The Negro leagues were United States professional baseball leagues comprising teams of African Americans and, to a lesser extent, Latin Americans. The term may be used broadly to include professional black teams outside the leagues and it may be used narrowly for the seven relatively successful leagues beginning in 1920 that are sometimes termed "Negro Major Leagues".
Oscar McKinley Charleston was an American center fielder and manager in Negro league baseball. In 1915, after serving three years in the U.S. Army, the Indianapolis, Indiana, native continued his baseball career as a professional with the Indianapolis ABCs; his career ended in 1954 as a player-manager for the Indianapolis Clowns. In addition to a forty-three-year career with more than a dozen teams, including the Homestead Grays and the Pittsburgh Crawfords, Negro league baseball's leading teams in the 1930s, he played nine winter seasons in Cuba and in numerous exhibition games against white major leaguers. Charleston was known for his strengths as a hitter and center fielder. He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1976.
Joshua Gibson was an American baseball catcher primarily in the Negro leagues. Baseball historians consider Gibson to be among the very best power hitters and catchers in baseball history. In 1972, he became the second Negro league player to be inducted in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
The second Negro National League, founded in 1933 by businessman Gus Greenlee of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was one of the several Negro leagues created during the time when professional organized baseball was segregated.
The American Negro League (ANL) was one of several Negro leagues established during the period in the United States in which organized baseball was segregated. The ANL operated on the East Coast of the United States in 1929.
The Kansas City Monarchs were the longest-running franchise in the history of baseball's Negro leagues. Operating in Kansas City, Missouri and owned by J. L. Wilkinson, they were charter members of the Negro National League from 1920 to 1930. J. L. Wilkinson was the first Caucasian owner at the time of the establishment of the team. In 1930, the Monarchs became the first professional baseball team to use a portable lighting system which was transported from game to game in trucks to play games at night, five years before any major league team did. The Monarchs won ten league championships before integration, and triumphed in the first Negro League World Series in 1924. The Monarchs had only one season in which they did not have a winning record. The team produced more major league players than any other Negro league franchise. It was disbanded in 1965.
Raymond Emmitt Dandridge, nicknamed "Hooks" and "Squat", was an American third baseman in baseball's Negro leagues. Dandridge excelled as a third baseman and he hit for a high batting average. By the time that Major League Baseball was racially integrated, Dandridge was considered too old to play. He worked as a major league scout after his playing career ended. In 1999, Dandridge was inducted into the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame and, late in his life, Dandridge was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1987.
Willard Jessie Brown, nicknamed "Home Run" Brown, was an American baseball player who played outfielder in the Negro leagues and in Major League Baseball (MLB). He is a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Buck O'Neil was a first baseman and manager in the Negro American League, mostly with the Kansas City Monarchs. After his playing days, he worked as a scout and became the first African American coach in Major League Baseball. In his later years he became a popular and renowned speaker and interview subject, helping to renew widespread interest in the Negro leagues, and played a major role in establishing the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri.
The Chicago American Giants were a Chicago-based Negro league baseball team. From 1910 until the mid-1930s, the American Giants were the most dominant team in black baseball. Owned and managed from 1911 to 1926 by player-manager Andrew "Rube" Foster, they were charter members of Foster's Negro National League. The American Giants won five pennants in that league, along with another pennant in the 1932 Negro Southern League and a second-half championship in Gus Greenlee's Negro National League in 1934. The team ended in 1956.
James Raleigh "Biz" Mackey was an American catcher and manager in Negro league baseball. He played for the Indianapolis ABCs (1920–1922), New York Lincoln Giants (1920), Hilldale Daisies (1923–1931), Philadelphia Royal Giants (1925), Philadelphia Stars (1933–1935), Washington and Baltimore Elite Giants (1936–1939), and Newark Dodgers/Eagles.
The Philadelphia Stars were a Negro league baseball team from Philadelphia. The Stars were founded in 1933 when Ed Bolden returned to professional black baseball after being idle since early 1930. The Stars were an independent ball club in 1933, a member of the Negro National League from 1934 until the League's collapse following the 1948 season, and affiliated with the Negro American League from 1949 to 1952.
John Thomas Wyatt was an American professional baseball pitcher. He played all or part of nine seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB), primarily as a relief pitcher. From 1961 through 1969, he played for the Kansas City Athletics (1961–66), Boston Red Sox (1966–68), New York Yankees (1968), Detroit Tigers (1968) and Oakland Athletics (1969). In the Negro leagues, he played for the Indianapolis Clowns (1953–55). Wyatt batted and threw right-handed.
Elander Victor Harris was a strong-hitting outfielder and a successful manager in the Negro leagues. Listed at 5 ft 10 in (1.78 m), 168 lb., Harris batted left-handed and threw right-handed.
Lloyd "Pepper" Bassett was an American baseball catcher in the Negro leagues and the Mexican League. He played professionally from 1934 to 1954, playing mainly with the Birmingham Black Barons; he was All-Star seven times.
Willie Ernest "Pee Wee" Powell was an American baseball pitcher in the Negro leagues. He played from 1925 to 1934, playing mostly with the Chicago American Giants. He threw a no-hitter in 1927.
John Gerald "Gable" Shackelford, was a Negro league baseball player, manager, executive, and attorney. He lived much of his early life in Prescott, Arkansas, and in Hot Springs, Arkansas.
John T. Banks, Sr. was a baseball player who pitched and played first base in the Negro leagues in the 1940s and 1950s.
The Memphis Red Sox were an American Negro league baseball team that was active from 1920 to 1959. Originally named the Barber College Baseball Club, the team was initially owned and operated by Arthur P. Martin, a local Memphis barber. In the late 1920s the Martin brothers, all three Memphis doctors and businessmen, purchased the Red Sox. J. B. Martin, W. S. Martin, and B. B. Martin, would retain control of the club till its dissolution in 1959. The Red Sox played as members, at various times, of the Negro Southern League, Negro National League, and Negro American League. The team was never a titan of the Negro leagues like wealthier teams in northern cities of the United States, but sound management lead to a continuous thirty-nine years of operation, a span that was exceeded by very few other teams. Following integration the team had five players that would eventually make the rosters of Major League Baseball teams and two players that were inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
John William Hayes was an American Negro league catcher from 1934 to 1951.
