Bill Lindsay
*Bill Lindsay was born on this date in 1891. Nicknamed "The Kansas Cyclone" and "Lightning," he was a Black baseball pitcher for several years before the founding of the first Negro National League.
William Bill Lindsay's parents were Peter Lindsay and Mona Mady Lindsay from Lexington, Missouri. He started his career with the Kansas City, Kansas Giants at the age of 18 in 1905. He played for Kansas City, Kansas, for two years, then moved to the Leland Giants in 1910, remaining until he moved to the Chicago American Giants in 1914. During the California Winter Leagues, one writer claimed Lindsay and catcher Bill Pettus were one of the best batteries "ever seen in this strip of sunshine."
He died in Chicago on September 1, 1914, at the age of 23, after he spent nine days in Provident Hospital with what appeared to be problems with his urinary tract. The coroner's notes appear to say Uremia which contributed to a Uremic Coma and Sepsis. The day he died, Rube Foster said of Lindsay, "I have lost a great ballplayer, a fine gentleman, and a noble friend." His body was taken to Charles Jackson's Chapel, where services were held, then was returned to his birthplace, Lexington, Missouri.
His pallbearers were fellow ballplayers Pete Booker, Bill Monroe, Bruce Petway, Frank Wickware, Jesse Barber, and Lee Wade. Researchers with the Negro Leagues Baseball Grave Marker Project are still looking for Lindsay's grave in Lexington, Missouri.
