They were named for the greatest boxer in the world at the time, but the Joe Louis Punchers made a name for themselves in the world of softball in the 1940s.
The conglomerate of players from Flint and Detroit barnstormed the country in 1947, playing more than 90 games by some estimates while losing only six. In succeeding years they played in the National Fastball League as the circuit’s first all-black team.
And while their exact record is hard to pin down, there is little doubt they established themselves as “the greatest collection of colored soft ballers in the country,” according to one national magazine of the era.
“They were fabulous ballplayers, and it was something just to have them talking to you,” said Gerald Moore, a 10 year-old at the time whose father, Willie Moore, played second base and “short fielder” for the team. “They had it all: pitching, defense, offense, speed, power.”
The team combined the best of Flint’s M&S Orange squad, which had reached the world finals in Cleveland in 1945, and the Joe Louis Brown Bombers of Detroit. They were technically based in Pontiac in 1947 but played to huge crowds at Detroit’s Mack Field, Flint’s Athletic Park and other diamonds across the U.S. and Canada.
“We went all over the country, even to California,” said Collins Pack, now 91 and the only surviving member of the team. “A lot of times Joe Louis was with us. We always had a big crowd when he was around.”
In the midst of his 12-year reign as world heavyweight champion, Louis didn’t play with the team but sometimes coached first base. His appearance in Flint once brought 2,400 fans to Athletic Park, near Berston Field House.
“I had the pleasure of sitting next to him at a couple of games,” said Gerald Moore. “One day he looked at me and said, “I want another hot dog.”
“How you going to say no to Joe Louis?”
But Louis couldn’t have broken the starting lineup of his own club.
Besides Moore and Pack at shortstop, the key players included Flint’s Bill Hamilton at first base and catcher, infielders Wilbert King and Johnny Ross, Country Davis at catcher and outfielders Eli Copeland, Floyd Bates, Rogell Stevens and Silas “Caledonia” Phelps.
Bates, King and Phelps also played basketball with the Harlem Globetrotters, and Pack said Phelps was “a better outfielder than Willie Mays.”
“Man, could he roam,” Moore agreed.
But the strength of the team was pitching, led by Charley Justice. The Detroit ace threw a softball like a baseball, and kept batters off-balance with a curve, slow ball and drop pitch.
“All he’d ever say was, ‘Get me one run,’ ” said Pack. “Out of town, there were more people watching him warm up than watching us take batting practice.
Also pitching were Alex Childs of Detroit, Percy McCracken of Flint and Percy McConner of Pontiac.
They so dominated the game that team batting averages were seldom over .200. The Punchers hit .201 one year, good for third in the league, and Hamilton led the circuit with 52 hits in 83 games.
“It was hard to get a run,” Pack recalls. “The batters couldn’t catch up with the pitchers.”
Still, Justice allegedly hit one over the fence at Briggs Stadium, and Moore remembers Bates ending a 19 inning game at Athletic Park by putting one on the roof of a house beyond left field.
The Punchers’ biggest rivals were Dow AC of Midland and the Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons, a powerhouse assembled by the owner of the basketball team that would become the Detroit Pistons.
“Fred Zollner brought in players from all over the world and gave them jobs in his piston factory,” said Moore.
Among the best was pitcher Bill West, who silenced the Punchers’ bats on more than one occasion.
“When he warmed up, you could hear the ball cracking all through the ballpark,” Moore said.
Pack recalls hitting a game-winning home run at Fort Wayne, a feat that earned him a $25 bonus from Louis but also led to the lights being turned out in the Punchers’ locker room after the game.
The Punchers ran off 21 consecutive wins at one stretch of 1947, but couldn’t get past Midland in the state tournament, losing the final two games 1-0 and 3-2.
In the NFL and National Softball League, they could never get by the Zollners, who won seven league titles in eight years from 1945-52.
But Hamilton was the league’s Rookie of the Year in 1948 and the Eastern Division MVP in 1949, when he led the league in RBls, hits and doubles and was second in home runs and total bases.
“The Flint lads have been a credit to the game and to their race,” praised a league publication.
By 1950, though, Justice had moved on to Canada, McCracken had been sidelined by a broken jaw and the Punchers eventually faded into history. Other players scattered to other teams, but none matched the fame generated by the Joe Louis Punchers in their brief existence.
“I don’t think there will ever be another softball team like that in Flint,” said Moore.
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