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".
In December 2020, Major League Baseball announced that based on recent decades of historical research, it classified the seven "major Negro leagues" as additional major leagues, adding them to the six historical "major league" designations it made in 1969, thus recognizing statistics and approximately 3,400 players who played from 1920 to 1948.[4] On May 28, 2024, Major League Baseball announced that it had integrated Negro league statistics into its records, which among other changes gives Josh Gibson the highest single-season major league batting average at .466 (1943) and the highest career batting average at .372.[5]
Etymology
During the formative years of black baseball, the term "colored" was the established usage when referring to African-Americans. References to black baseball prior to the 1930s are usually to "colored" leagues or teams, such as the Southern League of Colored Base Ballists (1886), the National Colored Base Ball League (1887) and the Eastern Colored League (1923), among others. By the 1920s or 1930s, the term "Negro" came into use which led to references to "Negro" leagues or teams. The black World Series was referred to as the Colored World Series from 1924 to 1927, and the Negro World Series from 1942 to 1948.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People petitioned the public to recognize a capital "N" in negro as a matter of respect for black people. By 1930, essentially every major US outlet had adopted "Negro" as the accepted term for black people.[6] By about 1970, the term "Negro" had fallen into disfavor, but by then the Negro leagues were mere historic artifacts.
Because black people were not being accepted into the major and minor baseball leagues due to racism which established the color line, they formed their own teams and had made professional teams by the 1880s.[7] The first known baseball game between two black teams was held on November 15, 1859, in New York City. The Henson Base Ball Club of Jamaica, Queens, defeated the Unknowns of Weeksville, Brooklyn, 54 to 43.[8]
Immediately after the end of the American Civil War in 1865 and during the Reconstruction period that followed, a black baseball scene formed in the East and Mid-Atlantic states. Comprising mainly ex-soldiers and promoted by some well-known black officers, teams such as the Jamaica Monitor Club, Albany Bachelors, Philadelphia Excelsiors and Chicago Uniques started playing each other and any other team that would play against them.[citation needed]
By the end of the 1860s, the black baseball mecca was Philadelphia, which had an African-American population of 22,000.[9] Two former cricket players, James H. Francis and Francis Wood, formed the Pythian Base Ball Club. They played in Camden, New Jersey, at the landing of the Federal Street Ferry, because it was difficult to get permits for black baseball games in the city. Octavius Catto, the promoter of the Pythians, decided to apply for membership in the National Association of Base Ball Players, normally a matter of sending delegates to the annual convention; beyond that, a formality. At the end of the 1867 season, "the National Association of Baseball Players voted to exclude any club with a black player."[1] In some ways Blackball thrived under segregation, with the few black teams of the day playing not only each other but white teams as well. "Black teams earned the bulk of their income playing white independent 'semipro' clubs."[10]
Baseball featuring African American players became professionalized by the 1870s.[11] The first known professional black baseball player was Bud Fowler, who appeared in a handful of games with a Chelsea, Massachusetts club in April 1878 and then pitched for the Lynn, Massachusetts team in the International Association.[12]Moses Fleetwood Walker and his brother, Welday Wilberforce Walker, were the first two recognizably black players in the major leagues. They both played for the 1884 Toledo Blue Stockings in the American Association, which was considered a major league at the time.[13] Then in 1886 second baseman Frank Grant joined the Buffalo Bisons of the International League, the strongest minor league, and hit .340, third highest in the league. Several other black American players joined the International League the following season, including pitchers George Stovey and Robert Higgins, but 1888 was the last season blacks were permitted in that or any other high minor league.
