Turkey Stearnes

Norman Thomas "Turkey" Stearnes (May 8, 1901 – September 4, 1979) was an American baseball center fielder.

Stearnes was born in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1901.

There are two versions as to how he acquired the nickname "Turkey".

The most common version is that the name came from his unusual style of running the bases while flapping his arms.

The second version, advanced by Stearnes himself, was that he gained the nickname due to a pot belly he had as a child.

Stearnes attended Pearl High School in Nashville.

He later recalled: "I learned to play baseball in high school. We had a lot of sandlots. All the schools around there had clubs. At that time I was a pitcher. They were getting me to play every Friday."

Stearnes' father died when he was 15 years old.

Stearnes left school to find work to support his family.

Stearnes later recalled: "I just did any job that popped up, taking care of hogs or cows and anything like that. I worked at a grocery store, driving a wagon, delivering groceries. I worked at the Baptist Publishing Board, a janitor mostly, running errands."

He continued to play sandlot baseball on Saturdays and Sundays.

Stearnes began his career in professional baseball in 1921 with the Montgomery Grey Sox of the Southern Negro League.

He was Montgomery's leadoff hitter and led the club to the league pennant.

He switched to the Memphis Red Sox.

In his history of the Negro leagues, Mark Ribowsky described the impact Stearnes had in Montgomery:"In Montgomery, Alabama, a cobralike outfielder, Norman 'Turkey' Stearnes, was ripping up league pitching. All arms and legs, Stearnes was a pastiche of oddities; in his batting stance he leaned way forward and his back foot pointed straight up. When he ran, his elbows flapped in and out — thus his nickname. He choked up on a light, thin bat, yet he hit moonshot home runs."

In 1922, Stearnes joined the Memphis Red Sox of the Southern Negro League and continued to play well.

The Detroit Stars sent catcher Bruce Petway to Memphis to scout Stearnes, who was then playing first base and pitcher.

Petway offered Stearnes a chance to play with the Stars in 1922.

Stearnes declined, deciding to remain in Tennessee to finish high school.

He played 18 years in the Negro leagues, including nine years with the Detroit Stars (1923–1931), six years with the Chicago American Giants (1932–1935, 1937–1938), and three years with the Kansas City Monarchs (1938–1940).

Stearnes ranks fifth in Major League Baseball (MLB) history with a .616 career slugging percentage and seventh in MLB history with a .348 career batting average.

He led the Negro National League (NNL) in home runs six times.

After finishing high school, Stearnes traveled to Detroit and joined the Stars in March 1923.

In an interview with Negro league historian John B. Holway, Stearnes described his move to Detroit:"I came north in 1923, March 1. I came here to Detroit. I worked at the Briggs Manufacturing Company, the same man that owned the Tigers. All our gang. He gave us a job out there and we'd play semi-pro. We were painting the bodies of the cars. I was putting them into the drier myself. The white boys were painting. I’d put them on the drier for them. . . . In ’23 I was playing professional ball with the Detroit Stars out on Mack Avenue. . . .That was the biggest thing doing around here in the Detroit among the colored.'"

As a rookie in 1923, Stearnes immediately became one of the top players of the Negro National League (NNL).

He led the NNL with 14 triples and ranked among the NNL leaders with 49 extra base hits (second), 136 putouts in center field (second), 17 home runs (third), 85 RBIs (third), 70 runs scored (third), 198 total bases (third), a .710 slugging percentage (third), and a .362 batting average (seventh).

Stearnes' remained a fixture with the Stars, holding down the center field position for nine years from 1923 to 1931.

He had one of his finest seasons in 1925 when he hit for a .371 batting average and a .668 slugging percentage and led the NNL in hits (135), triples (14), home runs (19), and RBIs (126).

He won the NNL batting championship in 1929 with a .390 batting average and repeated as batting champion in 1931 with a .376 average.

Three years later in 1929, he recorded his first NNL batting championship with an average of .390 and also led the league with a .468 on-base percentage and a .672 slugging percentage.

In 1930, Stearnes left Detroit to play for the New York Lincoln Giants.

He returned to Detroit after playing 20 games in New York.

Playing without Stearnes, the Stars finished fourth in the first half of the season; with Stearnes' return, they won the second-half pennant.

In 1931, his final year with the Stars, Stearnes won his second NNL batting championship with a .376 average and again led the league in on-base percentage (.465) and slugging (.632).

The Detroit Stars folded after the 1931 season, and Stearnes joined the 1932 Cole's American Giants of Chicago and helped lead the team to the Negro National League pennant.

At the end of the 1932 season, the American Giants faced the Nashville Elite Giants in a postseason series.

Stearnes played in two games and drove in five runs with seven hits.

Stearnes continued as the American Giants' center fielder through the 1935 season.

He remained one of the best players in the Negro leagues.

Stearnes was posthumously elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2000.