Ohio Northern University history professor David Strittmatter dove into the history of Alger native and Baseball Hall of Famer Ray Brown Sunday at the Allen County Museum.
Craig Kelly | The Lima News
LIMA — When a game or a season is on the line for baseball teams, it is important to have that “ace” — a pitcher whose repertoire was so effective that he could guarantee his team at least a shot at winning the game.
Alger’s Ray Brown was that kind of pitcher.
Born in 1908, Brown perplexed hitters for years. His pitches were so effective, including his “knee-buckling curveball,” according to Ohio Northern history professor David Strittmatter, that after losing the opening game of a doubleheader in the 11th inning after his outfielder dropped a ball, leading to an unearned run and a 1-0 loss, he insisted on pitching the next game, threatening to quit the team if he did not play. He then threw a five-hit complete-game shutout, leaving him with a day’s work that featured 20 innings pitched with eight hits total and one unearned run allowed.
For years, Brown’s achievements were veiled in relative obscurity because his achievements were made not in Major League Baseball but in the Negro Leagues, the same league that featured such iconic players as Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson and Cool Papa Bell. Brown played for teams in Dayton, Indianapolis and Detroit before becoming a mainstay for the Homestead Grays from 1932 to 1945, one of the powerhouse teams in the Negro Leagues. He also played baseball in Cuba, Venezuela, Mexico and Canada. He was finally elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006, 41 years after his death in 1965.
Speaking Sunday at the Allen County Museum, Strittmatter wanted to reintroduce Brown to the region, both to celebrate his legacy and also to highlight efforts to honor Brown in his hometown of Alger. Strittmatter first learned of Brown from a 2020 column by Joe Schriner in the Ada Herald.
“He said he was amazed that in this little town of Alger, which is only about five miles from campus, there’s no mention of their Hall of Famer who was born and raised there and graduated high school from there,” Strittmatter said. “He said it was sad but that it was also an opportunity.”
That opportunity is coming in the form of a collaboration between the ONU history department and the Alger village administration to rename the village park, complete with a ballpark, the Ray Brown Memorial Park. An art student at ONU is working on a mural that will be featured on the concession stand at the park later this year, and there is a fundraiser underway to help raise funds to pay for an Ohio Historical Marker at the park.
“Hopefully we’ll have the marker sometime in the summer,” Strittmatter said. “We’ll see where it goes from there, but hopefully there will be numerous additional improvements in the next couple of years.”
An online fundraiser has been set up through GoFundMe to help pay for the marker. Anyone wishing to donate can go to http://bit.ly/3SRT6Nd.