Moses Fleetwood Walker, possibly the first African-American major league baseball player
The first nationally known black professional baseball team was founded in 1885 when three clubs, the Keystone Athletics of Philadelphia, the Orions of Philadelphia, and the Manhattans of Washington, D.C., merged to form the Cuban Giants.[14]
The success of the Cubans led to the creation of the first recognized "Negro league" in 1887—the National Colored Base Ball League. It was organized strictly as a minor league[2] and founded with six teams: Baltimore Lord Baltimores, Boston Resolutes, Louisville Fall City, New York Gorhams, Philadelphia Pythians, and Pittsburgh Keystones. Two more joined before the season but never played a game, the Cincinnati Browns and Washington Capital Citys. The league, led by Walter S. Brown of Pittsburgh, applied for and was granted official minor league status and thus "protection" under the major league-led National Agreement. This move prevented any team in organized baseball from signing any of the NCBBL players, which also locked the players to their particular teams within the league. The reserve clause would have tied the players to their clubs from season to season but the NCBBL failed. One month into the season, the Resolutes folded. A week later, only three teams were left.[citation needed]
Because the original Cuban Giants were a popular and business success, many similarly named teams came into existence—including the Cuban X-Giants, a splinter and a powerhouse around 1900; the Genuine Cuban Giants, the renamed Cuban Giants, the Columbia Giants, the Brooklyn Royal Giants, and so on. The early "Cuban" teams were all composed of African Americans rather than Cubans; the purpose was to increase their acceptance with white patrons, as Cuba was on very friendly terms with the United States during those years. Beginning in 1899 several Cuban baseball teams played in North America, including the All Cubans, the Cuban Stars (West), the Cuban Stars (East), and the New York Cubans. Some of them included white Cuban players, and some were Negro league players.[15]
The few players on the white minor league teams were constantly dodging verbal and physical abuse from both competitors and fans. The Compromise of 1877 removed the few remaining obstacles from the South enacting Jim Crow laws, allowing legal discrimination against blacks. On July 14, 1887, Cap Anson's Chicago White Stockings were scheduled to play the Newark Giants of the International League, which had Fleet Walker and George Stovey on its roster. After Anson marched his team onto the field in military style as was his custom, he declared that his team would not play unless Walker and Stovey were barred from the field. Newark capitulated, and later that same day, league owners voted to refuse future contracts to blacks, citing the "hazards" imposed by such athletes.[16]
In 1888, the Middle States League was formed and it admitted two all-black teams to its otherwise all-white league, the Cuban Giants and their arch-rivals, the New York Gorhams. Despite the animosity between the two clubs, they managed to form a traveling team, the Colored All Americans. This enabled them to make money barnstorming while fulfilling their league obligations. In 1890, the Giants returned to their independent, barnstorming identity, and by 1892, they were the only black team in the East still in operation on a full-time basis.
Also in 1888, Frank Leland got some of Chicago's black businessmen to sponsor the black amateur Union Base Ball Club. Through Chicago's city government, Leland obtained a permit and lease to play at the South Side Park, a 5,000-seat facility. Eventually, his team went pro and became the Chicago Unions.[17]
After his stint with the Gorhams, Bud Fowler caught on with a team out of Findlay, Ohio. While his team was playing in Adrian, Michigan, Fowler was persuaded by two white local businessmen, L. W. Hoch and Rolla Taylor to help them start a team financed by the Page Woven Wire Fence Company, the Page Fence Giants. The Page Fence Giants went on to become a powerhouse team that had no home field. Barnstorming through the Midwest, they would play all comers. Their success became the prototype for black baseball for years to come.
After the 1898 season, the Page Fence Giants were forced to fold because of finances. Alvin H. Garrett, a black businessman in Chicago, and John W. Patterson, the left fielder for the Page Fence Giants, reformed the team under the name the Columbia Giants. In 1901, the Giants folded because of a lack of a place to play. Leland bought the Giants in 1905 and merged it with his Unions (despite the fact that not a single Giant player ended up on the roster), and named them the Leland Giants.[17]
Rube Foster
The Philadelphia Giants, owned by Walter Schlichter, a white businessman, rose to prominence in 1903 when they lost to the Cuban X-Giants in their version of the "Colored Championship". Leading the way for the Cubans was a young pitcher by the name of Andrew "Rube" Foster. The following season, Schlichter, in the finest blackball tradition, hired Foster away from the Cubans and beat them in their 1904 rematch. Philadelphia remained on top of the blackball world until Foster left the team in 1907 to play and manage the Leland Giants (Frank Leland renamed his Chicago Union Giants the Leland Giants in 1905).[citation needed]
