Courtesy New Jersey Times

(July 16, 2008) Newark native Sherman "Jocko" Maxwell, the nation's first African-American sportscaster and a chronicler of the Negro Leagues, died this morning in West Chester, Pa. He was 100.

The cause of death was complications from pneumonia, his sister, Berenice Maxwell Cross of West Caldwell, said.

"He was unique," said Monte Irvin, 89, a Hall of Fame baseball player who once played for the Negro League's Newark Eagles. Irvin recalled how Mr. Maxwell did live play-by-play of Eagles games at Ruppert Stadium for a local radio station.

"We all thought that was just a great thing," Irvin said from his home in Houston, Texas.

Mr. Maxwell's broadcast career began in 1929, when he read game scores for five minutes every Saturday on the WNJR radio station in Newark. He worked for various stations, all while working full-time as a postal clerk. He retired from radio in 1967.

Mr. Maxwell was also a prolific writer, who would cover Negro League games and submit write-ups to the newspapers, including The Ledger, predecessor of The Star-Ledger, which didn't cover the games at that time.

"The first thing about Jocko to know is that there would be very few records of the Negro Leagues that are accurate, and there would be almost none, without him," said Jerry Izenberg, columnist emeritus for The Star-Ledger. "He could sense the meaning of what he was doing. He knew that one day this stuff would be important."