Dick Redding

CTL-E-7003 · Person · other · 1890–1948

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-07875 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-7003.

Richard "Dick" Redding (born April 14, 1890, in Atlanta, Georgia; died October 31, 1948, in Brooklyn, New York), known as "Cannonball," was among the most feared pitchers of Black baseball's pre-league and early league eras. Redding starred for the New York Lincoln Giants in the 1910s — pitching a no-hitter against a Cuban stars team in 1912 in the account carried by his SABR biography — and later anchored the Brooklyn Royal Giants and the Atlantic City Bacharach Giants, and managed in his later playing years. Contemporary Black newspapers treated his fastball as a headline attraction, and later compilers credit him with win totals in the hundreds across league, independent, and winter ball; the surviving record is fragmentary, and this record states totals only as estimates attributed to those compilers rather than as settled statistics. Redding's prime fell entirely within segregation: he never had a major-league opportunity, and he is not in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. His SABR biography places him at the head of the generation of Black pitchers — with Smokey Joe Williams and José Méndez — against whom later Negro leagues aces were measured.

The record

• Also known as: Richard Redding, Cannonball Dick Redding

Notes

Sports Encyclopedia roster CTL-SPE-0318. Firsts disposition: NO statistical 'first' or win total asserted — the early record is fragmentary; the 1912 no-hitter is carried as SABR's account; aggregate win figures are described as compilers' estimates, never as statistics. Vital data per SABR and Wikipedia (some references vary on early details; the dates carried are the SABR/Wikipedia consensus). Curator's Judgment (DRAFT): Redding is the Cannonball the white majors never had to face — the record's discipline about his numbers is itself testimony to what segregation cost the archive. Photo: CLEARED (1912 portrait, public domain; the Commons file's categories place it in Negro league baseball, 1890–1948, matching this subject — Dick Radatz and Dick Hoblitzell files in the same search were refused as namesakes).

Sources

• SABR BioProject. "Dick Redding." Accessed 2026-11-03. (primary source · build store)
• Wikipedia. "Dick Redding." Accessed 2026-11-03. (build store)

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Record CTL-E-7003 · Combined Graph record U-07875 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 2 sources.
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