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| Pitcher Ted Alexander, posted by Barry Wells on 2/13/2005 5:57:56 PM |
| I notice that pitcher Ted Alexander is not included in your player profiles ("The Athletes").
TED ALEXANDER, LONDON MAJOR’S PITCHER AIDED BASEBALL LEGEND JACKIE ROBINSON
(this Flashback was published in London This Week, Feb.9/2005 research by S. Harding photo: LFP Collection, UWO archives, courtesy of Daniel S. Mendham) London, Ontario, Canada
MAY 6, 1950: Ted Alexander, formerly of the US Negro Leagues was photographed by Jack Burnett of the Free Press at the start of the intercounty baseball season in Kitchener.
A triple in the 9th inning gave the Legionnaires a 7-6 win over the London Majors.
Alexander had retired after his 14th season in baseball and was a postal worker in Detroit when his wife encouraged him to try out with the Majors.
Dan (Uncle Buck) Mendham recalls: “ He came to London driving a shiny new 1950 Ford Mercury. He was a happy go lucky guy, a bit of a showman, yakking all the time. Ted always had a can of wax in his hand, polishing that car. He was real heavy, and the Majors didn’t have a uniform big enough to fit him. That’s why he started the season in his Homestead Grays outfit. He got by pretty good in what was a very tough league. It was big business then, lots of imports were being signed. I think he was here for part of the ‘51 season and he could have been out west with a team in Brandon, (Man.) after that.”
Alexander had been with the Homestead Grays and the Kansas City Monarchs, of the Negro National League. During the winter he played with teams that barnstormed in Venezuela, Puerto Rico & Hawaii. He also played for the US Army major leaguers.
In the fall of 1944 Alexander was at Camp Breckinridge, Kentucky, when Jackie Robinson happened to see him pitching. Robinson had just been discharged from the US army, was out of work and looking for direction. Alexander encouraged Robinson to contact his former team, the Monarchs.
In one account Robinson joined the army team that Alexander was managing, and when it folded, Alexander arranged the try-out with the Monarchs for him. Robinson joined the Monarchs at their training camp in Texas the following spring. This was Robinson’s first step toward his historic entry into big league baseball.
While playing for the Monarchs Robinson was intensively scouted and evaluated by the Brooklyn Dodgers. Branch Rickey secretly signed Robinson and in 1946 sent him to the Montreal Royals, the Dodgers AAA Canadian affiliate.
In 1947 Robinson went to play for the Dodgers and the integration of professional baseball began. The Negro League teams lost their star players and young prospects to the major leagues and their fan base melted away.
As the teams folded, many players such as Ted Alexander were able to extend their baseball careers by playing in Canada. Players such as Wilmer Fields, Jimmy Wilkes, Luther Clifford, Max Manning, Lester Lockett, Bob Thurman, and Doc Glenn made appearances at London's Labatt Park playing intercounty baseball.
During the 1950 season when Alexander was pitching for the Majors an interesting movie had it’s local premier. The intense young athlete whom Alexander had encouraged to pursue a career in professional baseball was starring in “The Jackie Robinson Story” at London’s Odeon theatre.
Partly visible in the picture to Alexander’s left is Jack Fairs, the Major’s catcher. Fairs was on the Major’s 1948 North American championship team and is still a professor emeritus at Western, at 80 years plus. He coached the UWO squash team to its 18th consecutive national squash title last weekend in Toronto.
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| Re: Pitcher Ted Alexander, posted by Rob O'Mara on 5/8/2005 7:37:40 PM |
| I was interested in seeing the name Jimmy Wilkes, I remember as a teenager watching Jimmy play for the Brantford Red Sox of the Intercounty league and then after he retired he stayed in the league as an umpire. Reply to this message
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| Re: Re: Jimmy Wilkes, posted by Bart Strong on 8/9/2006 10:00:58 AM |
| As a boy growing up in Brantford I also have fond memories of Jimmy Wilkes . While playing for the Brantford Red Sox he also worked part-time for the city on garbage collection. He regularly stopped to talk to me in front of my house. Over the course of several years he autographed my basebal glove and gave me a ball with his name on it. I'm now 56 and I was probably about 8-10 then so you can see how much his kindness stuck with me Reply to this message
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| Re: Re: Re: Jimmy Wilkes, posted by Carol Wallis on 8/21/2008 12:45:25 PM |
| I remember Jimmy exactly the same way. Our family relocated from Welland in 1959 when I was 4 years old and lived on Willow Drive. We also would watch for our weekly garbage pick up just to say hello to Jimmy Wilkes. It is with great sadness that Jimmy passed away this week. My daughter was his attending nurse at Hardy Terrace and remained with Jimmy until her shift ended that afternoon. He passed away just 3 hours after she left. She remembered the stories I used to share with her and Jimmy will remain a very special man to us all.I think I'll visit the next Red Sox game in his honor.
Kindest Regards, Reply to this message
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