Sammy West
(1904-1985)
Major League Baseball Star
and Culpepper Descendant

A natural born athlete, Sam excelled in school and sand-lot sports, while working long hours on the farm and in the fields, as did all his brothers and sisters.

At a young age, he was playing in semi-pro baseball for Rule, in a league with nearby towns. About 1922 someone representing the Roswell, NM, baseball team saw Sam play ball and sent him a telegram, offering him $200 a month to play baseball with the team. This came as a total surprise to Sam, who gladly seized the opportunity to go to the minor leagues, where he played for four years.

After the Roswell team folded, he was picked up by Sulphur Springs, where he finished the season. The next year he played for Monroe, LA, and Biloxi, MS, teams (or perhaps Longview, TX).

In the last of the 1924 season and again in 1925, he played for Birmingham.

He went up to the majors in 1926, to the Washington Senators, beginning his successful career in the American League… He played for Washington until 1933 when he was traded to the St. Louis Browns.

In 1938 he was traded back to Washington, then was traded to the Chicago White Sox in 1942 for his last season as a player.

Following his service in WW-II, he returned to Washington for two years when his friend and former teammate, Ossie Bluege, asked him to coach for the Senators.

Sam complete 18 years in the American League, sixteen years as a player, and two years as a coach… Ossie Bluege, a well-known American League player, once said that Sam was "the best outfielder who ever picked up a glove." Shirley Povich, a former sportswriter for The Washington Post said that Sam West was "a complete baseball player."

An interview with Sam by Paul Green was published in Sports Collectors Digest. In it, Green said, "If you are thinking about stars of the 1930's, its easy to remember the big names on the Yankees, but to be fair, you had better not forget one Sammy West, because there is no question he ranked right up there with the best the game had at the time."

Another national sportswriter who covered baseball in the 1930's said that "Sam was an outstanding player, who should certainly be in the Baseball Hall of Fame." His record in baseball includes:

Sam and his wife Grace Cross, a teacher whom he married in 1930, maintained their off-season home in Lubbock, Texas. In 1933 he bought an interest in a drug store, Jarrett-West Drug, to which he devoted his time during off-seasons.

In 1942, he enlisted in the Air Force and was stationed at Reese Air Force Base in Lubbock. He was a Sergeant, assigned to physical training of pilots and base personnel, and was honorably discharged at the end of the war. He spent the next two years as a coach for the Washington Senators.

Upon his return to Lubbock, Sam sold his drug store and opened the Sport Center with a partner, Joe Holmes. Later, J. G. "Goober" Keyes, a former coach in the Lubbock Public Schools, joined Sam in the business. They operated one of the leading sporting goods stores in West Texas, where their customers included many school districts throughout the South Plains and countless individual local people. The Sport Center became a magnet for people who loved to stop in to visit with Sam and "Goober," because both always had a good story to tell -- the store was a sort of headquarters for the "Monday Morning Quarterbacks." Sam was a gregarious person who enjoyed golf, fishing, and traveling....

Sam suffered a heart attack in 1951 and had a by-pass operation in 1960. In 1969 he sold the Sports Center and retired. He died of a massive hemorrhage in 1985 at 81 years of age.

Source: The Wests and The Rays and Allied Lines, by Nan Overton West, p. 83; provided to Culpepper Connections by Lew Griffin.

Culpepper Connections Note: At birth, Sam was named Almer Filmore West but he became known as "Sam" and had his name legally changed to Samuel Filmore West. The.son of Arcadian Filmore West and Idora Ray, Sam was born in Longview, Gregg Co, TX, 5 Oct 1904. Sam's mother was the daughter of William Luther Ray, who was the son of James Benjamin Ray and Ann Elizabeth Dean. Ann Elizabeth Dean was the daughter of John Wesley Dean and Mary Elizabeth Culpepper, who was the daughter of John Culpepper and Nancy Gillespie.