Carroll “Dink” Mothell

Born in Topeka in 1897, Dink Mothell began playing for the Kansas Baseball Hall of Fame member “Topeka Jack” Johnson’s Giants as a teenager in 1914.  

In 1920, he wrote Kansas City Monarchs owner J.L. Wilkinson a letter and Wilkinson returned a contract.  The open position was catcher so Mothell caught for the 1920 Monarchs, who were a barnstorming team at that time.  Mothell moved to third base during the season, but was unhappy and left the team.

Rube Foster signed him to finish the season with the Chicago American Giants where he was teammates with Kansas Baseball Hall of Fame member Bingo DeMoss.  

Over the next two seasons, he played for several teams, among them the Chanute Black Diamonds and the All Nations team, which included players of different nationalities.

He returned to the Monarchs in 1924 and played with them until 1934.  During that time, the Monarchs won four Negro National League pennants and the 1924 Colored World Series, defeating the Hilldale Club of Pennsylvania.

Mothell played every position over his 15-year career in the Negro Leagues.  The legendary “Cool Papa” Bell called Mothell the “greatest utility man in the game of baseball.  He could step in at any position, except pitcher, and you’d never notice that the regular player was missing.”

After his playing career, the soft-spoken Mothell returned to Topeka, where he died in 1980.  In 2011, the Topeka Capital-Journal ranked him #50 on their list of “Top 100 Athletes in Shawnee County History.”

For more, read Dink Mothell’s Society for American Baseball Research bio.