Appalachian Figures
On a cool October afternoon in 1929, the Washington Senators wrapped up a long and mostly forgettable season with a meaningless game against the Boston Red Sox. In center field for Washington stood a twenty six year old rookie from a fading river town in Kemper County, Mississippi.
His name on the lineup card was simple enough. Land, center field.
That one start on October 6 would be the entire Major League career of Doc Burrell Land of Binnsville. Three at bats, no hits, one walk, nine innings in center, one putout, and a line in the official record that has never gone away.
For most fans, Doc Land is a curiosity on a stat sheet, one of the many so called cup of coffee players who touched the big leagues for a single day. For Kemper County and for students of Southern baseball, he is something more. His story links a ghost town on the Tombigbee River, the University of Alabama, dusty Southern minor league parks, and Washington’s old American League franchise.
Binnsville on the Tombigbee
Doc Burrell Land was born on 14 May 1903 at Binnsville in Kemper County, Mississippi, a rural community near the Tombigbee River along the Mississippi Alabama line.
In the decades before his birth, Binnsville had been one of Kemper County’s little hubs. Gene Allred’s sketch of the “Binnsville Community” for the Kemper County MSGenWeb project describes a river landing with stores, warehouses, and Fairview Male and Female College, a coeducational school that served farm families in the surrounding countryside.
By the early twentieth century, the forces that hurt so many inland river towns were already at work. Railroads and improved roads pulled trade elsewhere, the river’s traffic shifted, and Binnsville’s post office closed in 1914. Today the community survives mostly in memory and maps. A short distance south of the old road lies Binnsville United Methodist Church and its cemetery, one of the last physical anchors of the place.
Kemper County itself sits on the eastern edge of Mississippi, part of the low uplands that blend the Piney Woods and the Black Belt. Created in 1833 out of former Choctaw lands, the county’s history includes plantation agriculture along the river bottoms, small farms in the hills, and a Reconstruction and Jim Crow era marked by violence and political turmoil.
Records for Kemper County researchers are patchy. A fire at the courthouse in 1882 destroyed many early county level documents, a fact that genealogists still wrestle with today. Yet for one of Binnsville’s sons, the national obsession with baseball would preserve a different sort of documentary trail.
Growing Up on the Mississippi Alabama Line
Surviving baseball and reference works agree that Land’s full name at birth was Doc Burrell Land. Later sources sometimes call him William Gilbert Land and treat Doc as a nickname, but Baseball Almanac gives “Doc Burrell Land” as his birth name and notes his later life in Alabama.
Baseball records describe him as a left handed batter and thrower, five feet eleven inches tall and about 165 pounds. That profile fits the image of a rangy outfielder rather than the hulking sluggers who would dominate the game later in the century.
Doc’s early years in Binnsville and Kemper County are sparsely documented. The county level guides at FamilySearch and the Mississippi Department of Archives and History point researchers toward surviving marriage, land, probate, and court records, as well as scattered church and cemetery transcriptions that document families in the Binnsville orbit.
Later in life, Doc and his family surface along the border again. A mid twentieth century telephone directory preserved by the Library of Congress lists “Land Doc” in Geiger, Alabama, just across the state line from Kemper County, which fits both his roots and his burial in nearby Sumter County. The baseball references place his death at Livingston, Alabama, on 14 April 1986, and note that he is buried at Belmont Community Cemetery in Belmont, Alabama.
Binnsville’s story, then, is not only one of decline. Through people like Doc Land, the community’s history spills across county and state lines, into colleges and minor leagues and far off ballparks.
From Tuscaloosa to the Textile Leagues
Before he appeared in Washington, Doc Land played college ball for the University of Alabama. Baseball reference works that track major leaguers by college list him among Crimson Tide alumni who reached the big leagues.
After college he entered the Southern minor league circuits that crisscrossed the region. Baseball Reference’s minor league register and related databases show him appearing with clubs such as the High Point Furniture Makers and the Clarksdale Ginners, among others, in the early 1930s.
High Point, North Carolina, was a furniture manufacturing center. Its Piedmont League club drew heavily from mill workers and Southern colleges. The High Point Furniture Makers entry highlights the team’s place in textile mill baseball and lists Doc Land among notable players from the 1931 season, suggesting that he had already built a reputation as a capable outfielder and hitter in high level minor league play.
