This rare photograph of “Pop” Lloyd was taken in 1909 when he played for the Philadelphia Giants. The story of the extraordinary black ballplayer, John Henry “Pop” Lloyd can really be told through the veneer of an old folk song whose words tell the story of another mighty “larger-than-life” African-American folk hero. Today the song’s words can jar our sensibilities but they are unquestionably part of our nation’s sometimes insensitive past. De man dat invented de steam drill thought he was mighty fine, John Henry drove his fifteen feet an’ de steam drill only made nine, Lawd, Lawd, an’ de steam drill only made nine. On April 25, 1884, John Henry “Pop” Lloyd was born in Palatka, Florida. A century later, during the summer of 1985, Pop’s old friend Henry “Whitey” Gruhler, a former sports editor of the Atlantic City Press nearing the end of his own time, recalled with considerable emotion the wonderful baseball memories of a wonderful man of long-gone summer days. “You can see by the tears how much I loved him,” Whitey would say. The great Philadelphia Giants team from 1909 shows Pop along with teammates Bruce Petway, Frank Duncan, Spotswood Poles, and others. Since 1977, when Lloyd’s plaque went up at the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, visitors to the town where baseball purportedly was invented in 1839 learn about the feats of the man that star Negro League pitcher Max Manning referred to as a “gentle giant.” The inscription on Pop’s plaque tells us that he was “regarded as the finest shortstop to play in Negro baseball,” and that among his many accomplishments he was “instrumental in opening Yankee Stadium to Negro professional baseball in 1930.”
Posted on: Wed, 22 Oct 2014 20:11:34 +0000
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