Норман "Түркия" Стирнс: Негр лигасының жұлдызы

American baseball player (1920–1940)

Norman Thomas "Turkey" Stearnes (May 8, 1901 – September 4, 1979) was an American baseball center fielder. He played 18 years in the Negro leagues, including nine years with the Detroit Stars (1923–1931), six years with the Chicago American Giants (1932–1935, 1937–1938), and three years with the Kansas City Monarchs (1938–1940). Stearnes ranks fifth in Major League Baseball (MLB) history with a .616 career slugging percentage and seventh in MLB history with a .348 career batting average. He led the Negro National League (NNL) in home runs six times. He won the NNL batting championship in 1929 with a .390 batting average and repeated as batting champion in 1931 with a .376 average. Stearnes was posthumously elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2000.

Stearnes was born in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1901. There are two versions as to how he acquired the nickname "Turkey". The most common version is that the name came from his unusual style of running the bases while flapping his arms. The second version, advanced by Stearnes himself, was that he gained the nickname due to a pot belly he had as a child. Stearnes' father died when he was 15 years old. Stearnes left school to find work to support his family. He continued to play sandlot baseball on Saturdays and Sundays. In his history of the Negro leagues, Mark Ribowsky described the impact Stearnes had in Montgomery:In Montgomery, Alabama, a cobralike outfielder, Norman "Turkey" Stearnes, was ripping up league pitching. All arms and legs, Stearnes was a pastiche of oddities; in his batting stance he leaned way forward and his back foot pointed straight up. When he ran, his elbows flapped in and out — thus his nickname. He choked up on a light, thin bat, yet he hit moonshot home runs. In 1922, Stearnes joined the Memphis Red Sox of the Southern Negro League and continued to play well. The Detroit Stars sent catcher Bruce Petway to Memphis to scout Stearnes, who was then playing first base and pitcher. Petway offered Stearnes a chance to play with the Stars in 1922. Stearnes declined, deciding to remain in Tennessee to finish high school.

Despite his accomplishments, Stearnes had to work winters in Detroit's auto plants to survive. He worked for 30 years for the Ford Motor Company in the foundry at the River Rouge plant. Nettie was also a niece of Negro league veteran Ted Radcliffe. Stearnes and his wife lived in a modest house on Detroit's east side. Stearnes died at Detroit's Harper Hospital in 1979 at age 78. He had a heart attack earlier in the year and also had a large stomach ulcer. He fell into a coma during an operation on the ulcer.