By 1934, Land was one of the offensive leaders for the Clarksdale Ginners in the Cotton States League, a Class C loop that strung together small Deep South towns. A season summary of the Ginners notes that Doc Land led the club in doubles, a sign that he supplied consistent gap power even if he never became a famous slugger.
These minor league assignments placed him squarely in the baseball culture of the South. Towns like High Point and Clarksdale treated baseball as summer theater. Textile workers, planters, and merchants watched local heroes on weekday afternoons, and regional newspapers filled sports pages with box scores and brief game write-ups. For a boy from Binnsville, the road from farm country to these professional rosters would have felt both improbable and familiar.
October 6, 1929: One Afternoon in Center Field
The Washington Senators of 1929 were not a pennant winner. Led by manager Bucky Harris, the club finished the season in the middle of the American League pack, far behind Philadelphia.
On October 6, Washington hosted the Boston Red Sox for a doubleheader at Griffith Stadium. For the second game, the Senators started Doc Land in center field, giving their 26 year old prospect a look at the big leagues on the final day of the season. Contemporary box score data, preserved by Retrosheet and Baseball Reference, gives us a surprisingly detailed glimpse of his day.
Batting from the left side, Land came to the plate three times. He did not record a hit but did work one walk. He scored no runs and drove in none. In the field, he played the full nine innings in center and registered a single putout, with no errors. His defensive line reads: one game, nine innings, one putout, no assists, no errors, perfect fielding percentage.
Advanced metrics confirm the modesty of that stat line. FanGraphs’ team leaderboard for the 1929 Senators lists Doc Land with four plate appearances and a total Wins Above Replacement value essentially at zero. In other words, in that small sample he was a perfectly average major leaguer.
For historians, the significance lies less in the numbers and more in the fact that they exist at all. The official scorer’s report, digitized decades later, is a primary record for Land’s brief time on the national stage. A day’s work in center field, forgotten by most spectators, became one of the key documents in his life story.
Back to the Minors and Back Home
After his lone day in Washington, Doc Land did not stick with the Senators. Baseball’s transactional churn favored younger prospects and established stars, and marginal players often found themselves back on trains and buses to the minors.
The statistical record suggests that Land continued in professional baseball for several more seasons. His minor league entries show him with Southern clubs into the mid 1930s, including the Clarksdale Ginners and other teams in the Cotton States and related leagues.
Baseball Almanac includes Land on its list of Mississippi born major leaguers, pairing his short big league career with a longer run in the minors and noting that he came out of Binnsville, one of a relatively small number of players from that part of the state to reach Major League Baseball.
Away from the ballpark, the surviving evidence points back toward the Mississippi Alabama border country. His burial at Belmont Community Cemetery in Belmont, Alabama, a few miles from the state line, and the appearance of his household in genealogical compilations through his daughter Hester underscore how his adult life remained rooted in that region even as he traveled for baseball.
Doc Land died in Livingston, Alabama, on 14 April 1986. The man whose entire Major League resume fit into one game had lived to see free agency, expansion, and the rise of television.
Chasing Doc Land Through the Archives
Because Doc Land’s big league footprint is so small, reconstructing his story offers a good example of how to work with fragmentary records.
On the baseball side, the most directly primary materials are the game level records preserved by organizations such as Retrosheet and the play by play datasets that feed Baseball Player Won Loss Records. These modern databases rest on original scorebooks and official game reports and allow us to see Land’s plate appearances and defensive chances on October 6, 1929.
Baseball Reference, MLB.com, and Baseball Almanac serve as consolidated dossiers. They provide his vital statistics, height, weight, handedness, and a summary of his minor league assignments, and they agree on his birth in Binnsville and death and burial in Alabama.
The minor league context comes into focus when we move to regional histories. Entries on the High Point Furniture Makers and the Clarksdale Ginners in modern reference works and fan driven histories bring out the industrial and agricultural settings of those clubs and identify Land as one of their notable players or statistical leaders.
To push beyond baseball, a researcher has to lean on Kemper County resources. MSGenWeb’s Binnsville community and cemetery pages document the surviving church and graveyard, while the FamilySearch Kemper County guide and the Mississippi Genealogy by County bibliography at Mississippi State University Libraries point to microfilmed marriage, land, and court records, some of which cover the decades when Doc’s parents and grandparents would have been active in the county.
