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 I always welcome an opportunity to further our knowledge of the Negro Leagues, and Ron Christensen provides that today with an interesting essay about the great Negro League slugger, Mule Suttles, whose achievements have been largely forgotten over the passage of time.  I was familiar with him, but had no idea of what an outstanding player he was, so I’m glad to shine our baseball spotlight on him today. I think you’ll enjoy Ron’s essay. -GL

Let’s Remember Negro League Star, Mule Suttles

He would step to the plate amid chants from the crowd of “Kick Mule Kick” and knock away dirt caked to his cleats with a tap of his 50-ounce bat before resting it on his muscular shoulders honed from years working the coal mines, intently staring out at the pitcher as if to say, ‘let’s see what you got!’, then digging in to attack whatever the pitcher threw at him. He was a fan favorite, someone who could hit with power as well as for average, and at 6’3” and 250 pounds, he posed an intimidating presence when viewed from the pitcher’s mound. Make even a slight mistake with a pitch and he would punish you for it, with towering drives that seemed to gather momentum as they soared majestically over the outfield fence, drives launched from his heavy bat with the force of a mule-kick, hit so hard that some said it made the ball cry.

He conjures the image of Casey-At-The-Bat, when Casey didn’t strike out. But he was real, a gentle giant of a man who, throughout his more than twenty seasons of professional baseball, was widely regarded as one of the Negro League’s all-time elite power hitters, alongside such notables as Josh Gibson, Turkey Stearnes and Buck Leonard. He was George ‘Mule’ Suttles, a quiet son of Alabama who played his entire baseball career prior to integration, and unlike others who sought the limelight, he did his talking solely with his bat, seeking no notoriety outside the confines of the playing field. It was this unassuming modesty that nearly destined him to the forgotten sidelines of baseball’s past, a faded footnote of a bygone era.

But he wasn’t forgotten, and he didn’t fade into obscurity, finding his rightful place in baseball history with his induction to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006, forty years after his passing. And though his name might not be as well remembered as those of so many others, his legacy remains. Baseball historian Bill James once ranked Suttles the 43rd greatest player of all time, and though some might debate where he ranks among the all-time greats, there’s no doubting Mule Suttles belongs in the conversation.

Known primarily as a prodigious slugger, Suttles is credited with 237 career home runs, a lesser number when compared to such contemporaries as Babe Ruth, but then Negro League seasons were far shorter than major league seasons. Given this consideration, Suttles averaged 40 home runs for every 550 plate appearances, or one every 13.75 times. His career marks for slugging (.617), OPS (1.027), OPS+ (171), and OBP (.410) are certainly credible numbers, as is his career .337 batting average. His finest season might well have been in 1926 when he won the Negro National League Triple Crown with 32 home runs, 130 RBIs, and a .425 batting average, while playing with the St. Louis Stars. His 151 hits included 28 doubles and 19 triples, and his OBP (.472), SLG (.877), OPS (1.349) and OPS+ (241) seemed to lap even the likes of Turkey Stearnes and Cool Papa Bell. The big man even stole 15 bases.

But it was his monumental home runs, smashed with his tree-trunk of a bat, that Suttles is best remembered for. One of these was recalled by teammate Willie Wells, a fellow Hall of Famer, from a game at Tropicana Field in Havana, Cuba, where the centerfield fence was 60’ high and more than 500’ feet from home plate. Suttles hit one that not only cleared the fence, but continued over the heads of soldiers on horseback who were outside it managing crowd control. In another game in 1929, Suttles is said to have hit three home runs in the same inning. When he came to bat a fourth time, the other team walked off the field.

Suttles’ most noteworthy home runs came during the Negro League’s East-West All-Star Games, an annual contest that began in 1933 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Suttles hit the only home run in that inaugural game and is therefore credited with hitting the All-Star Game’s first-ever home run. Even more noteworthy is the one he hit in the 1935 game, also at Comiskey Park. This one was a three-run walk-off blast he hit with two outs in the bottom of the eleventh inning off future Hall of Famer Martin Dihigo to win the game, 11-8. In five East-West classics, Suttles batted .412 with an .883 slugging percentage, proving himself a clutch performer against the league’s best pitchers in must-win games.

Suttles also performed well in exhibition games against major league stars. In 26 documented contests, Suttles batted .374 with five home runs, including one off Bobo Newsom in 1933, a season in which Newsom won 30 games for the Los Angeles Angels (then a PCL team), and another in 1935 off Larry French, an integral part of the Chicago Cubs pennant-winning team that season. In yet another game in 1934 facing Big Jim Weaver of the Cubs, Suttles hit a single, a double and a triple. When he came to bat a fourth time, Weaver looked to shortstop Leo Durocher for advice on how to pitch to him. Durocher shrugged. “Just pitch and pray,” he said. “Just pitch and pray.”

Ron Christensen

* In researching this article, I noticed discrepancies among my cited references regarding Suttles, both in his professional and personal depictions. When possible, I attempted to use multiple sources to verify content. When not possible, I chose those I believed most plausible.

REFERENCES:
1. Baseball Reference: George Suttles
2. SABR: Mule Suttles – by Stephen V. Rice
3. SABR: August 11, 1935, The Mule Kicks The Maestro in Negro League All Star Game – by
Frank Amoroso
4. Wikipedia: Mule Suttles
5. The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Leagues – by James A. Riley
6. The Negro Leagues: Mule Suttles, A Quiet Negro Leagues Legend – by Jake Rill
7. Black Past: George “Mule” Suttles – by Beatrice Johnson
8. Words Above Replacement: A Mule If There Ever Was One – by Bill Thompson
9. Los Ángeles Times: A League of Extraordinary Men – by Lonnie White and Ben 

Photo Credits: All found on Google search

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