A couple of further notes on Steel Arm Johnny Taylor, the second-oldest of the Taylor brothers, right-handed pitcher, Biddle University baseball coach, Louisville White Sox manager, and in 1920 the founder of a team called the American Black Devils based in Peoria, Illinois.

1)  He really was referred to in newspapers as “Steel Arm John” or “Steel Arm Johnny,” much more often than the simpler “Steel Arm Taylor,” which is why I elected to use that as his baseball name.

2) His name was John Boyce Taylor, not Jonathan, as you will see in some secondary sources.  He was always, without exception, called John or Johnny in newspapers; he was always John in census records; and he signed his name “John” on both his World War I and World War II draft cards.

By the way, C. I., John, Jim, and Ben were not the only Taylor brothers.  Here are all the (known) children of Isham and Adeline Taylor, with their birth years in parentheses:

Fran K. (1865)
Mary (1868)
Sarah J. (1870)
Frances (1873)
Charles Isham (1875)
Samuel (1877)
John Boyce (1879)
Martha (born February 1882)
James Allen (1884)
Pomp (1886)
Benjamin Harrison (1888)
Julian H. (born 1889)

I wonder what it was like to be one of the kids who didn’t become a professional ballplayer…