The Mississippi Department of Archives and History lists “Kemper County Original Records, Series 2050,” a set of county level files stretching from the mid nineteenth century to the late twentieth that may include civil or criminal cases involving Land family members. The department’s Series 0436, which contains Federal Writers Project ex slave narratives for Kemper County, does not mention Doc Land directly but helps recover the broader social world of his childhood.
This patchwork of baseball statistics, local history sketches, genealogical finding aids, and state archives is what allows a one game player from a semi vanished town to reenter the historical record.
Why This Story Matters
At first glance, there is not much to say about a man who went 0 for 3 in a late season game almost a century ago. Yet Doc Land’s story resonates far beyond his box score.
He reminds us that baseball’s big league rosters have always been fed by small towns and short lived institutions. Binnsville’s Fairview Male and Female College, the textile mills of High Point, the cotton fields around Clarksdale, and the Tuscaloosa campus of the University of Alabama all fed talent into the professional game.
He also illustrates how fragile local memory can be. Binnsville is now a ghost town in most reference works, noted for its abandoned college, its cemetery, and a handful of notable natives including a little known major leaguer.
For Appalachian and border South historians, Doc Land offers a way to connect rural life, higher education, industrial labor, and sport. His life bridges an era in which young men from farm communities could travel widely through baseball and then quietly return to the same crossroads counties where they began.
Finally, his story is a reminder that historical significance is not solely about fame or statistical greatness. Sometimes it is about what a single ordinary life can reveal about a place, a time, and the networks that tied the Appalachian and Deep South borderlands to the broader currents of American sport and society.
Sources and Further Reading
Retrosheet derived game and player data for the Washington Senators, including the October 6, 1929 contest in which Land started in center field, as summarized through Baseball Reference and advanced by Baseball Player Won Loss Records. Baseball Reference+1
FanGraphs, “1929 Washington Senators WAR Leaderboards,” confirming Land’s single game, four plate appearances, and neutral WAR value. FanGraphs Baseball
MLB.com player bio for Doc Land, giving his full name, birth and death details, college affiliation, and Major League stat line. MLB.com
Baseball Almanac, “Doc Land Baseball Stats,” listing his birth as 14 May 1903 at Binnsville, Mississippi, his left handed batting and throwing, physical measurements, University of Alabama connection, and burial in Belmont Community Cemetery. Baseball Almanac
Baseball Reference player register and news archive for Land, which aggregate his Major and minor league career and link to his minor league stops in High Point, Clarksdale, and other Southern towns. Baseball Reference+1
Wikipedia, “Doc Land,” a concise narrative confirming his one game Major League career, birthplace, and list of minor league teams. Wikipedia
Baseball Almanac, “Mississippi Born Major League Baseball Players,” contextualizing Land among other players from the state. Baseball Almanac
Local season summaries for the High Point Furniture Makers and Clarksdale Ginners, which identify Land as a notable player and as the Ginners’ doubles leader in 1934. Wikipedia+1
Gene Allred, “Binnsville Community, MS,” Kemper County MSGenWeb, outlining the rise and decline of Binnsville, including Fairview Male and Female College and the town’s commercial history. MSGW
Gene Allred, “Binnsville United Methodist Church,” Kemper County MSGenWeb, history of the surviving church near the Binnsville cemetery. MSGW+1
“Binnsville, Mississippi,” Wikipedia, treating Binnsville as a ghost town on the Tombigbee and noting Doc Land as one of its notable natives. Wikipedia
FamilySearch Wiki, “Kemper County, Mississippi Genealogy,” and related Kemper County guides summarizing available marriage, probate, land, and court records and noting the 1882 courthouse fire. Wikitree+1
Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Series 2050: “Kemper County Original Records,” and Series 0436 finding aids, pointing to original county files and ex slave narratives that frame the social history of Land’s home county. Finding Aids+2Mississippi Digital Archives+2
Mississippi State University Libraries, “Mississippi Genealogy by County: Kemper,” for a bibliography of county histories, cemetery and Bible record compilations, and transcription projects. Mississippi State University Libraries