Without James Raleigh “Biz” Mackey, there would be no Roy Campanella.
A three-time National League MVP and an eight-time National League All-Star, Campanella played for the Baltimore Elite Giants when Mackey managed the team. Campanella was 15 years old, not even old enough to drive. He held his own in the Negro Leagues, thanks to Mackey’s tutelage. “Biz Mackey was the master of defense of all catchers,” said Campanella.
Mackey’s introduction to Campanella is lost to history. But Neil Lanctot surmises how these baseball icons met. In Campy, his 2011 biography of Campanella, Lanctot poses the theory that Mackey was hurt, thereby in need of a replacement catcher for the Giants circa late 1930s. Mackey learned of Campanella through the baseball grapevine.
Without Biz Mackey, there would be no Monte Irvin. No Larry Doby. No Don Newcombe.
When Mackey managed the Newark Eagles in 1940-1941, he mentored these future major league players who led integration in the major leagues by the end of the 1940s. Fired by Eagles owner Effa Manley after the 1941 season, Mackey returned to play for the Eagles in 1945. Mackey batted .307, a stellar batting average made even more impressive by his age—48. Manley hired Mackey to manage the Eagles in 1946. His governance led the Eagles to champion status in the 1946 Negro League World Series against the Kansas City Monarchs. Newark’s tenure as the home of the Eagles ended just two years later; the team moved to Houston, where it played in 1949-1950 before disbanding.
Fired by Eagles owner Effa Manley after the 1941 season, Mackey returned to play for the Eagles in 1945. Mackey batted .307, a stellar batting average made even more impressive by his age—48. Manley hired Mackey to manage the Eagles in 1946. Under his governance, the Eagles beat the Kansas City Monarchs in the 1946 Negro League World Series. Its tenure in Newark ended two years later—the team moved to Houston, where it played in 1949 and 1950 before disbanding.
Born in Eagle Pass, Texas—the first American settlement on the Rio Grande River—Biz Mackey never reached the major leagues as a player or a manager. But his influence is questionable, if not properly recognized. Biz Mackey got inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006, decades after his baseball career ended.
Mackey did, however, receive accolades from his peers in the baseball community other than the Hall of Fame entry. The book Blackball Stars cites Cum Posey as saying that Biz Mackey is the all-time best black catcher, including Josh Gibson on Posey’s Homestead Grays ball club. Posey’s praise of Mackey over Gibson is like the Steinbrenner clan saying that the best shortstop of the 1990s was Nomar Garciaparra, not Derek Jeter.
Scholars, historians, and enthusiasts of the Negro Leagues will know of Raleigh “Biz” Mackey and dozens of other players that don’t get the marquee recognition of Satchel Paige or Josh Gibson. Mackey deserves to be recognized in the pantheon of Negro League icons who played before Jackie Robinson broke the racial barrier in 1947, not only for his achievements on the baseball diamond, but also for his mentoring of those who changed the game of baseball.
Biz Mackey died in 1959.
A version of this article appeared on www.thesportspost.com on June 30, 2013.