FC Goods is proud to be donating 50% of all profit from this series to the Negro League Baseball Museum in Kansas City, MO.
The Negro League Career Of
Before he was one of the best to ever play the game, Willie Mays was a stringy 17 year old outfielder on the 1948 Birmingham Black Barons. Mays was the youngest player on his team by a full seven years and hadn’t yet tapped into his eventually prodigious power. But he was already an elite defender due to his speed and rocket right arm.
Mays and the Black Barons ended up losing the 1948 Negro League World Series to the formidable Homestead Grays, but it ended up being the first of parts of three Negro League seasons for the Say Hey Kid. And as Mays would later tell it, those Black Barons teams could have played with anyone he ever saw.
The Negro League Career Of
Before Al Smith was a standout infielder for the 1947 Cleveland Buckeyes, he was an unbelievably good high school athlete in Missouri. He was the MVP of his baseball team, a basketball and track star, and he scored 33 touchdowns in one football season (including 10 in one game). Oh, and he was also a 160 lb division Golden Gloves boxing champion.
So maybe it isn’t surprising that the moment the 18 year old starting playing SS for the Buckeyes, he dominated. In that 1947 season, he led the Negro American League with 27 doubles and 11 triples, and was second in homers with 12. It was good enough to take Cleveland to the Negro League World Series (they lost 4-1 to the New York Cubans), before he was signed by the Indians in 1948.
The Negro League Career Of
How did a 17 year old Hank Thompson find himself playing alongside the likes of Satchel Paige, Willard Brown, Hilton Smith, and Buck O’Neil for the most prestigious Negro League team of his time, the Kansas City Monarchs?
Simple: Hank Thompson hit. And hit. And hit some more. It started right away, but by 1947 he was the Monarchs’ three-hitter as a 21 year old, on the way to a .310/.391/.485 lifetime Negro League slash line across four seasons. The lefty swinger played capable defense all over the field too: right field, second base, and shortstop in the Negro Leagues before settling in at third base in white baseball, where he became the 3rd black player in the modern era.
The Negro League Career Of
Did you know that the man they would one day call “The Hammer” started off as a skinny shortstop who hit cross-handed? Maybe the strange mechanics was why the Brooklyn Dodgers took no notice of him as a 15 year old trying out for the team at Ebbets Field in 1950.
Whatever the reason, Aaron caught on with a black semipro team before officially joining the Negro Leagues in 1952 for 26 games with the Indianpolis Clowns. Now he was 17, still skinny and hitting cross-handed, but it didn’t matter: he already killed the ball. He ended up hitting .366 with 5 homers and 9 steals on the way to a Negro League World Series championship before the Braves ever came calling. Now imagine if he’d uncrossed his hands sooner.
The Negro League Career Of
Imagine being the guy tasked with taking over 2nd base from Jackie Robinson for the Brooklyn Dodgers. That was Jim “Junior” Gilliam, and before he won the Rookie of the Year doing that job in 1953, he honed his skills across five years with the Baltimore Elite Giants.
It was as a 17 year old in his Elite Giants tryout that the small, super determined, defense-first infielder built the foundation of his game. His manager, Tubby Scales, saw him struggling to get to the outside curveball, so he yelled for him to try pinch-hitting (and also called him “Junior” for the first time). Gilliam did, and it paid off: he was a 3-time East-West All-Star before he ever stepped foot into white baseball.
The Negro League Career Of
In one sense, there’s nothing special about a good high school aged baseball player being seen by a scout and scooped up by a pro team. But when that scout is Cool Papa Bell and he wants to send you to play for Buck O’Neil, well, then it’s special.
That’s how Ernie Banks got to be the starting shortstop for the Kansas City Monarchs in 1950. After a two year Army stint, he got back to Kansas City in 1953, hit .347, and the Cubs pounced. Perhaps the very best team Banks played on, though, was after that 1950 season, when he barnstormed as the shortstop for the Jackie Robinson All-Stars, where he was teammates with Jackie, Roy Campanella, Don Newcombe, and Larry Doby, among others.
How We Made These Wallets
STEP 1
Source Rare, Vintage Signature Series Gloves
The gloves used for this Limited Edition series were some of the most difficult to find and expensive to acquire in the history of FC Goods. Because of the legendary names and the age of the gloves (no player in this series played past 1976, and most of these gloves are from the 60s and earlier), this was a challenge– but one we loved taking on.
STEP 2
HAND-CUT SWATCHES FROM EACH GLOVE
To celebrate the legends we’re featuring in this Limited Edition collection, our team made sure to maintain most or all of the player’s name from the glove in each hand-cut slice of glove leather so that every wallet in the series features that signature.
STEP 3
COMBINE WITH FULL-GRAIN STEERHIDE
FC Goods utilizes premium quality full-grain steerhide for the middle panel in every Limited Edition product to provide structural integrity and durable functionality.
STEP 4
MACHINE SEW EACH WALLET INDIVIDUALLY
With glove leather selected and cut, our team of leatherworkers craft each wallet with artisan-level attention to detail by sewing each wallet one-at-a-time.
STEP 5
STAMP WITH GOLD LEAF FC GOODS LOGO
No FC Goods wallet is complete until we stamp our logo in gold leaf foil into the final product. It’s the perfect accent to the wallet, and a symbol of the standard of craftsmanship to which we hold ourselves.
How We Made
These Wallets
STEP 1
Source Rare, Vintage Signature Series Gloves
The gloves used for this Limited Edition series were some of the most difficult to find and expensive to acquire in the history of FC Goods. Because of the legendary names and the age of the gloves (no player in this series played past 1976, and most of these gloves are from the 60s and earlier), this was a challenge– but one we loved taking on.
STEP 2
HAND-CUT SWATCHES FROM EACH GLOVE
To celebrate the legends we’re featuring in this Limited Edition collection, our team made sure to maintain most or all of the player’s name from the glove in each hand-cut slice of glove leather so that every wallet in the series features that signature.
STEP 3
COMBINE WITH FULL-GRAIN STEERHIDE
FC Goods utilizes premium quality full-grain steerhide for the middle panel in every Limited Edition product to provide structural integrity and durable functionality.
STEP 4
MACHINE SEW EACH WALLET INDIVIDUALLY
With glove leather selected and cut, our team of leatherworkers craft each wallet with artisan-level attention to detail by sewing each wallet one-at-a-time.
STEP 5
STAMP WITH GOLD LEAF FC GOODS LOGO
No FC Goods wallet is complete until we stamp our logo in gold leaf foil into the final product. It’s the perfect accent to the wallet, and a symbol of the standard of craftsmanship to which we hold ourselves.
Benefiting The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum
FC Goods is proud to have joined over 90 other artists and brands in the baseball community for the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum Digital Art Show in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Negro Leagues. Click here to see the other excellent work in the show.
Includes Leather Conditioner
How to care for your FC Goods Wallet
We include premium leather conditioner with every Negro League 100 Series wallet purchase. Conditioning your wallet helps preserve the quality and history of its leather—aged by weekend double headers and late-night games of catch. The better you care for your wallet, the longer you’ll be able to carry that history with you.
DID YOU KNOW?
We also offer an option where we use a minimal piece of baseball glove leather. Check out The Classics.