John Banks, 89; Played Negro League Baseball

[Bill Schenley]

Voorhees man played with greats in Negro League

Photo: http://tinyurl.com/78g4otw

FROM: The Camden (NJ) Courier Post ~
By Christina Mitchell, Staff Writer

Barbara Ann Timmons was nearly an adult before she realized the legacy of
her father, Negro League Baseball pitcher John T. Banks Sr.

As a kid, she knew him only as the snappily dressed single father who raised
her and two brothers, Ronald and John Jr., on Haddon Avenue in Camden. He
enlisted relatives to keep an eye on his offspring while he worked; laid out
his sons' school clothes so Barbara, the oldest, could get them off to
school; left alternating menus for breakfast; and cooked dinner every night.

Banks' creamed corn - with kernels cut from the cob and lots of cream and
butter - was to die for, says his daughter, who cared for her father until
his death Dec. 14. He was 89.

"To us, he was just dad," says Timmons, who lived with her father in
Voorhees and would occasionally get requests from fans for signed baseballs.
"He told some stories but he never really boasted about it (baseball).

"I never knew my dad did so much until I was older . But everyone knew of
him."

Part of the African-American Diaspora North from the virulently segregated
South, Banks' family hailed from North Carolina but settled in Camden. He
took Camden High's basketball team to a championship in the 1940-'41 season,
but his heart was in baseball. Banks joined the Negro Leagues while still in
school.

"I remember as a kid hearing about it," Timmons recalls of her father's
legendary teammates and opponents. "But I had no idea who they were."

"They" were Jackie Robinson, Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson, among others.
Banks "saw the greatest of the 1940s," says Dr. Layton Revel, director of
the Dallas-based Center for Negro League Baseball Research. Banks was a
right-handed pitcher with a fastball that sped across the plate at about 95
mph. He also played first.

"He was heck of a baseball player in his day," Revel adds. "Very versatile.
Darn good hitter."

Banks played for three semi-pro teams in his hometown: the North Camden
Athletic Club, North Camden's All-Stars and the East Camden Giants. Then it
was on to the pros with the Philadelphia Stars of the Negro National League.
After a three-year stint in the military, he rejoined the team in 1947.

"If you were a person of color, that was the highest level of baseball you
could play," Revel explains of the league.

Banks played through 1959, barnstorming with Robinson's off-season All-Stars
in 1949, playing the Negro American League in 1950 and switching to outfield
on regional teams after he broke his pitching arm in 1950. But he never
rested on his baseball laurels, not with three children to raise and
brothers who also had made names for themselves.

Horace Banks served on the USS Mason during World War II with the Navy's
first all-black crew, according to John's nephew, Anthony Banks of
Lansdowne, Pa. John's brother, Claude, once was married to actress Clarice
Taylor, who played Bill Cosby's mother on "The Cosby Show."

John Banks first worked at Campbell Soup - where he played on the company
basketball team - then went on to a civilian job at the former Fort Dix,
making the long commute every day from Camden.

"We had a schedule nobody followed," his daughter remembers with a laugh.
"But we survived."

Barbara Timmons was only 13 when her mother, Anita, died of cancer. John
Banks may have dated, his daughter says, but he never brought another woman
home. And he didn't remarry until his children were grown.

One of them, Ronald, produced a grandson named Blake who was the apple of
his grandfather's eye.

"He tried to teach us some baseball skills," says Timmons of herself and her
siblings. "My older brother, all he wanted to do was box . But his grandson
has the gene. And that's what he wants to play - baseball.

"He wants to play like his grandpop."
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Thanks to J.G. Preston for this obituary.