Alabama Pitts

Edwin Collins "Alabama" Pitts Jr. (November 22, 1909 – June 7, 1941) was an American convicted felon who garnered media attention in his attempt to play professional baseball after his release from Sing Sing prison. While serving five years for robbing a grocery store at gunpoint, he played for the prison baseball and American football squads. After being denied the ability to play for the Albany Senators of the International League in 1935 by the president of the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues, he appealed to Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who granted his request.

Pitts went on to play for five years as a baseball player for the Albany Senators; York White Roses and Trenton Senators of the New York–Pennsylvania League; Charlotte Hornets, Gastonia Spinners, Valdese Textiles, and Lenoir Finishers of the Carolina League; Winston-Salem Twins of the Piedmont League; and Hickory Rebels of the Tar Heel League. He played football for two years, including one as a member of the National Football League's Philadelphia Eagles. Two films (The Billion Dollar Scandal and Over the Wall) produced in the 1930s were inspired by his life story. Pitts was fatally stabbed at a tavern in June 1941.

Early life, family and education Pitts was born in Opelika, Alabama, to Edwin Pitts Sr., a member of the United States Cavalry, and Erma Mills Pitts on November 22, 1909. (Outlaw Ballplayers and Pro-Football-Reference.com list his date of birth as November 22, 1909, which is the date listed on his death certificate.)

Lewis Lawes had begun reforming Sing Sing when he became warden in 1919. In 1934, the Black Sheep went 10–2 against police departments and independent clubs. He also played basketball and baseball, in which he had a .500 batting average in 21 career games with eight home runs. He was noted by the Los Angeles Times in 1934 as "the most prominent jail-bird athlete in America."

Hack Wilson, who previously played for the Chicago Cubs, was moved off of the Senators' roster to make room for Pitts, Evers, the team's manager, obtained permission from the Canadian government to let Pitts play games in Montreal and Toronto, as an exception to their moral turpitude laws. Because of injuries, including to his shoulder and finger, Signed primarily for publicity reasons, he played in three games for the Eagles, recording two receptions for 21 yards. He played in a game for the New Rochelle Bulldogs on October 27, 1935.

Pitts started his own traveling basketball team on Thanksgiving Day 1935, called the Alabama Pitts All-Stars; he played with the team during the 1935–36 and 1936–37 seasons.

After re-signing with the Senators in March 1936, Pitts was demoted to the York White Roses of the New York–Pennsylvania League in May. and also played for the Stapleton Buffaloes. He married his second wife on December 13, 1937, in Valdese, and they had a daughter together in January 1939. Lawes sold Pitts's story to Warner Brothers by August 1935, and the film Over the Wall was released in April 1938 inspired by his life.

On June 7, 1941, Pitts was fatally stabbed in a tavern in Valdese when he tried to cut in to dance with a woman with whom another man was dancing. (SABR lists his date of death as June 6, 1941, but later says the incident began around 3a.m.) on June 7. A 24-year-old man was convicted of manslaughter in Pitts's death, and was sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison on December 9, 1941. The man later received a pardon by North Carolina governor J. Melville Broughton, who believed the act was justified as self-defense, since he claimed Pitts had been aggressive and threatening towards the couple.