A Letter From Dick Thompson

A Letter from Dick Thompson On his Current Project, Cannonball Bill Jackman

Dick would like any help any of you can come up with on Jackman’s stint out here in California. If anyone comes up with anything, please let me know, and I will forward it on to Dick Thompson. Thanks.

Carlos,

I have sent you a copy of the sports page from the Portland (Maine) Press Herald of July 18,1947. Please note the column in the upper left hand corner of the page. It is about Cannonball Bill Jackman who is the subject of my current research project. To date I have Jackman at 123 wins and 48 losses and between 1925 and 1947. I know that Jackman pitched between 1917 and 1952. I suspect that there are at least 500 Jackman wins out there and my current goal is to document at least 300 of them.

Jackman worked mainly for the Philadelphia (Colored) Giants as they barnstormed around New England in the Twenties and Thirties. From my review of the Philadelphia Tribune I know that there was a Philadelphia Giants entry in the California Winter League. I know that Biz Mackey and Joe Rogan played for that squad but prior to this 1947 article I did not have any reason to suspect that Jackman also pitched out there. I had located a note in the Brockton, Massachusetts paper in the spring of 1928 that said that the New England version of the Giants had just come from the West Coast there they had been involved with the Oakland PCL team in a series of games. I had assumed that the Brockton paper had there facts wrong.

I am hoping you can post this article and this email. If any of your readers can document Bill Jackman in California I would greatly appreciate that information.

Thanks

Dick Thompson