1953 Mother's Cookies Piper Davis #54 ⭐ MLB Pioneer
Have an extra biscuit with your morning cup of Joe!
Lorenzo “Piper” Davis was one of the most important figures in the Birmingham Black Barons during the Negro League era.
He was a superb and versatile infielder, playing for Birmingham from 1942–1950 and became its player-manager, leading the Black Barons to the 1943, 1944 and 1948 Negro American League pennants.
Perhaps Davis's greatest legacy was as a teacher and mentor to Willie Mays.
He discovered and signed Mays as a teenager and taught him the fundamentals and toughness that would help launch one of baseball's greatest careers.
Mays later called Davis “the most important person in my early baseball years.”
Davis himself was an outstanding player who reportedly came close to a major-league career and was ultimately signed by the Boston Red Sox as their first Black player, although he never appeared in a major-league game.

1953 Mother's Cookies #54, Piper Davis ⭐ MLB Pioneer
My highest graded minor league card.
After posting my 2nd highest graded minor league card, a 1950 Remar Bread, Mel Duezabou PSA 8; several friends on Mantel have reached out asking what my highest graded minor league card is.
Piper Davis was a talented infielder who starred for the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro League from the late 1930s through the early 1950s. Known for his smooth fielding and powerful bat, he also managed a young Willie Mays during Mays’s early professional career. Davis later broke barriers in the minor leagues, becoming one of the first Black players signed by a Southern team when he joined the Pacific Coast League Oakland Oaks and then the Boston Red Sox organization.