By Tillman Cooke

The Mineola Black Spiders were minor league baseball players who played in league where only the ball was "white". Consisting of 27 players clad in solid gray uniforms, figuratively speaking, could thump the cover of a baseball. All home games were played at Epperson Park (south Mineola). It was a "patch" fenced area equipped with a grandstand manned with excitable, screaming fans. Although the Spiders were no publicized baseball players as Satchel Paige or Josh Gibson of the Negro League, their arsenal was explosive. Joshua Epperson (catcher), Joe Epperson (shortstop), Isaiah Carpenter (catcher), Henry Thomas (outfield), Clarence "brush back" Wheeler (1st base, pitcher), "Little Snoop" Parker (infield), Eldridge Arthur (outfield), and J.B. Griffin (pitcher) were a few of these "swatters". Frankly speaking, all of the spiders could inflict pain upon a baseball. "Little Snoop" Parker was a tremendous hitter, so were Joe and Joshua Epperson. The Spiders were not used to playing for large crowds in excess of 200 people. A couple of local Mineola businessmen owned the Spiders and sought to entice them into becoming an integral part of an established minor league franchise in Iowa, but they refused to accept the challenge. It is estimated Mineola's Black Spiders played approximately fifteen to twenty games in a season. Their debut began somewhere



in the middle 1930s.

Contributors: Billy Mc Calla, Sr., Haywood Epperson and Kevin Sherrington

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Mineola Black Spiders
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