Better late than never.

This is the guy McGraw tried to pass off as a Native American, right?

Yeah, Chief Tokahama or something like that.

Does anyone know what year Grant would have been eligible for the HoM?

I posted some of the newspaper coverage of McGraw's attempt to get Grant into the American League in 1901 here.

Also, here is a brief item about Charlie Grant from 1916. IIRC, he was playing for a club called the Cincinnati Stars about this time.

Re Charlie Grant's eligibility: most of the eligibility dates were based on the information from Riley. Riley has Grant's last season as 1916, playing for the Cincinnati Stars. So he would have become eligible in 1922. He was born in 1879, so the NeL birth-year exception to the normal eligibility delay of five full seasons does not apply to his case.

Thanks, Chris!

[
copied verbatim from Bill Monroe ]
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52. Paul Wendt Posted: December 09, 2007 at 11:00 AM (#2639385)
Our general knowledge of his time and place (black ball c.1900) is spotty and we don't know of a lot of data on Monroe, either. He immediately achieved HOM status as a serious candidate and he remained eligible forever because he wasn't elected. The HOF elected Sol White, so his thread shouldn't be the dumping ground for everything related to anything in his book. Those have been some causes for me, at least and the main culprit, to make Bill Monroe's thread a repository of material sometimes far from his own case. (Excuse me, Bill.) That Gary A and burniswright are here on the same track inspires me to continue.
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What if anything did Lloyd say about Charlie Grant, a star about about ten years older who was his 2Bman when Lloyd joined the Philadelphia Giants?

Charlie Grant has been practically under the radar here. Riley calls him one of the first black stars. John McGraw signed him as Chief Tokohoma in 1901 to play for the new Baltimore Orioles (AL). He played for leading teams most of 1896-1907, usually at second base. This is gleaned from White, Riley, Holway's Complete Book, and a few box scores:

1896-1898 Page Fence Giants
1899-1901 Columbia(n) Giants
1902 ?
1903 Cuban X-Giants and Phila.
1904-1907 Philadelphia Giants
1906 Cuban X-Giants too (Riley)

Is he the most famous player without a thread?
What do we in the 21st century know about his play?


53. sunnyday2 Posted: December 09, 2007 at 11:23 AM (#2639397)
We elected Frank Grant but I'd be hard pressed to tell you why. Not that he's not worthy. But what little we know about Frank Grant, Sol White and Bill Monroe provides virtually no way to differentiate among them that I can see. Not to even mention Charlie Grant. Charlie was differentiated however in the sense that however little we know about Frank, Sol and Bill, we know substantially less about Charlie.


54. burniswright Posted: December 10, 2007 at 04:07 AM (#2639840)
OK, these are some notes that Dom Denaro and I put together on Sol White and the Grant boys. If anybody who's senior to me here wants to move them to a different thread, be my guest. Actually, now that I think about it, everybody is senior to me here.

On Charlie Grant: there is every evidence that Grant was an excellent ballplayer, or McGraw wouldn't have tried the stunt that he did. Plus, as Paul Wendt points out, he played on the best teams of his era between 1896 and 1906. The problem with Charley is that he disappears from my radar at age 30. I honestly haven't a clue what he was doing during what should have been the second half of his career. Without that information, I don't see how we can make a viable case for him. Was he injured? On lesser teams? Darned if I know. Of the three, this is the guy who's a very real problem to evaluate.
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[burniswright wrote much more on Frank Grant and Sol White]