Elston Gene Howard was an American professional baseball player who was a catcher and a left fielder. During a 14-year baseball career, he played in the Negro leagues and Major League Baseball from 1948 through 1968, primarily for the New York Yankees. A 12-time All-Star, he also played for the Kansas City Monarchs and the Boston Red Sox. Howard served on the Yankees' coaching staff from 1969 to 1979.
Elston Howard
Howard in 1957
Elston Howard's number 32 was retired by the New York Yankees in 1984.
Elston Howard's plaque in Monument Park.
The Negro leagues were United States professional baseball leagues comprising teams of African Americans. The term may be used broadly to include professional black teams outside the leagues and it may be used narrowly for the seven relatively successful leagues beginning in 1920 that are sometimes termed "Negro Major Leagues".
Octavius Catto, black baseball pioneer
Bud Fowler, the first professional black baseball player with one of his teams, Western of Keokuk, Iowa
Moses Fleetwood Walker, possibly the first African American major league baseball player
Chicago Union Giants in 1905