Robert “Conky” O’Connell, now age 97, remembers William Penn Thompson asking him to pitch for his batting practice at White Park. A pre-teen at the time, O’Connell couldn’t resist pitching to a legendary Concord baseball player.
Sometime in the late 1930s, Thompson would have been in his 50s but still played baseball all the time at the park in the Concord Sunset League.
“He’d get his bat and come over and say, ‘You wanna pitch batting practice to me?” O’Connell said. “I said, ‘Sure!’ He liked me because I threw strikes, and he would hit line drives all the time. It wasn’t pop-ups or pop-flys, line drives.”
A historical marker now honors Thompson in White Park. On Wednesday evening, the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire unveiled the sign, situated atop the hill next to the Sunset League historical marker overlooking the rest of the park. This new addition is the first Black Heritage Trail marker in the city.
Born in Virginia, Thompson moved to Concord sometime before 1891. He was among the last generation of players to compete on integrated teams before an unwritten “gentleman’s agreement” barred Black players from Major League baseball. Thompson led an impressive career as a ballplayer regardless, playing for the Cuban Colored Giants and the Philadelphia Colored Giants in the Negro Leagues.
JerriAnne Boggis, executive director of the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire, spoke before the large crowd gathered around the marker.
“Imagine possessing the talent, the skill and knowing that you could compete,” she said to the crowd, “And then imagine being told that the rules of the game had changed.”
His legacy didn’t stop when leagues were segregated. Boggis evoked a powerful image of Thompson in his later years: an older Black man carrying his pack, a glove and a bat over to the park to play baseball with neighborhood kids and in the Sunset League.
“I love that image because history books can sometimes make people seem very distant from us, but I want to imagine Bill Thompson being here,” Boggis said.
This, too, is history, according to Boggis.
“History isn’t only what happens in a government building or courtrooms. History happens in parks and in the ordinary, everyday moments of life. This is why the work of the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire matters,” she said.
That’s why O’Connell’s brief comments at the ceremony about playing with Thompson were so impactful.
Within the span of just a lifetime, so much changed in America. Baseball segregation and desegregation are part of that history.
Black players didn’t stop playing because they were extraordinary athletes and were denied access to Major League Baseball. Thompson’s story is one of the many iconic faces of Black baseball history in America — and a uniquely New Hampshire one at that.
Thompson was well known around town for his white suit and top hat in the Sunset League’s opening parade. Beloved by many who knew him, he left a strong impression on O’Connell.
Mayor Byron Champlin thanked the marker’s donors, Concord Parks and Recreation and the Black Heritage Trail for all the work they put into the project.
Champlin himself shared a barber, Bob Gifford, with Thompson, and remembers the many stories he heard sitting in that chair about the player’s many baseball exploits.
He added that Armenia White, who dedicated the park in memory of her husband, Nathaniel, “would have been tickled” about the marker, Champlin said.
“They were both ardent abolitionists in the 19th century. I hope that William Penn Thompson’s marker is the first of several Black Heritage Trail stops that we host in Concord,” Champlin said.