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(Created page with "'''Theodore Roosevelt "Double Duty" Radcliffe''' (born July 7, 1902 in Mobile, Mobile County; died August 11, 2005 in Chicago, Illinois) was a pitcher, catcher, and manager in Negro League baseball. He played with the Birmingham Black Barons in the 1940s and appeared in 6 East-West All Star Games. Radcliffe was one of 10 children raised in Mobile. He and his brother Alex Radcliffe played neighborhood games with a group of friends that included ...")
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Revision as of 17:17, 28 June 2024

Theodore Roosevelt "Double Duty" Radcliffe (born July 7, 1902 in Mobile, Mobile County; died August 11, 2005 in Chicago, Illinois) was a pitcher, catcher, and manager in Negro League baseball. He played with the Birmingham Black Barons in the 1940s and appeared in 6 East-West All Star Games.

Radcliffe was one of 10 children raised in Mobile. He and his brother Alex Radcliffe played neighborhood games with a group of friends that included Satchel Paige and Bobby Robinson. He and Alex hitchhiked to the South Side of Chicago, Illinois in 1919, joining an older brother there. Within a year, Ted signed with the semi-professional Illinois Giants. He moved over to Gilkerson's Union Giants for a few seasons before signing with the Detroit Stars of the Negro National League in 1928. He spent the next 18 years as a prominent Negro Leaguer. He and Paige often jumped from team to team, chasing better offers. and in one season he appeared with five different teams. His career included stints with the St Louis Stars, Homestead Grays, Pittsburgh Crawfords, Columbus Blue Birds, New York Black Yankees, Brooklyn Eagles, Cincinnati Tigers, Memphis Red Sox, Chicago American Giants, Louisville Buckeyes and Kansas City Monarchs. He was manager for the Tigers in 1937, the Red Sox in 1938 and the American Giants in 1943. He appeared on the Birmingham Black Barons roster for at least parts of every season between 1942 and 1945.

Radcliffe was known as a cunning and capable player. As a pitcher, he built on his regular arsenal of pitches by throwing breaking balls and "spitballs", the latter of which were phased out of Major League play beginning in 1919. He was also known for keeping up a regular stream of banter which drove some hitters to distraction. Radcliffe was also an excellent batter, with an estimated career batting average of .271. He batted .403 in 22 exhibition games against Major League pitchers. He was invited to six East–West All-Star Games, pitching in three and catching in the other three. His last All-Star appearance was highlighted by a home run into the upper deck of Comiskey Park in 1943.

Radcliffe earned the nickname "Double-Duty" from writer Damon Runyon while he was playing for the 1932 Pittsburgh Crawfords. After catching a 4-0 shutout game for Paige in the first game of a double header against the Chicago American Giants at Yankee Stadium, he came back for the second game and pitched his own 5-0 shutout, a spectacle that Runyon reckoned was "worth the price of two admissions." In 1934 Radcliffe became the first Black manager of white players as he took charge of the independent, racially-integrated Jamestown Red Sox in North Dakota. He went on to manage newly-integrated semi-professional teams in the Southern Minnesota League and Michigan-Indiana League. In 1950 he recruited the first non-Black players to the Chicago American Giants of the Negro American League. He returned to the Black Barons as a part-time manager in the 1950s, and continued to find work as a scout for the Cleveland Indians in the 1960s.

Radcliffe retired in Chicago, moving into a housing project. He and his wife Alberta were victims of robbery in 1990, which brought attention to his poverty and prompted the Baseball Assistance Team and the Mayor's Richard M. Daley's office to find him space in an assisted living facility and sign him up for a $10,000/year pension offered to former Negro League players. Kyle McNary began interviewing him in 1992 for what became his published biography. Growing respect for Negro League players led to three White House invitations, and an Emmy-winning television documentary on WGN. Beginning with his 100th birthday in 2002, Radcliffe threw out a ceremonial first pitch to Buck O'Neil before a White Sox at U.S. Cellular Field. In July 2005 he returned to Birmingham to throw a first pitch for the 2005 Birmingham Barons at the Hoover Metropolitan Stadium. He died from cancer at home in Chicago two weeks later. He is buried at Oak Woods Cemetery there.

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