Kadir Nelson/John Collier
Updated May 8, 2021The land where turkeys roam
Remembering Hall of Famer Turkey Stearnes on his 120th birthday.
By Tom Derry | Hamtramck Stadium Grounds CrewThe great Negro League ballplayer Norman “Turkey” Stearnes was born on this date in 1901 in Nashville, Tennessee. Stearnes claimed he got his nickname because of the potbelly he had as a child. Others have said he got it because of the way he flapped his arms when he ran the bases.
Young Turkey Stearnes started out as a pitcher for Pearl High School in Nashville. When he wasn’t in school or practicing ball, Stearnes would work any job he could find. He delivered groceries, drove wagons, and even slopped pigs.
It was during this time that his father died.
Stearnes wasn’t the only Hall of Famer to play for the Detroit Stars, but he was the greatest player the team ever had — and one of the finest players in the history of baseball. After more than 20 incredible seasons in the Negro Leagues, the fleet-footed center fielder retired in 1942 with a hefty lifetime batting average of .344.
Most people assume that Josh Gibson hit more home runs than anyone else in Negro League history.
But research has shown that the official all-time leader is Turkey Stearnes, with 176 four-base clouts.
“I never counted my home runs,” Stearnes once said. “If they didn’t win a ballgame, they didn’t amount to anything. That’s what I wanted — to win the game.”
Stearnes started his Negro League baseball career with the Nashville Giants in 1920. After one season with the Montgomery Grey Sox, Stearnes joined the Detroit Stars in 1923. Stearnes led the Negro National League in home runs that year, and would lead the league five more times throughout his illustrious career.
In the 1920s, the Detroit Stars played their home games at Mack Park, at Mack and Fairview on the city's east side. After a terrible fire there in 1929, Detroit Stars owner John Roesink built the team a new stadium in Hamtramck, and Stearnes and his teammates had a new home for the 1930 season.
That year, Stearnes batted .353 for the Stars, leading the team to a postseason matchup against the St. Louis Stars. Stearnes put on an incredible hitting show, batting .481, clubbing three homers, and knocking in 11 runs.
One of his blasts was reported to have traveled over 500 feet.
But in the end, St. Louis won the best-of-seven series, four games to three.
“He hit the ball nine miles,” said former Negro Leaguer Jim Canada. “He was a show. People would go to see him play.”
In the midst of the Great Depression, the Detroit Stars soon faced financial difficulties, and Stearnes wound up playing for several other Negro League teams in New York, Kansas City, Chicago, and Philadelphia during his career.
Pitching legend Satchel Paige once said that Stearnes was “one of the greatest hitters we ever had. He was as good as Josh [Gibson]. He was as good as anybody who ever played ball.”
The best player I ever saw play for the Detroit Tigers was Al Kaline. He was a complete player.
Baseball historian Bill James ranked Kaline as the 90th greatest baseball player ever.
James ranked Stearnes as the 25th best.
Detroit baseball fans from the 1970s remember how Mark Fidrych talked to the baseball. Turkey Stearnes talked to his bats. He carried his favorite bats around with him in a violin case and believed they were living things, extensions of his own arms.
After games, teammates would hear him thank his bat when it delivered a big hit. Sometimes he would scold them after hitting a weak pop fly.
One teammate recalled that Stearnes once told a bat, “If I had used you, I would’ve hit a home run.”
“Stearnes was very particular about his bat,” said Hall of Famer Judy Johnson. “If he made an out, he’d sit there holding it and talking. ‘I hit that good,’ he’d say. I believe sometimes he carried that bat to bed with him.”
Stearnes was also an outstanding outfielder.
“Everyone knows Cool Papa Bell was the fastest man,” said Negro Leaguer Ted “Double Duty” Radcliffe. “But Cool Papa Bell couldn’t field with Turkey Stearnes. He was faster, but Turkey Stearnes was one of the best fly-ball men.”
“If they don’t put him in the Hall of Fame,” said Bell, “they probably shouldn’t put anyone in.”
In his prime, Stearnes was denied the chance to play in the white "major leagues" because of the color of his skin.
“They had to deal with discrimination and all of the crap that goes along with that," says Stearnes's daughter Rosilyn Brown. But "they weren’t bitter at all about not making it to the ‘majors.’ They did it for the love of the game.”
Throughout his Negro Leagues career, Stearnes spent his offseasons toiling in a local factory, which was owned by none other than Detroit Tigers owner Walter Briggs. Even after Jackie Robinson broke the major-league color barrier in 1947, Briggs refused to sign a player of color to the Tigers.
After his playing career, Stearnes worked at Ford Motor Company’s Rouge complex for more than 20 years, briefly working in the same place and the same time as a young Berry Gordy Jr.
In his retirement, Stearnes would often attend Detroit Tigers games at Tiger Stadium, preferring to sit with friends in the lower-deck bleachers. And starting in 1974, Stearnes would often find himself sitting in the stands right behind the Tigers' new centerfielder, a Black man from the east side of Detroit who, just like Stearnes, wore the Number 8.
His name was Ron LeFlore.
“I know a lot of boys, and I have fun out there with them," Stearnes once told The New York Times. "We talk. We discuss things without fighting. It’s a good game. It’s the best game known. You go to see it, you’ll like it.”
Nettie Mae, who played a key role in getting her husband inducted, passed away in 2014.
Both of Stearnes’s daughters live in the Detroit area and are excited about the plans to renovate historic Hamtramck Stadium, one of the five major Negro League stadiums left in the country.
"This was a special place for him and the Negro Leaguers," says Stearnes's daughter Joyce Thompson.
"The legacy he left behind is one of peaceful action, hard work, quiet confidence and team unity," says Stearnes's granddaughter Vanessa Ivy Rose. "His birthday is a reminder to continue upon the golden road of greatness he and Grandma Nettie paved for all of us to follow."
The Hamtramck Stadium Grounds Crew is thrilled to help restore the ball field that was once home to Norman “Turkey” Stearnes and the Detroit Stars. When I’m cutting the grass at Hamtramck Stadium, I often think about Turkey Stearnes and his teammates and the 16 other Hall of Famers who once played on this field.
One day last year, I was riding my mower in centerfield and I wondered what Turkey Stearnes would think about our efforts to preserve his old home.
A few seconds later, I saw a large bird walking around near first base.
I rode my mower toward first base, to get a better look.
Sure enough, it was a turkey.
I think he approves.
We’ll take good care of your field, Turkey.
Tom Derry is the founder and head groundskeeper of the Hamtramck Stadium Grounds Crew.