Around the same time, Nat Strong, a white businessman, started using his ownership of baseball fields in the New York City area to become the leading promoter of blackball on the East coast. Just about any game played in New York, Strong would get a cut. Strong eventually used his leverage to almost put the Brooklyn Royal Giants out of business, and then he bought the club and turned it into a barnstorming team.[citation needed]
When Foster joined the Leland Giants, he demanded that he be put in charge of not only the on-field activities but the bookings as well. Foster immediately turned the Giants into the team to beat. He indoctrinated them to take the extra base, to play hit and run on nearly every pitch, and to rattle the opposing pitcher by taking them deep into the count. He studied the mechanics of his pitchers and could spot the smallest flaw, turning his average pitchers into learned craftsmen. Foster also was able to turn around the business end of the team as well, by demanding and getting 40 percent of the gate instead of the 10 percent that Frank Leland was getting.[citation needed]
By the end of the 1909, Foster demanded that Leland step back from all baseball operations or he (Foster) would leave. When Leland would not give up complete control, Foster quit, and in a heated court battle, got to keep the rights to the Leland Giants' name. Leland took the players and started a new team named the Chicago Giants, while Foster took the Leland Giants and started to encroach on Nat Strong's territory.[citation needed]
As early as 1910, Foster started talking about reviving the concept of an all-black league. The one thing he was insistent upon was that black teams should be owned by black men. This put him in direct competition with Strong. After 1910, Foster renamed his team the Chicago American Giants to appeal to a larger fan base. During the same year, J. L. Wilkinson started the All Nations traveling team. The All Nations team would eventually become one of the best-known and popular teams of the Negro leagues, the Kansas City Monarchs.[citation needed]
On April 6, 1917, the United States entered World War I. Manpower needed by the defense plants and industry accelerated the migration of blacks from the South to the North. This meant a larger and more affluent fan base with more money to spend. By the end of the war in 1919, Foster was again ready to start a Negro baseball league.[citation needed]
On May 2, 1920, the Indianapolis ABCs beat Charles "Joe" Green's Chicago [19] Giants (4–2) in the first game played in the inaugural season of the Negro National League, played at Washington Park in Indianapolis.[20] However, because of the Chicago Race Riot of 1919, the National Guard still occupied the Giants' home field, Schorling's Park (formerly South Side Park). This forced Foster to cancel all the Giants' home games for almost a month and threatened to become a huge embarrassment for the league. On March 2, 1920, the Negro Southern League was founded in Atlanta, Georgia.[21] In 1921, the Negro Southern League joined Foster's National Association of Colored Professional Base Ball Clubs. As a dues-paying member of the association, it received the same protection from raiding parties as any team in the Negro National League.
Foster then admitted John Connors' Atlantic City Bacharach Giants as an associate member to move further into Nat Strong's territory. Connors, wanting to return the favor of helping him against Strong, raided Ed Bolden's Hilldale Daisies team. Bolden saw little choice but to team up with Foster's nemesis, Nat Strong. Within days of calling a truce with Strong, Bolden made an about-face and signed up as an associate member of Foster's Negro National League.
On December 16, 1922, Bolden once again shifted sides and, with Strong, formed the Eastern Colored League as an alternative to Foster's Negro National League, which started with six teams: Atlantic City Bacharach Giants, Baltimore Black Sox, Brooklyn Royal Giants, New York Cuban Stars, Hilldale, and New York Lincoln Giants.[22] The National League was having trouble maintaining continuity among its franchises: three teams folded and had to be replaced after the 1921 season, two others after the 1922 season, and two more after the 1923 season. Foster replaced the defunct teams, sometimes promoting whole teams from the Negro Southern League into the NNL. Finally Foster and Bolden met and agreed to an annual World Series beginning in 1924.
Although this was a strong beginning to the Negro Leagues, throughout the 1920's the leagues were very unorganized, having teams play uneven numbers of games. Teams would skip official games for non-league matchups which would be more lucrative for the team. Players would jump from franchise to franchise, looking for the highest pay, causing imbalance within the leagues.
1925 saw the St. Louis Stars come of age in the Negro National League. They finished in second place during the second half of the year due in large part to their pitcher turned center fielder, Cool Papa Bell, and their shortstop, Willie Wells. A gas leak in his home nearly asphyxiated Rube Foster in 1926, and his increasingly erratic behavior led to him being committed to an asylum a year later. While Foster was out of the picture, the owners of the National League elected William C. Hueston as new league president. In 1927, Ed Bolden suffered a similar fate as Foster, by committing himself to a hospital because the pressure was too great. The Eastern League folded shortly after that, marking the end of the World Series between the NNL and the ECL.
