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General  | General | 2/23/2026

PG Salutes Chet Brewer, a Youth Baseball Pillar

Jim Salisbury
Photo: Chet Brewer (Center for Negro Leagues Baseball Research)
PG Salutes Chet Brewer, a Youth Baseball Pillar

A few weeks ago, Perfect Game and its Believe in Baseball foundation held a fundraising event in Los Angeles. The “In the Spirit of the Game” dinner and auction brought in thousands of dollars, all of which will go toward providing deserving youngsters an opportunity to play and grow in the game.



Chet Brewer was not at the event – the former Negro Leagues star died at age 83 in 1990 – but his spirit was.

Big time.

“That night was all about Chet,” PG commissioner Dennis Gilbert said. “He was all about giving kids chances to play the game, especially kids from underprivileged backgrounds.

“When you’re 15, 16, 17 years old – those years are the basis of your life. Chet helped put a lot of kids on the right path through the game of baseball.”

Brewer’s impactful life has been written about extensively by baseball historians. One of them is Bill Staples Jr., who co-authored a detail-rich biography of Brewer for SABR, the Society for American Baseball Research.

Staples is an expert in the area of Japanese baseball history and Negro League history, and he’s studied and written about how the two have sometimes overlapped. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, a Negro League team called the Philadelphia Royal Giants made several tours of Japan, and these events helped popularize baseball in that country. In researching those trips, Staples learned of a tall, thin pitcher named Chet Brewer.

“I became fascinated with this multifaceted man who traveled the world pitching,” Staples said. “I was impressed with the scope of his career and it just pulled me in. I got hooked.”

As a historian with a passion for the game, Staples’ goal is to “elevate, celebrate and educate” through his work.

“And Chet’s a great story to elevate and celebrate,” he said.

The folks at Perfect Game couldn’t agree more.

“Chet was special,” Gilbert said. “Just special. I get a great feeling just thinking about him.”

Gilbert was a teenage outfielder in the Los Angeles area when he met Brewer in the mid-1960s. By this time, Brewer had completed a long and distinguished playing career in the Negro Leagues and become a scout with the Pittsburgh Pirates. Every weekend, Brewer would round up a group of promising young players from local high schools. They’d play together as a Pirates scout team. Brewer was the manager.

Over the years, the group of players included future big-leaguers Reggie Smith, Bob Watson, Bobby Tolan, Davey Nelson, Enos Cabell, Doc Ellis, Dave Cash, Ellis Valentine and Eddie Murray. Gilbert played for Brewer for three years before eventually signing with the Boston Red Sox. Later, he became one of the most prominent player agents in baseball. Today, in addition to his role as PG commissioner, Gilbert works with the Chicago White Sox as a special assistant to the chairman. None of this would have happened, he said, if Chet Brewer hadn’t been part of his life.

“It was a wonderful time for me,” Gilbert said. “Chet was the guy who brought everyone together. He was a real gentleman. Everyone called him Mr. Brewer. And when he spoke, everyone listened. He wasn’t a bully. He was everyone’s dad. Black kids. White kids. Everyone. He cared about all the guys.

“He was responsible for so many kids getting into pro ball. He’d call guys he knew, other scouts, and say, ‘Hey, come see this kid.’ He impacted so many young lives.”

During his playing days, Brewer had been a teammate and opponent of the great Hall of Fame pitcher Satchel Paige. Brewer was also close to Biz Mackey, the Hall of Fame catcher who mentored another Hall of Fame catcher, three-time National League MVP Roy Campanella. Occasionally, Mackey would stop by practice to work with the catchers.

And ol’ Satchel …

“He was our pitching coach from time to time,” Gilbert said. “Imagine getting tutored by Satchel Paige!”

Gilbert laughed.

“One time, Satchel took me, Tolan and Watson to a Harlem Globetrotters game at the old L.A. Memorial Sports Arena,” he said. “It’s one of the highlights of my life.”

Even after he stopped playing and moved into the world of player representation, Gilbert remained close to Brewer, the two often coming together to help a young player better himself and get opportunities in the game.

Bill Staples Jr., never met Brewer, but his admiration for the man, like Gilbert’s, runs deep.

“I look at Chet in four dimensions,” Staples said. “There’s his playing career as a whole, his international playing career, his work as a civil rights pioneer helping to integrate the game, and, finally, his intergenerational impact, the influence he had on young players.

“Those four aspects, I think, make him one of the most important people to ever put on a uniform. As a historian, I sit back and look at the careers of individuals I admire and Chet Brewer rises to the top. Even if you took away baseball, he’d be a great role model.”

Brewer’s playing career spanned three decades. A 6-foot-4 right-hander with an excellent curveball, he went 12-1 for the famous Kansas City Monarchs as a 19-year-old in 1926. Three years later, while still with the Monarchs, he led the Negro National League with a 1.93 ERA. In 1935, he joined Paige in pitching for an integrated Bismarck, N.D., team that won the title at the prestigious American Baseball Congress tournament.

“Satchel had four wins and Chet had three,” Staples said. “Later on, for some reason, Chet missed the team photo. They celebrated the moment and he missed it. But I know he was part of that team. He just doesn’t get the proper recognition.”

Staples believes that to be the case in a larger sense, as well. Both he and Gilbert believe Brewer is worthy of a place in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Paige, who died in 1982, felt the same way and said as much before his own induction in 1971. For his complete body of work in baseball and his community, Brewer would seem to be an ideal candidate for the Hall of Fame’s Buck O’Neil Lifetime Achievement Award, which is bestowed on “an individual whose extraordinary efforts enhanced baseball’s positive impact on society.”

Over the span of his career, Brewer pitched in 44 states, Canada, Japan, the Philippines, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Panama and the Dominican Republic. Back in the days before integration, Black players found Latin America and other foreign lands to be more welcoming places than home. Many, including Brewer, became legends in those foreign lands.

As a teammate, Brewer was exceptional, as this quote from Hall of Famer James “Cool Papa” Bell attests: “There was no better teammate. He’ll do anything to win.” Always generous in passing along wisdom and guidance, Brewer is credited with helping teammate Sam “Toothpick” Jones improve his curveball. As a Chicago Cub in 1955, Jones became the first African American to pitch a no-hitter in Major League Baseball. Later, Doc Ellis, one of Brewer’s young proteges from Los Angeles, pitched a no-hitter for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1970. It’s well-documented that Ellis had a bit of a wild side, but Brewer “always knew how to keep Doc in check,” Gilbert said with a laugh.
 
After his playing days, Brewer became the first Black man to manage a U.S.-based minor-league team when he skippered the Porterville (Calif.) club in the Southwest International League in 1952.

Eventually, he devoted himself to scouting and mentoring young players in the Los Angeles area.

“Helping kids was always very rewarding to him,” Staples said.

Elevate, celebrate, educate.

Today, Perfect Game salutes Chet Brewer, a man who was always devoted to baseball and the young people who play it. His spirit lives on.

“It sure does,” Dennis Gilbert said. “Youth baseball doesn’t become what it is today without people like Chet Brewer helping build that foundation.”
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