Ollie Brantley, Former Negro League Pitcher, Dies At 87

Ollie Brantley, one of the last living Negro Leagues alumni, died April 5, 2020. He was 87.

The former pitcher started his pro career in the Negro Leagues with the Memphis Red Sox. In 1950, Goose Curry scouted Brantley’s talent on the Marianna, Arkansas, sandlots.

“He’d go around, and he’d check around all these sandlot teams and that’s how he found me over there playin’ Sunday baseball,” Brantley told author Brent Kelley in Voices from the Negro Leagues. “He brought me over there just as I got out of high school.”

The 17-year-old Brantley made an sudden impact. By the summer, he was regarded as one of the dominant pitchers on the club.

“The Memphis Red Sox seventeen-year-old rookie find, Ollie Brantley, has just about hit this stride,” Curry said in the July 18, 1950, issue of the Memphis World. “He is carrying the record of seven victories and one defeat. Rival players are beginning to talk about his curve ball and his blinding fast ball. When they start talking, they fear that particular pitcher. … He is one of the main factors in the [Memphis Red] Sox great winning streak.”

As a teenager, he was new to the rigors that came with life in the Negro Leagues. He admired how the veterans performed despite the exhausting travel conditions.

“It was rough,” he said. “A guy had to be a heck of a ballplayer then to stay up and sleep on the bus, not get proper rest, and make all them long trips. They were playin’ every night, town to town.”

As the league struggled with losing established veterans to major league organizations, Brantley emerged as one of the top prospects to go to the major leagues. A bidding war ensued for Brantley’s services that ended with the Chicago White Sox paying Memphis $15,000 for his contract.

At 20, Brantley set off for a fresh journey with the White Sox filled with the hopes of following pioneers Sam Hairston and Minnie Miñoso to Comiskey Park. Gradually, Brantley worked his way up the ranks, eventually winning 22 games for Class-B Eugene Emeralds in 1957. Ultimately, he made it to Triple-A in 1960 with the San Diego Padres, just one step from the majors. Unfortunately, fate intervened in cruelest way.

“I hurt my arm,” Brantley told Kelley. “When I was with San Diego, I was in Tacoma, Washington, one night and I was pitchin’, and it stays kinda cool there and rainy. I don’t know what happened. It looked like I pulled a muscle in my elbow and I never did get back to really like I shoulda been.”

Undeterred, Brantley carried on, but without his fastball’s trademark zip. He played another nine seasons after his injury, primarily in the Minnesota Twins organization. During that time, he served as a mentor to future Hall of Famers Bert Blyleven and Rod Carew, as well as 10-year major league pitcher, Tom Hall. The 72-year-old Hall recalled Brantley’s veteran influence as a teammate during his second minor league season in 1967.

“Ollie had been there for a while and he helped me quite a bit,” Hall said in a recent phone interview from his California phone. “He helped me make [different] pitches, call different pitches, and [adjust] the location of [my] pitches.”

At 34, Brantley was the same age as the team’s manager, and served as a de facto coach for players like Hall. In a league filled with upstarts, Hall noted how Brantley used his experience to pitch through situations when his speed was no longer there.

“At that time, he didn’t throw that hard,” Hall said. “He had great location to spot in the ball inside and out, up and down, and make good pitches at really good times.”

Brantley finished his baseball career in 1969 with a 155-117 record over 17 seasons. It was a long end to a winding road that players of his era dealt with when farm systems were large, and there were only 16 major league teams.

“We were down in the minor leagues hopin’ that we’d get a chance to get a shot up there, but those guys had a set team at the time, in the ‘50s,” Brantley told Kelley. “You’d have so many guys competin’ ahead of you—D, C, B, and A, Double-A, Triple-A ball. You usually had to come all the way up the ladder.”

Right after his career had ended, he became a police officer with the Marianna Police Department. He later moved to the Lee County Police Department where he became a deputy. He retired after 30 years of service.