Harry Lewis, one of the best reasons to go to Harvard, and Kasey Uhlenhuth discuss the life of Arthur Augustus Johnson in Harvard Magazine. “Fats” Johnson, as he was known, developed one of the best Negro League teams in the Boston area, the Tigers:

As early as 1912, Johnson—an athletic 5’11”, 180 pounds before he earned his nickname—was playing baseball while off duty in Boston. The “Great Migration” of Southern blacks was bringing more African Americans to Roxbury, where several ball fields were available to all-black teams.

A decade later, Johnson was managing and promoting Boston’s most successful black baseball team, the Boston Tigers. He lined up opponents across New England and even in Canada. The “money man” for the team, he handled the business side of the games. The team was never fully professional, but as an allegedly amateur team, it could play games and collect receipts on Sundays, when professional games were banned. “Oh for the good ole Boston Tigers days when ole Carter Field was the haven of many a baseball classic,” “Sheep” Jackson told the Boston Chronicle in 1942, referring to what is now a Northeastern University athletic facility on Columbus Avenue.

Johnson made the transition from Pullman porter to baseball impresario with the help of connections he made at Harvard, where he became a celebrated figure for reasons unrelated to baseball.

HarvardMagzine.com

He also did a great business supplying Harvard undergraduates with liquor during prohibition. It’s a great story of a man who saw opportunities for business and seized them.

I also noticed in the latest issue of the magazine that a classmate of mine, Bruce Schoenfeld published a book on the rise of analytics in sports. Game of Edges is available at Amazon.