1952 East-West Game

The 1952 East-West Game was the 20th East-West Game at Comiskey Park. Held on August 17, 1952, it continued to show the rapid decline and death of the Negro Leagues. The East-West Game had gone from 13 players who would appear in the majors just four years prior to 6 in 1950, 3 in 1951 and now just two, Larry Raines and Joe Durham, in 1952. Almost every player in the game was a new face to the East-West Game, with black baseball's top players in the majors and the next tier of players in the minors, Mexico or Canada. Of the players in this contest, only Henry Kimbro and Jim Wilkes (as a late substitute) appeared in the East-West Game during the 1940s. Only 18,279 fans showed up, a far cry from the game's heyday and a record low to that point. Most newspaper accounts seemed to focus on what had been a talent-laden contest in the past, bemoaning the current state of black baseball.

The West got ahead in the first, when Duke Henderson singled off Groundhog Thompson and Felix McLaurin drove him in. In the second, the East tied it on a Ted Washington single and Otha Bailey double. The West blew the game open in the third thanks to three errors, a wild pitch and hits by Henderson, Willie Patterson, Hank Baylis and Sherman Watrous to combine for six runs, knocking Thompson from the game without a retiring a batter in the 3rd.

The East got shutout pitching from Ted Richardson and Wilmer Harris for the final six innings, but they couldn't make up the 7-1 deficit. They got one run in the 4th on a double by Doc Dennis and a Kimbro single and another in the 8th on a Dennis single, an error by Raines, a walk and a run-scoring double play.

Dennis (2 for 4, 2 R, 2B) and Richardson (4 hitless, scoreless innings) were the top stars for the East, while Don Whittington (0 for 3, E) and Thompson (7 R, 7 H, 2 BB in 2 IP) fared the worst.

For the West, Henderson (2 for 4, 2 R, RBI), McLaurin (1 for 1, 2B, 2 RBI) and Patterson (2 for 4, R, 2 RBI) led the offense. Surprisingly, their worst hitter was the game's only future big leaguer, Raines (0 for 3, BB, R, E). All three West hurlers allowed one run in three innings of work.