Andrew Porter (March 7, 1911 – July 1, 2010) was an American Negro league baseball and Minor League Baseball pitcher. Listed at 6' 4" (1.95 m), 190 lbs (86 kg), Porter batted and threw right handed. He was born in Little Rock, Arkansas. Colloquially known as 'Andy Pullman', because he worked as hard as a Pullman porter, he was noted for his overpowering fastball and a hard-to-hit slider. Porter joined the Negro Baseball leagues in 1932 and retired in 1954 after a 22-year career, playing for several teams all over the country and even outside its borders, in Canada Cuba, Mexico and Venezuela.
Career
Porter started his career with the Cleveland Cubs in 1932, pitching for them briefly before joining the Louisville Black Caps and then moving across the league to finish the season with the Nashville Elite Giants, the franchise for which Porter would play the majority of his Negro league career. Porter, along with Bill Byrd and Jonas Gaines, formed part of the Big Three on the Elite Giants' pitching staff.
For the next six seasons Porter was a mainstay pitcher for the Elite Giants, which became rather nomadic, moving from Nashville, Tennessee to Columbus, Ohio in 1935 and to Washington D.C. in 1936, before landing finally in Baltimore, Maryland in 1938.
As a 22-year-rookie, Porter had a 1–3 record in four games in 1933, improving to a 8–6 mark and a 3.53 ERA in a 18-game campaign in 1934, when he was selected for the East–West All-Star Game after collecting the second-highest vote total of any Elite Giants player, although he did not appear in the game. During the off-season, he pitched particularly well in the California Winter League, going 12-3 for the Giants, including 66 strikeouts while allowing only 21 walks in 122.0 innings of work.
In 1935, Porter lost a significant part of the season due to an illness. Nevertheless, he was impressive enough during the remainder of the year, going 3–1 with a 2.73 ERA in six appearances and earning a repeat selection to the East–West All-Star Game, but he was not used in the game.
Afterwards, Porter had two subpar seasons, going 3–3 with a 5.75 ERA in 1936 and 1–6, 4.66 in 1937, being selected for the East–West All-Star Game in this last season. Once more, Porter did not appear in the game, but he was persistent and would show his skills in other significant showcases games. It came in October 1936 during an exhibition series, when Porter faced an all-white, All-Star team that included future Hall of Famers Rogers Hornsby and Johnny Mize, as he was 1–1 with a 3.00 ERA in two appearances. In Game 2, he hurled four innings on one earned-run while striking out eight, including Hornsby twice. Unfortunately, Porter charged with the loss after an unearned run was scored on two errors in the ninth inning. In Game 5, he was credited with the win in six innings of relief for the starter Satchel Paige, allowing just two runs and retiring Hornsby and Mize with the bases loaded in the fifth inning.
Porter stayed with the Elite Giants in 1938, posting a 4–1 record and 2.57 ERA in six games (five starts) before jumping to the Mexican League the following spring, when he joined the Alijadores de Tampico in 1939. Overall, Porter finished with a 10–7 record and a 2.28 ERA for Tampico, leading the league with 111 strikeouts while pitching in the inaugural Mexican League All-Star Game played on August 29 in Mexico City. During the winter, he traveled to Cuba and went 3-4 for the Leopardos de Santa Clara club.
Meanwhile, a Negro league baseball ban on players who jumped to Mexico had been clarified before the 1940 season as a three-year suspension. As a result, Porter returned for a second season in the Mexican League in 1940. He then shifted to the Tecolotes de Nuevo Laredo, where he became a real workhorse, appearing in nearly half of his team's games and winning 21 of their 39 victories while ending with a 3.34 ERA. Furthermore, he led the league with 27 complete games, 296 innings pitched, 232 strikeouts and 125 walks, each of which were at the time league records. The strikeout record would last 12 years before Cuban pitcher Lino Donoso broke it in 1954. After that, Porter pitched in the 1940–1941 Cuban Winter League season. He went 6-5 for the Alacranes de Almendares, a team that otherwise finished last with a disappointing record of 20–26 in the four-team league.
But Porter slowed his performance in 1941 with the Diablos Rojos del México, posting a 11–16 record and a 4.47 ERA. Although he led the league with 133 strikeouts, Porter had problems with his control and gave up 116 walks in 235⅓ innings.