 1916

Harlem, NY
"World's Colored Champions Toying With Teams in the East, Longs for a Series with Rube Foster's Giants, the A.B.C.s or other strong Western Baseball Teams. - New York City Special. - Continuing with their uninterrupted victories since the beginning of this season's baseball, the Lincoln Giants trotted home last Sunday with two more games marked to their credit. The first game which was played with the baseball nine representing the Street Cleaning Department, was captured after a tight struggle by the score of 3 to 2. The last tilt with the Trentons was won by the Lincolns by the score of 3 to 1. While in the ordinary sense, the baseball nines of New York and New Jersey states are plenty strong enough to oppose the ordinary everyday team with which they are booked to play. The Lincolns have proven time after time this season that they are as far in front of these other nines as far as class is concerned, as the Yankees of the American league show against Connie Mack's Athletics. For this reason it would certainly prove to be one of the best matches financially speaking, that ever bumped into by the Rube, if he will only consent to bring his American Giants to this city for a month or so."

July 30, 1916

Harlem, NY
"At Olympic Field. - The Lincoln Giants annexed both ends of a double header at Olympic Field yesterday, beating the Street Cleaning nine in the first game, 3 to 2, and the Trentons in the second game, 3 to 1. The tilt with the Department Street Cleaning boys was a thriller, the home team winning in the tenth inning. The Department Street Cleaning nine and Pittsfield team will be the opponents of the Lincoln Giants next Sunday."