Going deep in Cincinnati

During a game 103 years ago today in Cincinnati, onetime Harrisburg Giants infielder John Beckwith becomes the first player to hit a ball over the left field wall at Crosley Field (nee Redland Field).

Beckwith, then playing with the Chicago Giants of the Negro National League, launches the drive – reportedly traveling 450 feet – in a 14-2 loss to the Cincinnati Cuban Stars.

Five years after his prodigious homer in Cincinnati, Beckwith arrives on City Island to begin a two-year stay as a player-manager with the Harrisburg Giants.

He is among the handful of long-ago Black players who in 2006 misses by a scant few votes from being elected to the Hall of Fame.