Joined: 10 Aug 2006
Posts: 2404
Location: Gold Canyon
Posted: Sun Nov 05, 2006 9:46 pm Post subject: Rest in peace Silas Simmons: 1895 - 2006
Andrew Carter / The Orlando Sentinel wrote:
Silas Simmons, Negro Leagues baseball player, dies at age 111
The oldest known baseball player who ever lived received a visit from a dear friend Oct. 28. Mary Clowers could tell Silas Simmons didn't have long to live.
"I could tell that he was weak," Clowers said. "He said he was happy. He said he was satisfied. He made us think that it was OK for him to go."
More than 111 years after he came into this world, Mr. Simmons left it quietly last Sunday at the retirement community where he lived in St. Petersburg, Fla.
"He was fulfilled," said Clowers, who first met Mr. Simmons in 1971 at St. Augustine's Episcopal Church, shortly after he had moved to Florida from East Orange, N.J. The funeral was Saturday.
Mr. Simmons was born in Middleton, Del., in 1895, the same year as Babe Ruth. As a young man, Mr. Simmons played stickball in the streets of Philadelphia. Later, in 1912, he began a 17-year career in the Negro Leagues. Mr. Simmons played for the Homestead Grays and Cuban All-Stars, among other teams.
For most of his life, few people knew of Mr. Simmons' baseball past. He didn't talk much of it. A genealogist discovered Mr. Simmons last spring.
Soon, a Negro Leagues researcher in Texas, Dr. Layton Revel, was on his way to Florida to meet with living history. Since then, everyone wanted to hear Mr. Simmons' story.
He was happy to talk. He spoke of a simpler time, when he was paid as much as $10 a game to do what he loved. He also spoke of a much different time, when a man's skin color determined his rights.
Mr. Simmons never was angry that he didn't get the chance to play in the major leagues. He was happy, instead, to have played at the highest level that a black man could in his day.
"Those days were great days," he said last month.
Revel threw Mr. Simmons a large birthday party when he turned 111, 15 days before he died. About 300 people showed up, including almost 40 former Negro Leaguers. For a day, Mr. Simmons was a star again.
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