After the Eastern League folded following the 1927 season, a new eastern league, the American Negro League, was formed to replace it. The makeup of the new ANL was nearly the same as the Eastern League, the exception being that the Homestead Grays joined in place of the now-defunct Brooklyn Royal Giants. The ANL lasted just one season. In the face of harder economic times, the Negro National League folded after the 1931 season. Some of its teams joined the only Negro league then left, the Negro Southern League. Only strong independent clubs were able to survive the hard economic turn that affected the country, such as the Kansas City Monarchs. During this time, strong clubs would build teams that had potential to beat the teams in the major leagues with new players and tactics that many have never seen before.
On March 26, 1932, the Chicago Defender announced the end of Negro National League.[23]
Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, and Gus Greenlee
Just as Negro league baseball seemed to be at its lowest point and was about to fade into history, along came Cumberland Posey and his Homestead Grays. Posey, Charlie Walker, John Roesnik, George Rossiter, John Drew, Lloyd Thompson, and L.R. Williams got together in January 1932 and founded the East–West League. Eight cities were included in the new league: "Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore, Cleveland, Newark, New York, and Washington, D.C.".[24] By May 1932, the Detroit Wolves were about to collapse, and instead of letting the team go, Posey kept pumping money into it. By June the Wolves had disintegrated and all the rest of the teams, except for the Grays, were beyond help, so Posey had to terminate the league.
Across town from Posey, Gus Greenlee, a reputed gangster and numbers runner, had just purchased the Pittsburgh Crawfords. Greenlee's main interest in baseball was to use it as a way to launder money from his numbers games. But, after learning about Posey's money-making machine in Homestead, he became obsessed with the sport and his Crawfords. On August 6, 1931, Satchel Paige made his first appearance as a Crawford. With Paige on his team, Greenlee took a huge risk by investing $100,000 in a new ballpark to be called Greenlee Field. On opening day, April 30, 1932, the pitcher-catcher battery was made up of the two most marketable icons in all of black baseball: Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson.
In 1933, Greenlee, riding the popularity of his Crawfords, became the next man to start a Negro league. In February 1933, Greenlee and delegates from six other teams met at Greenlee's Crawford Grill to ratify the constitution of the National Organization of Professional Baseball Clubs. The name of the new league was the same as the old league Negro National League which had disbanded a year earlier in 1932.[25] The members of the new league were the Pittsburgh Crawfords, the Columbus Blue Birds, the Indianapolis ABCs, the Baltimore Black Sox, the Brooklyn Royal Giants, Cole's American Giants (formerly the Chicago American Giants), and the Nashville Elite Giants. Greenlee also came up with the idea to duplicate the Major League Baseball All-Star Game, except, unlike the big league method in which the sportswriters chose the players, the fans voted for the participants. The first game, known as the East–West All-Star Game, was held September 10, 1933, at Comiskey Park in Chicago before a crowd of 20,000.[26]
World War II
With the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the United States was thrust into World War II. Remembering World War I, black America vowed it would not be shut out of the beneficial effects of a major war effort: economic boom and social unification.[citation needed]
Judge Kenesaw M. Landis, the first Commissioner of Major League Baseball, was an intractable opponent of integrating the white majors. During his quarter-century tenure, he blocked all attempts at integrating the game. A popular story has it that in 1943, Bill Veeck planned to buy the moribund Philadelphia Phillies and stock them with Negro league stars. However, when Landis got wind of his plans,[29] he and National League president Ford Frick scuttled it in favor of another bid by William D. Cox.
After Landis's death in 1944, Happy Chandler was named his successor. Chandler was open to integrating the game, even at the risk of losing his job as Commissioner. He later said in his biography that he could not, in good conscience, tell black players they could not play baseball with whites when they had fought for their country [although they had fought in segregated units].
On August 28, 1945, Jackie Robinson met with Rickey in Brooklyn, where Rickey gave Robinson a "test" by berating him and shouting racial epithets that Robinson would hear from day one in the white game. Having passed the test,[how?] Robinson signed the contract which stipulated that from then on, Robinson had no "written or moral obligations"[30] to any other club. By the inclusion of this clause, precedent was set that would raze the Negro leagues as a functional commercial enterprise.
