Andy Cooper

Andrew Lewis Cooper (April 24, 1898 – June 3, 1941), nicknamed "Lefty", was an American professional baseball pitcher and player-manager in the Negro leagues. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006. An alumnus of Paul Quinn College, Cooper played nine seasons for the Detroit Stars and ten seasons for the Kansas City Monarchs, and briefly played for the Chicago American Giants. The Texan was tall and weighed .

In defiance of a threatened five-year Negro league ban for contract jumping, Cooper joined a 1927 barnstorming team that toured Hawaii and Japan. He spent most of his later career with the Monarchs. Cooper is the Negro league record holder for career saves. In a 1937 playoff game, he pitched 17 innings. Cooper served as manager or player-manager for the Monarchs from 1937 to 1940, leading the team to the pennant three times during those four seasons.

Due to the incomplete nature of Negro league baseball statistics , and the fact that Major League Baseball did not officially recognize the save statistic until the 1969 season, many Negro league pitchers are likely undercredited for the number of saves they actually recorded. That being said, Cooper is recognized as the "official" Negro league all-time leader in saves with 24. He also is tied for the most saves in a season by a Negro league player, with 6 in 1923; the other Negro league players to record 6 saves in a season were Tom Williams (1924), Army Cooper (1929), and Booker McDaniel (1945).

Career

Early career Cooper pitched for the Detroit Stars from 1920 to 1927. The Stars played in Mack Park, which was noted for its short fences. Despite the hitter-friendly dimensions of the park, Cooper excelled as a pitcher in Detroit. In The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, James characterized Cooper as the best Negro league pitcher of 1923.

Cooper was traded to the Kansas City Monarchs for five players in 1928.

Later career Cooper returned to the Stars for another season in 1930. In nine years with the Stars, he earned a 92-47 record. He rejoined the Monarchs in 1931. One of his best years was 1936, when he went 27–8 against all levels of competition. He made his only All-Star appearance that season, as Negro league All-Star games had not been played until three years earlier. Nearing the end of his career, Cooper pitched 17 innings in a playoff game that year versus the Chicago American Giants. Cooper gave up two runs in the first inning of the game, but he pitched 16 subsequent scoreless innings. In Black Baseball in Kansas City, Cooper was described as having "more junk than Fred Sanford", but he walked only one batter. The game was declared a tie after the 17th inning, but the Monarchs won the playoff series four games to one with the one tie. He also had a well-known pickoff move. He posted a 116–57 career record and went 72–30 over a six-year span. He often pitched three games in a five-game series, starting two and relieving another. He holds the Negro league career record for saves (29). Negro league historian Dick Clark called Cooper the greatest pitcher to play for Detroit, either for the Stars or the Tigers.

Winter leagues and barnstorming teams Cooper also played several seasons of winter baseball. He played in Cuba during the winters of 1923-24, 1924–25 and 1928–29; he compiled a 15-17 record there.

By 1927, player pay had been cut and morale was low in the NNL and the Eastern Colored League (ECL). To limit the options of the players, the leagues announced a five-year ban on any contract-jumping players. Cooper and three other Negro league players - Biz Mackey, Rap Dixon and Frank Duncan - decided to test the ban. They joined a traveling all-star team, the Philadelphia Royal Giants, in a four-month barnstorming tour of Japan. Upon his return, Cooper received a 30-day suspension and a $200 fine.

Cooper went barnstorming in the Pacific with the Royal Giants in 1932-33. The team earned a 47-2-1 record as they visited the Philippines, China, Korea and Japan. Cooper recorded a .342 batting average on the trip. The next year, he accompanied the Royal Giants to Japan, China, the Philippines and Hawaii for a four-month, 35-game trip.

Personal Cooper had one son, Andy Cooper Jr.

Illness and death According to reports in the Chicago Defender, Cooper reportedly suffered a stroke early in the 1941 pre-season. He left for his home in Waco to rest and recover, leaving Newt Allen as interim manager, but suffered a fatal heart attack on June 3, having never returned to the Monarchs. He was buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Waco.

The 109th United States Congress issued a resolution that year honoring the 2006 Negro league and pre-Negro league inductees. As of 2014, Cooper is one of eleven inductees whose plaques do not depict them wearing a cap with a team logo.

In 2014, Cooper made the final ballot for election to the Texas Sports Hall of Fame.