Willie Wells

"El Diablo" of the Negro Leagues

Bob Luke

• Publisher: University of Texas Press
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9780292717510
• eBook ISBN: 9780292778269
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies

The first complete biography of an important Negro League baseball player from Austin, Texas.

Willie Wells was arguably the best shortstop of his generation. As Monte Irvin, a teammate and fellow Hall of Fame player, writes in his foreword, "Wells really could do it all. He was one of the slickest fielding shortstops ever to come along. He had speed on the bases. He hit with power and consistency. He was among the most durable players I've ever known." Yet few people have heard of the feisty ballplayer nicknamed "El Diablo." Willie Wells was black, and he played long before Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color barrier. Bob Luke has sifted through the spotty statistics, interviewed Negro League players and historians, and combed the yellowed letters and newspaper accounts of Wells's life to draw the most complete portrait yet of an important baseball player.

Wells's baseball career lasted thirty years and included seasons in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Canada. He played against white all-stars as well as Negro League greats Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, and Buck O'Neill, among others. He was beaned so many times that he became the first modern player to wear a batting helmet.

As an older player and coach, he mentored some of the first black major leaguers, including Jackie Robinson and Don Newcombe. Willie Wells truly deserved his induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame, but Bob Luke details how the lingering effects of segregation hindered black players, including those better known than Wells, long after the policy officially ended. Fortunately, Willie Wells had the talent and tenacity to take on anything—from segregation to inside fastballs—life threw at him. No wonder he needed a helmet.

" Willie Wells: "El Diablo" of the Negro Leagues is well researched and well written, so the average baseball fan should find it to be an entertaining read." —Dale Petroskey, president, National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum 

"The story of Willie Wells opens another window on the conditions and constraints of Jim Crow America, and how painfully difficult it can be, even now, to remedy the persistent effects of discrimination. Every baseball fan will love this story. Every American should read it." —Ira Glasser, executive director, American Civil Liberties Union, 1978-2001

"Reconstructing, indeed resurrecting, the career of a peripatetic Negro League baseball player is a daunting task. Negro and Major League great Monte Irvin tells us that his fellow Hall of Famer, shortstop Willie Wells, belongs on the same baseball page as Gibson, DiMaggio, Paige, and Feller. This fine biography by Bob Luke does a wonderful job in telling us why and how that is the case. We have here a Hall of Fame telling of the story of a true Hall of Famer." —Lawrence Hogan, author of Shades of Glory: The Negro Leagues and the Story of African American Baseball

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• One. He Could Pick It
• Two. I Never Went for Anything Crooked
• Three. Family
• Four. Leaving Home to Play Ball
• Five. The “Devil”
• Six. You Had to Do All Kinds of Things
• Seven. They Treat Me Like a Man
• Eight. My Contract Said “Ballplayer”
• Nine. We’ll Talk
• Ten. He Has Slowed Up Afield
• Eleven. A Mind-Set Put to Rest
• Twelve. Any Players with Hall of Fame Credentials?
• Thirteen. Tradition Meets Fair Play
• Fourteen. Why in Hell?
• Fifteen. The “Devil” Is In
• Sixteen. Righting a Wrong
• Seventeen. “Baseball Is a Beautiful Game”
• Notes
• Sources: Books, Magazines, Interviews, Newspapers, and Archives
• Index