To throw off the press and keep his intentions hidden, Rickey got heavily involved in Gus Greenlee's newest foray into black baseball, the United States League. Greenlee started the league in 1945 as a way to get back at the owners of the Negro National League teams for throwing him out. Rickey saw the opportunity as a way to convince people that he was interested in cleaning up blackball, not integrating it. In midsummer 1945, Rickey, almost ready with his Robinson plan, pulled out of the league. The league folded after the end of the 1946 season.
Early in 1946, Rickey signed four more black players, Campanella, Newcombe, John Wright and Roy Partlow, this time with much less fanfare. After the integration of the major leagues in 1947, marked by the appearance of Jackie Robinson with the Brooklyn Dodgers that April, interest in Negro league baseball waned. Black players who were regarded as prospects were signed by major league teams, often without regard for any contracts that might have been signed with Negro league clubs. Negro league owners who complained about this practice were in a no-win situation: They could not protect their own interests without seeming to interfere with the advancement of players to the majors. By 1948, the Dodgers, along with Veeck's Cleveland Indians, had integrated.
The Negro leagues also "integrated" around the same time, as Eddie Klep pitched for the Cleveland Buckeyes during the 1946 season, becoming the first white American to play in the Negro leagues.
These moves came despite strong opposition from the owners; Rickey was the only one of the 16 owners to support integrating the sport in January 1947. Chandler's decision to overrule them may have been a factor in his ouster in 1951 in favor of Ford C. Frick.
End of the Negro leagues
Some proposals were floated to bring the Negro leagues into "organized baseball" as developmental leagues for black players, but that was recognized as contrary to the goal of full integration. And so, the Negro leagues, once among the largest and most prosperous black-owned business ventures, were allowed to fade into oblivion.
First a trickle and then a flood of players signed with Major League Baseball teams. Most signed minor league contracts and many languished, shuttled from one bush league team to another despite their success at that level.
The Negro National League folded after the 1948 season when the Grays withdrew to resume barnstorming, the Newark Eagles moved from New Jersey to Houston, Texas, and the New York Black Yankees folded. The Grays folded one year later after losing $30,000 in the barnstorming effort. The Negro American League was the only "major" Negro league operating in 1949. Within two years it had been reduced to minor league caliber and it played its last game in 1958.
The last All-Star game was held in 1962, and by 1966 the Indianapolis Clowns were the last Negro league team still playing. The Clowns continued to play exhibition games into the 1980s, but as a humorous sideshow rather than a competitive sport.
Major Negro leagues
While organized leagues were common in black baseball, there were only seven leagues that are considered to be of the top quality of play at the time of their existence. In 2020, Major League Baseball announced their official determination and designation of Negro Leagues by seasons as "Major Leagues," including the incorporation of applicable player records into the official baseball statistics.[31] None materialized prior to 1920 and by 1950, due to integration, they were in decline. Even though teams were league members, most still continued to barnstorm and play non-league games against local or semi-pro teams. Those games, sometimes approaching 100 per season, did not count in the official standings or statistics. However, some teams were considered "associate" teams and games played against them did count, but an associate team held no place in the league standings.
American Negro League, 1929; was created from some of the ECL teams but lasted just one season.
East–West League, 1932; ceased operations midway through the season.
Negro Southern League, 1932; incorporated some teams from the NNL(I) and functioned for one year as a major league, was otherwise a minor league that played from 1920 into the 1940s.
Negro American League, 1937–1960 or so; after 1950, the league and its teams operated after a fashion, mostly as barnstorming units, but historians have a hard time deciding when the league actually came to an end.
The NNL(I) and ECL champions met in a World Series, usually referred to as the "Colored World Series", from 1924 to 1927 (1924, 1925, 1926, 1927).
The NNL(II) and NAL also met in a World Series, usually referred to as the "Negro World Series" from 1942 to 1948 (1942, 1943, 1944, 1945, 1946, 1947, 1948).
Five of those years with a World Series at the end also saw a "Championship Series" played to determine the pennant winner that went to the Series. In years without a World Series, leagues would either award a championship to the team that had the best record/percentage at the end of the year or had a "Championship Series" to determine the winner between first half and second half champions. Eleven seasons exist with a postseason series held to determine a pennant winner, although one (1936) was not completed.
