AS MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL’S regular season winds down this week (c’mon Phils, nail that NL East title down already!) and most of the playoff match-ups have been determined (this Red Sox fan would like to thank rival AL West division winners the Los Angeles Angels for beating the Texas Rangers Tuesday night, thus helping the Sox clinch the AL Wild Card spot) there’s a lot of fantastic baseball watching to be had this month.
Which brings us to this week’s cover story, about a man who any local baseball fan knows about. But maybe not all of the great stories tied to him.
John Henry “Pop” Lloyd (who used the name Sam while playing in Cuba during the winters) played pro baseball in the Negro Leagues between 1906 and 1932, including two turns with the Bacharach Giants of Atlantic City.
As Michael Pritchard writes in this week’s terrific cover story, which includes several of those aforementioned baseball stories, Lloyd, who’s in the Hall of Fame both in Cooperstown and Kansas City, had a local stadium dedicated to him back in 1949, which still is used, and has become a legendary figure in this area.
Decades after his time playing baseball — both in Cuba and America — Lloyd continues to be an inspiration for young and old alike.
A bronze relief that was a part of the former home of the Atlantic City Surf at Bernie Robbins Stadium had been plucked by the Pop Lloyd Committee when members heard that items from the ball field were being auctioned on eBay after the Surf skipped town.
Hopes are that, along with the massive collection of Pop Lloyd memorabilia that Stockton College and the John Henry “Pop” Lloyd Committee has in their archives, a museum of some type will be built in honor of Pop — maybe even in the future at the school.
That Babe Ruth himself called Pop Lloyd the greatest player he ever saw and that the former Atlantic City resident is in the HOF should be enough to make that happen at some point.
Whether you’re a fan of baseball or not, if you don’t know much about this historic figure — who, as Pritchard points out, was one of the first blacks to play at Yankee Stadium — and gave Ty Cobb a run for his money, you’ll delight in reading this week’s cover story and the related photo gallery, which you can see online at acweekly.com.
Furthermore, you’ll enjoy the 17th annual weekend celebration of Pop Lloyd, which kicks off Friday, Oct. 2, at Stockton College at 9am and runs through Sunday with a special art show at the Atlantic City Art Center, “Baseball & Jazz — The Art of Wayne Manns” at 2pm.
If you have any Pop Lloyd stories to share, please feel free to leave a comment.
Widely considered the top prospect in baseball, Trout was selected 25th overall by the Angels in the 2009 MLB Draft. Since then, the local product has been tearing up the minor leagues, which led to his promotion.
In 2010, Navarro wasn’t just remembered as the last player to take the field with Lloyd, on opposing teams, but was believed to be the oldest living professional baseball player anywhere.
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