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The Negro leagues were United States professional baseball leagues comprising teams of African 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".
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Norman Thomas "Turkey" Stearnes was an American baseball center fielder. He played 18 years in the Negro leagues, including nine years with the Detroit Stars (1923–1931), six years with the Chicago American Giants, and three years with the Kansas City Monarchs (1938–1940).
Sulphur Dell, formerly known as Sulphur Spring Park and Athletic Park, was a baseball park in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. It was located just north of the Tennessee State Capitol building in the block bounded by modern-day Jackson Street, Fourth Avenue North, Harrison Street, and Fifth Avenue North. The ballpark was home to the city's minor league baseball teams from 1885 to 1963. The facility was demolished in 1969.
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Seymour "Cy" Block was an American professional baseball second baseman and third baseman for the Chicago Cubs of Major League Baseball during the 1942, 1945, and 1946 seasons. He played in the minor leagues from 1938 to 1950, with the exception of his military service from 1943 to 1944. After his playing career, Block became an insurance salesman.
The Negro Southern League (NSL) was one of the several Negro baseball leagues created during the time organized baseball was segregated. The NSL was organized as a minor league in 1920 and lasted until 1936. It was considered a major league for the 1932 season and it was also the only organized league to finish its full schedule that season. Prior to the season, several established teams joined the NSL, mainly from the collapsed Negro National League.
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The Nashville Cubs were a Negro league baseball team that played in the minor league Negro Southern League from 1945 to 1951. The club was originally called the Nashville Black Vols, named after the all-white Nashville Vols of the minor league Southern Association, but changed to the Cubs moniker in 1946. They were located in Nashville, Tennessee, for the majority of their existence, but split part of the 1950 season between Nashville and Louisville, Kentucky, where they played as the Louisville Cubs. While in Nashville, they played their home games at Sulphur Dell. The Black Vols finished the 1945 season in fourth place with an 18–16 (.529) record. The 1949 team won the second half of the season.
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Alvin "Bubber" Gipson, Sr. was an American Negro league pitcher in the 1940s. A native of Shreveport, Louisiana, Gipson spent most of his career in Birmingham as a mainstay of the Black Barons' pitching staff.
Nashville, Tennessee, has hosted Minor League Baseball (MiLB) teams since the late 19th century but has never been home to a Major League Baseball (MLB) team. The city's professional baseball history dates back to 1884 with the formation of the Nashville Americans, who were charter members of the original Southern League in 1885 and played their home games at Sulphur Spring Park, later renamed Athletic Park and Sulphur Dell. This ballpark was the home of Nashville's minor league teams through 1963. Of the numerous clubs to play there, the best-known and longest-operating was the Nashville Vols, who competed from 1901 to 1963, primarily in the Southern Association.
References
- ↑ "Negro Major League (1942)" (PDF). Center for Negro League Baseball Research. Retrieved August 30, 2019.
- ↑ "Negro Southern League (1920–1951)" (PDF). Center for Negro League Baseball Research. Retrieved June 14, 2021.
- ↑ Nipper, Skip (December 12, 2013). "Baseball Shrines". 262 Down Right. Archived from the original on February 2, 2015. Retrieved February 1, 2015.
- ↑ "Nashville Stars Begin Season". The Tennessean. Nashville. May 14, 1950. p. 5-B – via Newspapers.com.
- ↑ Knutson, Jesse (October 2, 2019). "Music City Baseball Leadership Opens up About Challenges, Opportunity to Bring MLB to Nashville". NewsChannel 5. Retrieved October 5, 2019.
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