Early professional leagues cannot be called major or minor. Until the twentieth century, not one completed even half of its planned season. Two leagues can be considered the prototypes for Negro league baseball:
Eventually, some teams were able to survive and even profit by barnstorming small towns and playing local semi-pro teams as well as league games. Two important leagues of this era are:
Early Negro leagues were unable to attract and retain top talent due to financial, logistical and contractual difficulties. Some early dominant teams did not join a league since they could pull in larger profits independently. The early leagues were specifically structured as minor leagues. With the integration of Organized Baseball, beginning 1946, all leagues simply lost elite players to white leagues, and historians do not consider any Negro league "major" after 1950.
A number of leagues from the major-league era (post-1900) are recognized as Negro minor leagues. A rule of thumb was leagues in the north were major while leagues in the south were minor, due mainly to population and economic disparities. Below are some of the better-documented leagues:
Negro Southern League (I), 1920–1936 – considered a de facto major league in 1932 because it was the only league to play a full season schedule due to the Great Depression
By default, leagues established after integration are considered minor league, as is the one of two 1940s majors that continued after 1950. Also at this time, leagues began to appear in the west, just as in other sports, due to the post-War boom and improved transportation modes. Below are some of the better-documented leagues:
In his Baseball Hall of Fame induction speech in 1966, Ted Williams made a strong plea for inclusion of Negro league stars in the Hall. After the publication of Robert Peterson's landmark book Only the Ball was White in 1970, the Hall of Fame found itself under renewed pressure to find a way to honor Negro league players who would have been in the Hall had they not been barred from the major leagues due to the color of their skin.
At first, the Hall of Fame planned a "separate but equal" display, which would be similar to the Ford C. Frick Award for baseball commentators, in that this plan meant that the Negro league honorees would not be considered members of the Hall of Fame. This plan was criticized by the press, the fans and the players it was intended to honor, and Satchel Paige himself insisted that he would not accept anything less than full-fledged induction into the Hall of Fame. The Hall relented and agreed to admit Negro league players on an equal basis with their Major League counterparts in 1971. A special Negro league committee selected Satchel Paige in 1971, followed by (in alphabetical order) Cool Papa Bell, Oscar Charleston, Martín Dihigo, Josh Gibson, Monte Irvin, Judy Johnson, Buck Leonard and John Henry Lloyd. Of the nine players selected, only Irvin and Paige spent any time in the integrated major leagues. The Veterans Committee later selected Ray Dandridge, as well as choosing Rube Foster on the basis of meritorious service.
Other members of the Hall who played in both the Negro leagues and Major League Baseball are Hank Aaron, Ernie Banks, Roy Campanella, Larry Doby, Willie Mays, and Jackie Robinson. Except for Doby, their play in the Negro leagues was a minor factor in their selection: Aaron, Banks, and Mays played in Negro leagues only briefly and after the leagues had declined with the migration of many black players to the integrated minor leagues; Campanella (1969) and Robinson (1962) were selected before the Hall began considering performance in the Negro leagues.
In February 2006, a committee of twelve baseball historians elected 17 more people from black baseball to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, twelve players and five executives.
Effa Manley, co-owner (with her husband Abe Manley) and business manager of the Newark Eagles club in the Negro National League, is the first woman elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
The committee reviewed the careers of 29 Negro league and 10 Pre-Negro league candidates. The list of 39 had been pared from a roster of 94 candidates by a five-member screening committee in November 2005. The voting committee was chaired by Fay Vincent, Major League Baseball's eighth Commissioner and an Honorary Director of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.
Hank Aaron was the last Negro league player to hold a regular position in Major League Baseball.
Minnie Miñoso was the last Negro league player to play in a Major League game when he appeared in two games for the Chicago White Sox in 1980.
Buck O'Neil was the most recent former Negro league player to appear in a professional game when he made two appearances (one for each team) in the Northern League All-Star Game in 2006.
Andrew "Rube" Foster was an American baseball player, manager, and executive in the Negro leagues. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981.
The Pittsburgh Crawfords, popularly known as the Craws, were a professional Negro league baseball team based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The team, previously known as the Crawford Colored Giants, was named after the Crawford Bath House, a recreation center in the Crawford neighborhood of Pittsburgh's Hill District.
The first Negro National League was one of the several Negro leagues that were established during the period in the United States when organized baseball was segregated. The league was formed in 1920 with former player Rube Foster as its president.
