Newton Henry Allen (1901 - 1988)

Born 19 May 1901 in Austin, Texas, United States

Died 9 Jun 1988 at age 87 in Cincinnati, Hamilton, Ohio, United States

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Biography

Newt Allen is Notable.

Newt Allen one of the fastest baserunners of his generation, was considered the best second baseman during the 1920s and '30s and was a manager for the Kansas City Monarchs baseball team of the American Negro League. He made his league debut in 1922 and stayed with the Monarchs until his retirement in 1948, except for a brief time with other teams during the 1931 and 1932 season. The Monarchs became the 1924 Colored World Series Champions and they won the 1941 American Negro League World Series, with Newt at second base. He was a leader in the club and contributed both on offense and defense to 11 championship squads.

Newt was born in Austin, Texas. He was the second child and first son born to Newton and Rosa Lee Baker Allen. Both of his parents were born in Texas. His father was an odd job laborer and his mother a launderess. The senior Newt died of tuberculosis in 1910 and Rosa and her 4 children went to Missouri to visit an aunt who had recently lost a son, Newt's age. Newt was raised by his aunt and his mother and siblings moving to and living in Cincinnati, to be close to her family.

Newt attended Bruce Elementary School and Lincoln High School, enrolling for two years into Western Baptist Bible College. He became close friends with Frank Duncan, a future Monarchs teammate and manager and another future Monarchs star, pitcher Rube Currie, was also part of their circle of friends who played sandlot ball together.

Baseball Career

Newt began his professional baseball career with the All-Nations team, a barnstorming squad owned by J. I. Wilkinson, the co-owner of the Monarchs. The All-Nations team, based in Omaha, was integrated and made up of players from various races and nationalities. It served as a "farm team" of sorts for the Monarchs. Newt was called up to the Monarchs in October, 1922, for a six-game “City Championship” series against the Double-A Kansas City Blues. The Monarchs won five of the six games against their White counterparts to claim the title as champions of Kansas City. He made the Monarchs roster as a third baseman for the 1923 season before moving to second base the following year.

The Monarchs were a popular and successful team throughout the 1920s, but the Depression placed serious difficulties for the Negro Leagues. Attendance was poor and financial picture for the League was dire. J.I. Wilkinson withdrew the Monarchs from the league after the 1930 season, turning the franchise into a barnstorming team. Wilkinson figured that he could turn a profit via his innovative portable lighting system that had introduced night baseball to America in 1930. Thus, the Monarchs became an independent barnstorming team from 1931 to 1936. The team traveled both nationally and internationally, playing in Mexico for a 30 day trip in 1931. Newt also played for on a 12 player All Star team in 1933-34 that traveled to Asia and played teams in Japan, China and the Philippines.

Newt's final championship came when the Monarchs played the Homestead Grays for theNegro League World Series. The Monarchs represented the American League and the Grays, the National Negro League. The landmark meeting of these two teams was expected to be an exciting series with the top two teams in Negro Baseball. But the Monarchs won the series in 4 straight games. Newt achieved a .286 batting average as a 41 year of player during that series, beating his 1922 series average of .284.

After several years of barnstorming with the Monarchs and playing with the Cincinnati-Indianapolis Clowns, Newt finally retired in 1947. Although he had been on the 2006 Hall of Fame ballot for the final ballot of the Special Committee on the Negro Leagues, he fell short of the needed votes to be inducted.

Personal Life

Newt married Mary Edwards in October, 1922, just a few weeks prior to the birth of their first child, Newton Henry Allen Jr., who was born on November 27, 1922. Mary was 17 at the time of the wedding. (Newt Jr. eventually graduated from Western Baptist Bible College, the same institution his father had attended for two years before pursuing his baseball career. He founded Kansas City’s Mount Joy Missionary Baptist Church.) Newt Sr. and Mary had a second son and a daughter, but their marriage did not last. Baseball was filled with challenges for the married players, including a long schedule of traveling throughout the country and being seen as idols for the fans. Newt reveled in his celebrity and enjoyed his fame.

Once his baseball career ended, Newt returned to Kansas City where he became involved with the Democratic Party politics and served as a foreman in the county court house. By 1985 when he was interviewed by the Kansas City Star newspaper, he had moved to Cincinnati to be closer to his son and family.

Newt died for a heart attack in 1988. He was buried in an unmarked grave in Cincinnati’s Union Baptist Cemetery, a historical Black graveyard. In 2020 Negro League researcher/author Paul Debono and Cincinnati-area historian Chris Hanlin were able to identify Allen’s final resting place among other members of his family. Efforts to enlist the aid of the Negro Leagues Baseball Grave Marker Project and other entities were successful and placed a headstone at the site to commemorate the life of Newt Allen, one of the stars of the old Negro Leagues in the spring of 2023. The marker has a carving of Newt and says "Legendary Negro Leagues baseball player and manager of the Kansas City Monarchs. Best safe at home in the Kingdom of God."

Sources

• Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newt_Allen
• Wikidata: Item Q16012034
• "United States Census, 1910," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M2QC-5HB : accessed 17 April 2023), Newton Allen in household of N H Allen, Austin Ward 3, Travis, Texas, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 66, sheet 9B, family 89, NARA microfilm publication T624 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1982), roll 1595; FHL microfilm 1,375,608.
• "Missouri, World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1940-1945," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QLX1-LLFZ : 3 March 2020), Newton Henry Allen, 16 Feb 1942; records extracted by FamilySearch, images digitized by Ancestry; citing Draft Registration, Kansas City, , Missouri, United States, NARA NAID 5833895 "Draft Registration Cards for Missouri, 10/16/1940 – 3/31/1947", National Archives at St. Louis, Missouri, FHL microfilm .
• "United States Social Security Death Index," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:JBM9-6NP : 10 January 2021), Newton H Allen, 09 Jun 1988; citing U.S. Social Security Administration, Death Master File, database (Alexandria, Virginia: National Technical Information Service, ongoing).
• Memorial: "Find a Grave", database with images
  Find A Grave: Memorial #217805499 (accessed 21 July 2023)
  Memorial page for Newton Henry “Newt” Allen Jr. (19 May 1901-9 Jun 1988), citing Union Baptist Cemetery, Cincinnati, Hamilton County, Ohio, USA; Maintained by Chris Hanlin (contributor 47638705).
• Society for American Baseball Research: https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/newt-allen/#_edn5