Porter Moss was like no one baseball had ever seen, black or white.

He stood 5-11 but was a giant when he took the mouth, a larger-than-life personality.

He had the swagger of Satchel Page on and off the field, and at his best,

he had the strikeout numbers to match. Porta Moss threw from a deadly submarine delivery.

His arm dropping so low, it dug up the fires of hell and blew it past hitters throughout Negro

League's baseball for his hometown Cincinnati Tigers,

for the Kansas City Monarchs, for the Chicago American Giants, for the Memphis Red Sox.

Porta Maw's played in three East West All-Star Games. And folks, as I've always said,

there was no sporting event in history like the East West All-Star Game. And if you make it

three times, that means

you've got the goods. Porta-Moss would have certainly played in a fourth East-West All-Star

game. But he was murdered in the middle of the 1944 season at the age of 34.

This is Porta Moss's story, one we can never let die.

There is no obituary in the Cincinnati Inquirer for Porter Moss.

To that day, he may have been the greatest picture the city had ever produced.

But there was no record in the local paper of him dying, or for that matter, even living.

Most records of Porta Moss come from the same two places as most Negro League stories through the black press and newspapers

like the Pittsburgh Courier and through the stories told from fathers to sons, teammates

to spectators, veterans to historians. Negro League's baseball history is built on oral tradition,

not by choice but by necessity.

William Rodin.

In the white press, we didn't have birthdays.

...