The Negro World Series was a post-season baseball tournament that was held from 1924 to 1927 and from 1942 to 1948 between the champions of the Negro leagues, matching the mid-western winners against their east-coast counterparts. The series was also known as the Colored World Series, especially during the 1920s, and as the Negro League World Series, in more recent books, though contemporary black newspapers usually called it simply, the "World Series", without any modification. A total of eleven Series were contested in its prime, which ultimately saw nine teams compete for a championship and seven who won at least one. The Homestead Grays were the winningest and most present team in the tournament, winning three times in five appearances, while Dave Malarcher and Candy Jim Taylor won the most titles as manager with two each.
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. Wilkinson was the first white 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 Baseball team did. The Monarchs won ten league championships before integration, and triumphed in the first Negro World Series in 1924. The Monarchs had only one season in which they did not have a winning record and produced more major league players than any other Negro league franchise. It was disbanded in 1965.
The color line, also known as the color barrier, in American baseball excluded players of black African descent from Major League Baseball and its affiliated Minor Leagues until 1947. Racial segregation in professional baseball was sometimes called a gentlemen's agreement, meaning a tacit understanding, as there was no written policy at the highest level of organized baseball, the major leagues. A high minor league's vote in 1887 against allowing new contracts with black players within its league sent a powerful signal that eventually led to the disappearance of blacks from the sport's other minor leagues later that century, including the low minors. After the line was in virtually full effect in the early 20th century, many black baseball clubs were established, especially during the 1920s to 1940s when there were several Negro leagues. During this period, American Indians and native Hawaiians, including Prince Oana, were able to play in the Major Leagues. The color line was broken for good when Jackie Robinson signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers organization for the 1946 season. In 1947, both Robinson in the National League and Larry Doby with the American League's Cleveland Indians appeared in games for their teams.
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.
William Augustus Greenlee was an American businessman in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who was born and raised in Marion, North Carolina. After migrating to Pittsburgh as a young man and working in the steel industry, he started to acquire his own businesses.
Grant U. "Home Run" Johnson was an American shortstop and second baseman in baseball's Negro leagues. In a career that spanned over 30 years, he played for many of the greatest teams of the deadball era and was one of the game's best power hitters. Born in Findlay, Ohio, he died at age 90 in Buffalo, New York.
The Indianapolis ABCs were a Negro league baseball team that played both as an independent club and as a charter member of the first Negro National League (NNL). They claimed the western championship of black baseball in 1915 and 1916, and finished second in the 1922 NNL. Among their best players were Baseball Hall of Fame members Oscar Charleston, Biz Mackey, and Ben Taylor.
King Solomon "Sol" White was an American professional baseball infielder, manager and executive, and one of the pioneers of the Negro leagues. An active sportswriter for many years, he wrote the first definitive history of black baseball in 1907. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006.
The Philadelphia Giants were a Negro league baseball team that played from 1902 to 1911. From 1904 to 1909 they were one of the strongest teams in black baseball, winning five eastern championships in six years. The team was organized by Sol White, Walter Schlichter, and Harry Smith.
The Leland Giants, originally the Chicago Union Giants, were a Negro league baseball team that competed independently during the first decade of the 20th century. The team was formed via a merge of the Chicago Unions and the Chicago Columbia Giants in 1901, and then split in 1910 to form the Chicago Giants and what would become known as the Chicago American Giants. The team was named after its owner and manager, Frank Leland.
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 led 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.
The following is a timeline of the evolution of major-league-caliber franchises in Negro league baseball. The franchises included are those of high-caliber independent teams prior to the organization of formal league play in 1920 and concludes with the dissolution of the remnant of the last major Negro league team, the Kansas City Monarchs then based out of Grand Rapids, Michigan, in about 1966. All teams who played a season while a member of a major Negro league are included. The major leagues are the original Negro National League, the Eastern Colored League, the American Negro League, the East–West League, the second Negro National League and the Negro American League. Teams from the 1932 original Negro Southern League are also included which allows for the inclusion of the few high caliber minor Negro league teams.
The United States League (USL), alternately called the United States Baseball League, was one of the several Negro baseball leagues created during the time organized baseball was segregated. The USL was organized as a minor league in 1945 by Branch Rickey to serve as a platform to scout black players.
The Chicago City League was a minor league baseball league based in Chicago, Illinois. The Independent level league played with teams based entirely in Chicago. The league played in 1887, from 1890 to 1894 and 1909 to 1910 as a minor league. In the era of segregated baseball, the 1909 and 1910 leagues were integrated, with the Leland Giants joining as a member.
