CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · People & Ideas

Walter Thomas (baseball)

American baseball player (1911-1983)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 2, 2026
Entity authorityQ106074631 ↗
Source-derived summary

Walter Lewis Thomas (October 22, 1911 – September 28, 1983), nicknamed "Bancy", was an American Negro league pitcher in the 1930s and 1940s.

A native of Doyle, Alabama, Thomas was the brother of fellow Negro leaguer Orrel Thomas. He made his Negro leagues debut in 1935 with the Chicago American Giants, and later played for the Detroit Stars, Kansas City Monarchs, and Birmingham Black Barons. Following his Negro league career, Thomas played for the Carman Cardinals of the Mandak League for several seasons in the early 1950s. He died in Big Rapids, Michigan in 1983 at age 71.

Thomas's grandson, Richie Martin, is a shortstop for the Baltimore Orioles.

Editorial summary

“Walter Thomas (baseball)” enters the record as american baseball player (1911-1983). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Walter, Thomas and baseball can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1911, 1983, 1935—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1911-10-22. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Walter, Thomas and baseball.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Walter Thomas (baseball)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Walter, Thomas and baseball provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q106074631. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1911, 1983 and 1935.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Walter Thomas (baseball)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Walter Thomas (baseball) primary sources, Walter Thomas (baseball) archive and Walter research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Walter Thomas (baseball)”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Walter Thomas (baseball)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.