Position: pitcher Bats: right Throws: right

Laymon Ramsey was born on August 24, 1917 in Grady, Alabama. The Ramsey family lived in a small community alongside the railroad tracks. Mom raised the children while dad worked in the coalmines outside of Birmingham and later as a fireman on the L&M Railroad. Laymon grew up with an overwhelming desire to play baseball. His younger days filled with stickball and sandlot baseball, paved the way for an industrial league baseball career, pitching for teams fielded by his employers at Stockham and American Cast Iron & Pipe Company (ACIPCO). He developed a strong arsenal of pitches and deliveries. Laymon knew he wanted to play baseball but his options to do so were quite limited. Laymon was a young black man, trying to make sense of the world in which he lived. As men of color were denied the opportunity to tryout for the Major League Baseball teams, Laymon pursued an opportunity to play in the Negro Leagues.

Laymon found it convenient to attend spring training every year with the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro Leagues. However, when it came time to sign a contract to play season ball, Laymon explained, owner Tom Hayes would offer only minimum pay to his pitchers. Laymon was insulted by the owners offer and would take his talent to a Negro Leagues team that would compensate him fairly, which turned out to be the Chicago American Giants and the Memphis Red Sox. Laymon's presence on the mound was anything but common. He offered a variety of pitch deliveries. His ability to release the ball in a straight overhand, a 3/4 arm position, and a side arm and submarine fashion kept batters guessing where the next pitch was going to come from. In 1941, Laymon had to put aside his baseball dreams and aspirations to serve his country in the segregated armed forces. Early in his military service, Laymon's commanding officer discovered his talent for writing calligraphy, a skill that was taught to him by his father when he was just a kid. Laymon was placed in a special duty atmosphere where he could provide his writing service and create signs for use around the post. This assignment would free up enough time for Laymon to play baseball on the marine post team. At the end of his military commitment, Laymon left the marines and returned to his home where the social climate remained the same. Still denied equal opportunity to pursue professional baseball do to segregation, he found employment with Goose Tatum and King Tut's Harlem Globetrotters.

Ramsey witnessed the color barrier tumble in 1947 when Jackie Robinson, signed by Branch Rickey, took the field for Major League Baseballs Brooklyn Dodgers. This monumental event put the wheels of opportunity and the process of integrating the Majors into motion while at the very same time redefined the purpose and the need for the Negro Leagues. By this time, however, the sun had set on Laymon's chance to parade.

It is so important that we acknowledge the effort, the will, and the determination that Laymon and so many others exhibited in the face of oppression and adversity. It was through the hardships that they endured and the foundation for change that they prepared that the building of a new and better society could be laid.