Passing greatness

The greatest baseball player you probably never knew about – outfielder Spottswood Poles – dies 61 years ago today in Harrisburg at the age of 74.

The 5-foot-7, 165-pound Poles is an outfielder with the all-Black Harrisburg Giants from 1906-08 and later becomes a highly decorated soldier in World War I while fighting with a segregated unit in France.

Poles, referred to by his peers as “the Black Ty Cobb,” spends most of his career playing in the loose confederations of segregated teams that precede the formal birth of the Negro Leagues in 1920.

Poles – seen here in an Ars Longa sports card – is credited with a .311 lifetime batting average and in 2006 comes within a couple of votes of being elected to the Hall of Fame.

Maybe, one day he will get those votes.