The Kansas City Giants were a professional Negro leagues baseball team, based in Kansas City, Kansas. From 1909 to 1911, the Kansas City Giants played as a member of the Western Independent Clubs. The Kansas City Giants played home games at Riverside Park. The Giants were a rival of the Kansas City, Missouri based Kansas City Royal Giants.
↑ Krueger, Anne (May 6, 2010). "Negro Leagues players get stamp on history". The San Diego Union-Tribune. Retrieved November 2, 2011. The stamps were created by San Diego artist Kadir Nelson, who also wrote a book about Negro leagues baseball that is filled with his paintings of the players and the lives they led as they traveled from town to town in their segregated league.
Hauser, Christopher (2006). The Negro Leagues Chronology: Events in Organized Black Baseball, 1920–1948. London: McFarland & Company. ISBN978-0786442362.
Holway, John (2001). Johnson, Lloyd; Borst, Rachel (eds.). The Complete Book of Baseball's Negro Leagues: The Other Half of Baseball History. Foreword by Buck O'Neil; afterword by Ted Williams. Fern Park, Florida: Hastings House. p.510. ISBN0-8038-2007-0.
Malloy, Jerry (2005). Kirwin, Bill (ed.). Out of the Shadows: African American Baseball from the Cuban Giants to Jackie Robinson. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Carroll, Brian (2007). When to Stop the Cheering?: The Black Press, the Black Community, and the Integration of Professional Baseball. Studies in African American history and culture. New York: Routledge. p.271. ISBN978-0-415-97938-2.
Clark, Dick; Lester, Larry; Society for American Baseball Research; Negro Leagues Committee (1994). Clark, Dick; Lester, Larry (eds.). The Negro Leagues Book (illustrateded.). Cleveland, Ohio: Society for American Baseball Research. p.382. ISBN0-7867-0959-6.
Dixon, Phil S. The Negro Baseball Leagues: A Photographic History, 1867–1955. Amereon House. 1992 winner of CASEY Award for best baseball book.
Dixon, Phil S. The Monarchs 1920–1938 Featuring Wilber "Bullet" Rogan The Greatest Ballplayer in Cooperstown. Mariah Press.
Heaphy, Leslie (2003). The Negro Leagues, 1869–1960 (illustrateded.). Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company. p.375. ISBN978-0-7864-1380-5.
Nelson, Kadir (2008). We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball. Jump at the Sun/Hyperion. 2008 winner of CASEY Award for best baseball book.
Peterson, Robert (1992) [First published 1970]. Only the Ball Was White: A History of Legendary Black Players and All-Black Professional Teams (reprint, illustrateded.). New York: Oxford University Press. p.406. ISBN0-19-507637-0.
White, Sol; Malloy, Jerry (1995) [First published 1907 as Sol. White's Official Base Ball Guide]. Sol White's History of Colored Base Ball, with Other Documents on the Early Black Game, 1886–1936. Compiled and introduced by Jerry Malloy (Reviseded.). University of Nebraska Press. p.187. ISBN0-8032-9783-1.
Biographies and autobiographies
Josh Gibson: The Power and the Darkness. Mark Ribowsky. Biography.
Dixon, Phil S. John "Buck" O'Neil: The Rookie, The Man, The Legacy, 1938. Authorhouse.
Dixon, Phil S. Wilber "Bullet" Rogan and the Kansas City Monarchs. McFarland.
Blackball Stars, as told to John Holway; a collection of first-person accounts of the Negro leagues by the men who played in them. ISBN0-88736-094-7.
Some Are Called Clowns by Bill Heward & Dimitri Gat (1974). The first white player with the Indianapolis Clowns tells of his 1973 season of barnstorming. ISBN0-690-00469-9.
Ruling Over Monarchs, Giants & Stars: Umpiring in the Negro Leagues & Beyond, by Bob Motley. First-hand account of umpiring in the dying days of Negro league ball. ISBN1-59670-236-2.
20 Years Too Soon, by Quincy Trouppe. Memoir of a longtime Negro League player and manager, who played briefly as a 39-year-old rookie for the Cleveland Indians in 1952. Privately published, 1977; reprinted 1995. ISBN1-883-98207-3.
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