Hilton Smith

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American baseball player (1907–1983)

title: "Hilton Smith" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1907-births", "1983-deaths", "20th-century-african-american-sportsmen", "20th-century-american-sportsmen", "algodoneros-de-torreón-players", "american-expatriate-baseball-players-in-mexico", "baseball-pitchers", "baseball-players-from-kansas-city,-missouri", "baseball-players-from-texas", "bismarck-churchills-players", "kansas-city-monarchs-players", "mexican-league-baseball-pitchers", "monroe-monarchs-players", "national-baseball-hall-of-fame-inductees", "negro-league-baseball-era-champions", "negro-league-baseball-strikeout-champions", "negro-league-baseball-wins-champions", "negro-league-pitching-triple-crown-winners", "new-orleans-crescent-stars-players", "people-from-giddings,-texas", "prairie-view-a&m-panthers-baseball-players", "tecolotes-de-nuevo-laredo-players"] description: "American baseball player (1907–1983)" topic_path: "science/astronomy" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilton_Smith" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary American baseball player (1907–1983) ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox baseball biography"]

Field	Value
name	Hilton Smith
image	Hilton Smith.png
position	Pitcher
birth_date
birth_place	Giddings, Texas, U.S.
death_date
death_place	Kansas City, Missouri, U.S.
bats	Right
throws	Right
debutleague	Negro leagues
debutyear	1932
debutteam	Monroe Monarchs
finalleague	Negro leagues
finalyear	1948
finalteam	Kansas City Monarchs
statleague	Negro leagues
stat1label	Win–loss record
stat1value	70–38
stat2label	Earned run average
stat2value	2.92
stat3label	Strikeouts
stat3value	594
hoflink	National Baseball Hall of Fame
hoftype	National
hofdate	2001
hofmethod	Veterans Committee
::

Monroe Monarchs (–)
Kansas City Monarchs (–) | highlights =
6× All-Star (1937–1942)
Negro World Series champion (1942)
Negro American League Triple Crown (1938)
Negro American League ERA leader (1938)
3× Negro American League wins leader (1937, 1938, 1941)
4× Negro American League strikeout leader (1937–1939, 1941) | hoflink = National Baseball Hall of Fame | hoftype = National | hofdate = 2001 | hofmethod = Veterans Committee

Hilton Lee Smith (February 27, 1907 – November 18, 1983) was an American right-handed pitcher in Negro League baseball. He pitched alongside Satchel Paige for the Kansas City Monarchs and the Bismarck Club between 1932 and 1948. He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2001.

Early life

Born in Giddings, Texas, Smith began his career in black baseball's equivalent of the minor leagues with the Austin Black Senators in Austin, Texas. Smith made the dean's list as a student at Prairie View A&M College in 1928 and 1929. He was an outfielder in his first college season and a pitcher in his second year.

His big-league debut was with the Monroe Monarchs of Monroe, Louisiana, in 1932. In 1934, Smith wed Louise Humphrey. They had two children.

Semiprofessional career

From 1935 to 1936, Smith pitched for the Bismarck semiprofessional team organized by Neil Churchill. In 1935, his teammates included Satchel Paige, Ted "Double Duty" Radcliffe, Quincy Trouppe, Barney Morris, and Chet Brewer. In August, the team won the national semipro championship in Wichita, Kansas. In 1936, Paige, Radcliffe, and Brewer departed and Smith became the ace of the Bismarck team. They returned to the national championship, where Smith won four games, but Bismarck failed to repeat as champions.

Smith joined the semipro Fulda Giants of rural Fulda, Minnesota, in 1949 after being recruited by manager Dick Reusse following Smith's tenure with the Kansas City Monarchs. Due to having a "dead arm" following his major league career, Smith played more first base than he pitched for the Fulda Giants.

Negro league career

In late 1936, Smith signed with the Kansas City Monarchs. From 1937 until his retirement in 1948, Smith was a star pitcher on the Monarchs. He possessed an outstanding curveball, but was overshadowed by his more flamboyant teammate Satchel Paige. Often, Paige would pitch the first three innings of a game, leaving Smith to pitch the remaining six. Also, unlike Paige, Smith was a very good hitter. Smith led the Negro American League in wins three times (1937–38, 1941). He also led the NAL with strikeouts four times (1937–39, 1941). He was tied with Ray Brown as the second player in Negro League history to win the pitching Triple Crown, doing so in 1938 with 9 wins, 88 strikeouts, and a 1.92 ERA.

Post-playing career and death

After retiring from baseball, Smith worked as a schoolteacher and later as a steel-plant foreman. He also scouted for the Chicago Cubs. Smith had a quiet, reserved temperament, but in his later years, he stood up for Negro League players in their struggle to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. He died in 1983 in Kansas City, Missouri. In 2001, he was posthumously inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Notes

References

;Citations

{{citation | last1=Clark | first1=Dick | last2=Lester | first2=Larry | title=The Negro Leagues Book | place=Cleveland, Ohio | publisher=Society for American Baseball Research | year=1994 }}
{{citation | last=Hogan | first=Lawrence D. | year=2006 | title=Shades of Glory: The Negro Leagues and the Story of African-American Baseball | place=Washington, DC | publisher=National Geographic | isbn=0-7922-5306-X | url-access=registration | url=https://archive.org/details/shadesofgloryneg00hoga }}
{{citation | last=Riley | first=James A. | title=The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues | place=New York | publisher=Carroll & Graf | year=1994 | isbn=0-7867-0959-6 }}
{{citation | last=Thornley | first=Stew | title=Baseball in Minnesota: The Definitive History | place=St. Paul, MN | publisher=Minnesota Historical Society Press | year=2006 | isbn=0-87351-551-X }}

References

(December 16, 2020). "MLB officially designates the Negro Leagues as 'Major League'".
"Hilton Lee Smith inducted into the Prairie View A&M Sports Hall of Fame". [[Prairie View A&M University]].
(2000). "Biographical Dictionary of American Sports: Q-Z". [[Greenwood Publishing Group]].
McNary, Kyle P.. (2001). "North Dakota Integrated Baseball History". Pitch Black Baseball.
Reusse, Patrick (2020, August 28). Someday, maybe we'll share shin guards. Brother Michael, gone now, never got to see that. The ''Minnesota Star Tribune''. https://www.startribune.com/someday-maybe-we-ll-share-shin-guards-brother-michael-gone-now-never-got-to-see-that/572240662

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