Charlotte Hornets: Best of the Minors? 

By: C.G. Morelli

                                   1951 Tri-State League Standings  

With the Braves not yet settled in Atlanta by 1951, the hearts of Southern baseball fans still gravitated around the purity of local teams, recreational leagues, and minor league baseball.  And, residents of the Queen City during the 50’s would tell you that nobody was better than their very own 1951 Charlotte Hornets of the Tri State League (Class B).  In fact, the Hornets were so good that season that MiLB.com voted them to their list of the Top 100 Greatest Major League Teams of All Time (#36).  That’s out of a lot of baseball teams, folks…trust me.

It’s not all too surprising, however, when you consider their record of 100-44 (that’s a winning percentage of .714!).  They cruised past their competition, taking hold of first place in early May and coasting to a 15-game cushion over runner-up, Asheville.  They led the league in almost every statistical team category including batting average (.287), runs (940), hits (1,384), and RBI (819).

Their star player was a Cuban-born outfielder, named Francisco Campos, who won the Tri-State batting crown with a .368 average.  The man struck out only 20 times in the course of 556 plate appearances and he accentuated his 1951 performance with a 27-game hitting streak that spanned the month of May, and as his team’s only representative in the league All-Star game. 

The most amazing thing, however, about the ’51 Hornets’ season was not something they had done…it was something they could not do.  And that was to win in the playoffs.  The team lost in the first round of the playoffs to the bottom-seeded team from Spartanburg, SC.  It was a team who had finished 27 games behind Charlotte during the regular season. 

A Win For Integration

On August 10, 1951, the Danville Leafs defeated the Durham Bulls 5-4 in a relatively ordinary Carolina League game.  However, this game was very different from all the ones ever played in the league before it.  That’s because it marked the debut of Percy Miller, Jr. for the Danville Leafs.  He integrated the Carolina League and became the first black player in Southern white baseball.

Who Said That??

"Baseball is the very symbol, the outward and visible expression of the drive and push and rush and struggle of the raging, tearing, booming 19th century."                                                --Mark Twain