Highlights of Charleston\'s career included playing in the Negro National League\'s inaugural doubleheader on May 20, 1920. His most productive season was with the Saint Louis Giants in 1921, when he hit fifteen home runs, twelve triples, and seventeen doubles, stole thirty-one bases, and had a .437 batting average. In 1933 Charleston played in the first Negro National League All-Star Game at Chicago\'s Comiskey Park and appeared in the League\'s 1934 and 1935 all-star games. In 1945 Charleston became manager of the Brooklyn Brown Dodgers and helped recruit black ballplayers such as Roy Campanella to join the first integrated Major League Baseball teams.\n', '

Oscar McKinley Charleston was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, on October 14, 1896, the seventh of eleven children. His father, Tom Charleston, was a construction worker and a former jockey. Oscar spent his youth playing sandlot baseball and was a batboy for the Indianapolis ABCs.\n', '

On March 7, 1912, fifteen-year-old Charleston lied about his age to enlist in the U.S. Army. He was assigned to Company B of the Twenty-Fourth Infantry Regiment and served in the Philippines, where he ran track and played baseball on the regiment\'s team. In 1914 the seventeen-year-old, left-handed pitcher played a season representing the regiment in the Manila League. Charleston also pitched a 3–0 shutout and scored a run during a local all-star game. At the end of his tour of duty, Charleston decided not to reenlist. He returned to Indianapolis in April 1915.\n', '

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