Steel Arm Johnny Taylor

Who was Steel Arm Johnny Taylor?

John Boyce Taylor was the second-oldest of four baseball-playing brothers, the others being Charles, Benjamin, and James. Taylor was a pitcher and played in professional pre-league and Negro league baseball from 1903 to 1925.

Taylor was given his baseball nickname, "Steel-Arm Johnnie," by a white sportswriter for the Charlotte Observer wrote about Taylor's great speed, when he pitched for Biddle University in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1898. In the summer of 1898, he played two months for the Greenwood, South Carolina Red Stockings, and finished the season with the Greenville, South Carolina team.

In 1899 and 1900, Taylor pitched for his home club in Anderson, South Carolina where he reportedly won 90 percent of his games.

During the spring months of 1899 and later in 1905, he coached the Biddle University team.

He pitched the 1903 season for the Birmingham Giants where he pitched from thirty to forty games per season. He also reportedly never lost over seven games per season while at Birmingham. All four brothers were on that team by 1908, and he beat Hall of Famer Joe Williams 1-0 in San Antonio, striking out the side with the bases loaded in the ninth inning.