Ten Negro League players were part of Ponce’s first baseball championship in Puerto Rico

Eighty years ago today(March 8th, 1942), the Ponce Leones baseball team won their first Championship in the  Puerto Rican Professional League Baseball history.

OTD team #Ponce won their first baseball championship in 1942. The season was divided in two rounds, the winners of each half would face each other for the championship, Ponce won both rounds, winning the championship 🏆without going to a final series. @LBPRC #PuertoRico pic.twitter.com/Ot5btJbU3y— Raul Ramos (@RamosRauli) March 8, 2022

The season consisted of two rounds, where the winners of each half would play each other in a championship series. In the first round, Ponce finished tied with Guayama and San Juan with 14-8; and in the second round, Ponce had the best record with 16-5, winning the Championship without the need to go to a final series.

It became George Scales’ first of five titles as a manager of Ponce, the most dominant team of the 40s.

The 1941-42 Ponce team included ten negro leaguers in their ranks.  Scale, Hall of Famer Raymond Brown, Sammy Bankhead, Félix “Fellé” Delgado, Juan Guilbe, Tomás “Planchardón” Quiñonez,  Efigenio “Coco” Ferrer, Howard Easterling, Francisco “Pancho” Coimbre and Emilio “Millito” Navarro. It’s also essential to mention that Agustín “Tingo” Daviu, the first Puerto Rican player to play ball in the minors, was part of the team.

Coimbre and Easterling were first and second in the league in runs with 46 and 43 respectively; Easterling was third with six while Sam Bankhead was the fourth best in the league in Rbi’s with 35. The best hitters in the team were Coimbre .372 (5th), Easterling with .360, and Bankhead with a .351 average. Raymond Brown led the league in ERA with 1.80 and won 12 games with 158 strikeouts (2^nd), while Juan Guilbe finished with 11 wins.