Mule Suttles

George Suttles grew up in a coal mining camp outside Birmingham, Alabama, swung a 50-ounce bat with his little finger hanging off the knob, and hit baseballs so far that crowds chanted "Kick, Mule, Kick!" every time he stepped to the plate in a late-inning rally. He played first base and outfield in the Negro Leagues from 1923 through 1944, batted .336 with 201 home runs and a .614 slugging percentage across 1,040 documented games, won the 1926 Negro National League Triple Crown with a .425 average and 32 home runs, hit the first home run in East-West All-Star Game history, and two years later ended the 1935 All-Star Game with a walk-off three-run blast off Martín Dihigo. Leo Durocher, asked by a pitcher how to get Suttles out, answered, "Just pitch and pray." The Special Committee on Negro Leagues elected him to the Hall of Fame in 2006, 40 years after his death.

Blocton

Suttles was born on March 31, 1901, in Blocton, a coal mining town in Bibb County, Alabama, about 40 miles southwest of Birmingham. His father James worked in the mines. His mother Early raised seven children, and George was the second. The family relocated to the Edgewater Coal Mining Camp west of Birmingham, where Suttles developed the upper body strength that defined his career. His brother Charles was also a talented ballplayer whose career ended when he broke his leg in the mines the year he was scheduled to join the Negro National League.

Suttles signed with the Birmingham Black Barons in 1923. In his first professional game, on May 28 at Rickwood Field, he went 4 for 5 with two singles, a double, and a home run in a 16-0 win over the Nashville Giants. Box scores listed him as "Sellers."

The Triple Crown

Suttles joined the St. Louis Stars in 1926 and won the Negro National League Triple Crown, batting .425 with 32 home runs, 19 triples, 130 RBI, and an .877 slugging percentage across 89 games. The home run and triple totals set single-season NNL records. Stars Park favored right-handed pull hitters with its short left field, and 26 of his 32 home runs came at home, but the raw totals remain the official marks.

Suttles helped the Stars win NNL championships in 1928, 1930, and 1931. In 1927, he batted .449 across 36 games before an injury ended his season. In the spring of 1930, he opened a brief stint with the Baltimore Black Sox by hitting eight home runs in his first four games.

Willie Wells played alongside Suttles for 14 consecutive seasons with the Stars, the Chicago American Giants, and the Newark Eagles. Wells witnessed one of baseball's legendary feats at Tropical Park in Havana, where the center field wall stood more than 60 feet high and sat 500 feet from home plate. Suttles cleared it. Wells recalled that the ball sailed past mounted policemen stationed outside the park and said the distance "looked like we were playing in a lot; it didn't look like no ball park."

The All-Star Games

Suttles appeared in five East-West All-Star Games between 1933 and 1939 and compiled a .412 batting average with an .883 slugging percentage.

In the first East-West Game on September 10, 1933, he hit a drive into the upper tier of Comiskey Park's left-center field stands for the only home run of the game. In 1934, he went 3 for 4 with a triple but the West lost 1-0.

The 1935 game is the one that enters legend. Thirteen future Hall of Famers played that afternoon. With the West trailing in the bottom of the 11th, two on, two out, and Josh Gibson at the on-deck circle, East manager Oscar Charleston ordered Gibson intentionally walked to load the bases and set up a force play. Suttles swung five bats in the on-deck circle while the crowd chanted "Kick, Mule! Kick, Mule!" He drove Martín Dihigo's pitch over the right-center field fence for a walk-off three-run home run. Cool Papa Bell, who had been on base ahead of him, scored standing up. William G. Nunn of the Pittsburgh Courier wrote, "It was the mighty kick of a mighty 'Mule,'" a feat "that fans in years to come will tell their children, their grand-children, and their children's grand-children about."

Newark

Suttles joined the Newark Eagles in 1936, where he formed the left side of the "Million Dollar Infield" with Willie Wells at shortstop and Ray Dandridge at third base. He batted .400 with 13 home runs in 36 games that first season. In 1938 he batted .420 with 26 home runs.

Monte Irvin was a young teammate on those Eagles squads, and Suttles mentored the roster's younger players. When he transitioned to managing the Eagles from 1943 through 1944, he coached Larry Doby and Don Newcombe before both broke into the major leagues. Lennie Pearson said of Suttles the manager, "He was a tremendous manager. He knew baseball inside and out. And he had patience. He knew he was in the twilight of his career, and he devoted a lot of time to younger fellows."

Teammates who knew him described a personality at odds with his fearsome swing. Pearson called him "the most gentle person I ever saw." Squire Moore explained why Suttles received less recognition than some contemporaries, saying, "He was a laid-back person. Sometimes the better players get overlooked."

The Record

Suttles also dominated against white competition. In the California Winter League, he batted .378 with 64 home runs across 126 games against major and minor league veterans. On November 30, 1933, he homered and doubled off Bobo Newsom in Los Angeles. On October 27, 1935, he hit a 475-foot home run off Larry French, a pitcher on the NL-champion Chicago Cubs. Earl Whitehill described him as "big and powerful, takes a healthy cut. When he hits one, it goes long and far." Wally Berger of the Boston Braves compared his drives to Babe Ruth's.

Suttles married Lucille Childs in February 1949 at 47. He managed the semipro Newark Buffalos in 1946 and umpired the 1948 East-West All-Star Game at Comiskey Park. He died of cancer on July 9, 1966, in Newark, at 65, and was buried at Glendale Cemetery in Bloomfield, New Jersey. His niece Merriett Burley accepted his Hall of Fame award in 2006 and told reporters, "We always wondered why Uncle George was never mentioned" alongside Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, and Cool Papa Bell.

Suttles finished with a .336 batting average, 248 doubles, 88 triples, 201 home runs, 984 RBI, 95 stolen bases, and a 1.022 OPS across 1,040 documented games in the Seamheads Negro Leagues Database. He made five All-Star teams, won three NNL championships, and hit more home runs than all but a handful of players in Negro Leagues history. Suttles himself once said, "Don't worry about the Mule going blind, just load the wagon and give me the lines."