LOUIS SANTOP

The Pittsburgh Crawfords are considered to be one of baseball's best teams, with their five Hall of Famers. Among other factors, they boasted the formidable battery of Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson. But in the early days of black baseball the Lincoln Giants had a battery that serves as quite a rival. The Lincolns could pit either of their ace pitchers, Smokey Joe Williams and Cannonball Dick Redding, against Satchel, and Louis Santop was a match for Josh Gibson. Gibson was called "The Black Babe Ruth." but he wasn't the first to bear this title. It was a Santop original. When Ruth and Santop faced each other in 1920. Ruth went 0-4 while Santop had 3 hits in 4 at bats In the 14 exhibition games for which have have records, "Top" hit .296 against Major Leaguers

Louis Santop Lofin, aka Louis Santop, played for the Lincoln Giants, Brooklyn Royal Giants. Hilldale Daisies and several other teams in his 17-year career in the Negro Leagues. The six foot four inch, 240 pound Texan was an imposing figure. While he was in general a good-natured person, he could get tough with anybody In his book Blackball Stars, John Holway claims that Santop once got into a tussle with noted badboy Oscar Charleston and broke three of Oscarıs ribs

He was known as Big Bertha, after Germany's huge WWI gun. It was a well-earned nickname. In 1912 he hit a ball 500 feet. Impressive even by today's standards, it becomes an even mightier clout when it is realized that this was off of a Deadball Era baseball. But he wasnıt just a slugger: many say he hit well above 400. And to top it off, Santop wasnıt just a hitter, he was great behind the plate James Riley's biographical encyclopedia features a story in which Santop would squat behind the plate in pregame practices and zip the ball to every position in the infield for a full 15 minutes. Historian Robert Peterson reports that Santop, a superlative showman who sometimes called home runs before he whacked them over the fence, earned $500 a month, an enormous amount for that era

He helped his team to the 1924 Negro World Series, but made an error behind the plate that helped the Monarchs take the Series. That was the beginning of the end. The next year, another great catcher, Biz Mackey, took his place behind the plate Santop retired after the 1926 season and died in Philadelphia in 1942.