Willie Smith (smithwi07)

Willie D. Smith
(Buddy)

• Bats unknown, Throws Left

• Debut 1948
• Final Game 1948

BR page

Biographical Information

Very little is known about pitcher Willie Smith, who played for the Homestead Grays in 1948. He was signed after playing the previous season with an industrial league team in Birmingham, AL where he was a teammate of a young Willie Mays. In 1946, he had played for the Cincinnati Crescents, an independent Negro team, and then with the Detroit Wolves at the start of 1947, another independent Negro team before turning up in Birmingham.

With Homestead, he played mainly in the numerous exhibition games that the team scheduled between regular games of the Negro National League.

He has sometimes been confused with another Willie Smith, who was briefly an infielder with the Newark Eagles in 1938.

Related Sites

• Willie D. Smith at the SABR Bio Project