Primary Position: Left field
Birthplace: Laurinburg
First, MIddle Names: John Wesley
Date of Birth: March 27, 1932 Date and Place of Death: July 4, 2011, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Burial: Cremated
High School: Laurinburg Institute; Hillside High School, Durham, NC
College: Did Not Attend
Bats: L Throws: R Height and Weight: 6-1,205
Debut Year: 1956 Final Year: 1966 Years Played: 11
Teams and Years: Milwaukee Braves, 1956-61; Chicago White Sox, 1961; Kansas City Athletics, 1961; Philadelphia Phillies, 1961-65; Chicago Cubs, 1966; Los Angeles Dodgers, 1966
Career Summary
G AB H R RBI HR BA. OBP. SLG. WAR
1075 2978 832 355 499 131 .279 .337 .466 +9.2
Awards/Honors: Boys of Summer Top 100
The Bears of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, a Boston Braves’ minor-league affiliate, featured two African American sluggers in 1952, roomies Wes Covington and Henry Aaron. Covington hit 24 home runs that year, Aaron a mere nine. “At that point, if people had known that one of our players would someday be the all-time, major-league home-run leader, everybody would have assumed that Covington would be the guy,” Aaron would later write in his autobiography. [I]
Of course, that’s not how it turned out. While he had a productive career in the majors that included appearances in three World Series, Covington never became a baseball immortal like his old roommate. Injuries afflicted him and, by some accounts, a big mouth hampered him. The authors of an encyclopedia about the Philadelphia Phillies summed up the career of the team’s former left fielder: “Wes Covington lasted 11 years in the major leagues because of a bat that made a lot of noise and in spite of a mouth that did likewise…. (He) specialized in long home runs and long interviews that tended to get people around him a bit testy.”[II]