Sol White

CTL-E-6951 · Person · other · 1868–1955

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-07823 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-6951.

King Solomon 'Sol' White (June 12, 1868, Bellaire, Ohio – August 26, 1955) was an infielder, manager, executive, and the first historian of Black baseball. He began professionally in 1887 with the Pittsburgh Keystones of the National Colored Base Ball League and played briefly in integrated minor-league baseball before the color bar forced him to Black clubs, including the New York Big Gorhams, Cuban Giants, and Page Fence Giants. In 1902 he helped create the Philadelphia Giants, a club he co-owned, managed, and played for through 1909, winning championships in the mid-1900s. In 1907, while with Philadelphia, he published History of Colored Base Ball, issued under the title page Sol White's Official Base Ball Guide — a 128-page record of early Black teams, players, and playing conditions that the Hall of Fame calls an invaluable historical resource and the first book devoted to Black professional baseball. White was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006, one of 17 Negro Leagues and pre-Negro Leagues figures chosen by a special committee that year.

The record

• Also known as: King Solomon White, Solomon White, King Solomon "Sol" White

Notes

Sports Encyclopedia roster CTL-SPE-0250. Firsts disposition: ASSERTED AS SOURCED — his 1907 History of Colored Base Ball / Sol White's Official Base Ball Guide as the first book devoted to Black professional baseball (negroleagues.org profile; Hall of Fame on the book's standing), and Hall of Fame election in 2006 verified by both the Hall and SABR. Curator's Judgment (DRAFT): White is the rare figure who is both subject and source — the archive of early Black baseball exists in part because a player decided, in 1907, to write it down himself; every later record in this lane cites his labor. Photo: CLEARED (CORRECTED after a fuller Commons search) — Sol White.jpg, Public domain; the Commons file description identifies the image as Negro league player Sol White with the Philadelphia Giants, courtesy of the New York Public Library, originally published in White's own 1907 Official Base Ball Guide — a depict-the-subject portrait from the subject's own book. An initial narrower search had surfaced only the Guide's cover; the portrait was found and verified on re-search.

Sources

• Bill Francis. "Sol White helped change the face of baseball." National Baseball Hall of Fame. Accessed 2026-11-03. (primary source · build store)
• Jay Hurd. "Sol White." SABR (BioProject biography, republished in From Rube to Robinson, 2021). Accessed 2026-11-03. (primary source · build store)
• "Sol White." negroleagues.org (Negro Leagues player profile). Accessed 2026-11-03. (build store)

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Record CTL-E-6951 · Combined Graph record U-07823 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 3 sources.
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Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.

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