Leon Day

Leon Day grew up in Mount Winans, a neighborhood in southwest Baltimore with no electricity and no running water, the son of a glass factory worker who moved the family from Alexandria, Virginia, when Leon was six months old. Day left school in the 10th grade because Frederick Douglass High School had no baseball team, signed with the Baltimore Black Sox of the Negro National League at 17 for $60 a month, and spent the next two decades pitching across the Negro Leagues, the Mexican League, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela with a short-arm delivery that baffled hitters who never saw the ball load up because Day threw it from his hip instead of over his shoulder. He won approximately 300 games across all competition, beat Satchel Paige three times in four meetings, set the Negro League single-game strikeout record with 18, landed on Utah Beach six days after D-Day, pitched a no-hitter on Opening Day 1946 in his first game back from the war despite injuring his arm during the game itself, and died six days after learning he would enter the Hall of Fame. Monte Irvin said, "Leon was as good as Satchel Paige, as good as any pitcher who ever lived, but he never made any noise." The Veterans Committee elected Day in 1995.

Mount Winans

Day was born on October 30, 1916, in Alexandria, Virginia. His father Ellis worked at the Westport glass factory in Baltimore, and the family settled in Mount Winans, where Leon learned to throw by playing second base on the neighborhood sandlots. Overhead motion hurt his shoulder, so he adapted by releasing from the hip, a quirk that became his signature on the mound. The arm generated a fastball between 90 and 95 miles per hour and a curveball that Larry Doby said made Day as good as anyone in either league. "I didn't see anyone in the major leagues who was better than Leon Day," Doby said. "Tremendous curveball and a fastball at least 90-95 miles an hour."

Day signed with the Baltimore Black Sox in 1934 and by 1935 was pitching for the Brooklyn Eagles, going 9-2 and earning his first East-West All-Star selection. When the franchise moved to Newark and became the Eagles, Day became the anchor of a staff that carried the team to the 1946 Negro World Series championship. He went 13-0 in 1937, his best all-around season, hitting .320 with eight home runs while posting a 3.02 ERA. On July 31, 1942, he struck out 18 Baltimore Elite Giants batters in a one-hitter, the only hit a bloop single by Pee Wee Butts. The Pittsburgh Courier ranked Day above Paige as the best pitcher in Black baseball for 1942 and 1943.

Utah Beach

Day was drafted on September 1, 1943, assigned to the segregated 818th Amphibious Truck Company as a DUKW operator, and landed on Utah Beach on June 12, 1944, six days after D-Day, delivering supplies under fire. "I was scared as hell," Day said. "I'll never forget June 12th. I lost a lot of good friends." In 1945, he played for the integrated Overseas Invasion Service Expedition All-Stars, a military baseball team that competed at Nuremberg Stadium in Germany before crowds exceeding 50,000. Day went 1-1 in the ETO World Series, winning Game 2 by a score of 2-1 with 10 strikeouts.

Day returned to the Newark Eagles in the spring of 1946 and threw a no-hitter against the Philadelphia Stars on Opening Day, May 5, at Ruppert Stadium. He injured his arm on a fielding play during the game and finished it anyway, winning 2-0. Despite the injury he went 13-4 that season, leading the league in wins, strikeouts, innings pitched, and complete games while hitting well above .300. Jackie Robinson invited Day to join the Montreal Royals organization that spring, which would have placed him on the path to integrating organized baseball with the Dodgers, but Day declined because he was already under contract with Newark. Timing kept him out of the integration story, and by the time the doors opened, the men who ran the game considered him too old.

Baltimore

Day pitched in Mexico, returned to the Baltimore Elite Giants, played in the Canadian ManDak League, and appeared briefly in organized baseball at Triple-A Toronto in 1951, going 1-1 with a 1.58 ERA in 14 games at age 34. He retired around 1955, worked as a bartender in Newark and a security guard in Baltimore, and spent his final decades in quiet obscurity. Max Manning, his Newark teammate, summarized the consensus. "If we said to the team at any given time, who would you like to pitch, they would all choose Leon. When he was right, I don't think there was anybody his equal."

Day was admitted to St. Agnes Hospital in Baltimore in early March 1995, suffering from diabetes and heart failure. On March 7, the Veterans Committee voted to induct him into the Hall of Fame, and he received the news at his hospital bedside. "I thought this day would never come," Day said. Six days later, on March 13, 1995, he died of heart failure at 78. His sister Ida May Bolden said, "I think that's what he was waiting for." His wife Geraldine spoke on his behalf at the Cooperstown ceremony that summer.