80-650: Hamtramck Stadium , also known as Roesink Stadium is (as of 2012) one of only 12 remaining Negro league baseball stadiums. It is located at 3201 Dan Street, in Veterans Park, in Hamtramck, Michigan . The stadium was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012. The stadium is located near, and occasionally confused with, Keyworth Stadium (for example, see Black Baseball in Detroit , p. 59). The stadium
160-510: 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
240-632: 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. By the end of the 1860s, the black baseball mecca was Philadelphia , which had an African-American population of 22,000. Two former cricket players, James H. Francis and Francis Wood, formed
320-612: 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. 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
400-616: 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 . 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
480-592: 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
560-521: A variety of teams, the first Negro National League was formed in 1920 by Rube Foster . Ultimately, seven Negro major leagues existed at various times over the next thirty years. After integration of organized baseball began in the late 1940s, the quality of the Negro leagues slowly deteriorated; the Negro American League 's 1951 season is generally considered the last Negro league season, although
640-538: 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
720-681: 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
800-480: The Brooklyn Royal Giants out of business, and then he bought the club and turned it into a barnstorming team. 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
880-637: 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 . On April 6, 1917, the United States entered World War I. Manpower needed by the defense plants and industry accelerated
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#1732858627489960-671: The Hall of Fame played at Hamtramck Stadium, including Satchel Paige ; Josh Gibson ; Turkey Stearnes of the Detroit Stars; and Willie Wells , Cool Papa Bell , and Mule Suttles of the Detroit Wolves. The stadium was also the site of the deciding games of the 1930 Negro National League Championship Series, which the Detroit Stars eventually lost to the St. Louis Stars in seven games. Hamtramck Stadium, as originally built, seated about 8,000 people in
1040-740: 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
1120-568: The Negro National League with nine teams, including the Stars. Initially, the league prospered, and in 1925 Roesink purchased the Stars. The Stars continued to play at Mack Park. However, in July 1929, the grandstand caught fire when the grounds crew attempted to dry the field. A substantial portion of the structure was destroyed. The Stars played the rest of the season at Mack Park, but the grandstand
1200-702: 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
1280-644: The Quinn-Ives Act banning discrimination in hiring. At the same time, NYC Mayor La Guardia formed the Mayor's Commission on Baseball to study integration of the major leagues. All this led to Rickey announcing the signing of Robinson much earlier than he would have liked. On October 23, 1945, Montreal Royals president Hector Racine announced that, "We are signing this boy." Early in 1946, Rickey signed four more black players, Campanella, Newcombe, John Wright and Roy Partlow , this time with much less fanfare. After
1360-544: The Works Progress Administration (WPA) constructed Keyworth Stadium near Hamtramck Stadium. In 1938 (and again in 1946) former lumber company acreage near the stadium was purchased and developed into baseball and softball diamonds, making the area into a recreational campus known as Recreational Park (now Veterans Park). In 1940, the stadium was acquired by the city of Hamtramck. In 1941, the WPA, in partnership with
1440-644: The color line , they formed their own teams and had made professional teams by the 1880s. 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. Immediately after the end of the American Civil War in 1865 and during the Reconstruction period that followed,
1520-571: 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 . The Philadelphia Giants , owned by Walter Schlichter ,
1600-576: The 1870s. 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 . Moses Fleetwood Walker and his brother, Welday Wilberforce Walker , were the first two recognizably black players in the major leagues. They both played for
1680-683: The 1884 Toledo Blue Stockings in the American Association , which was considered a major league at the time. 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
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#17328586274891760-626: 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
1840-602: 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
1920-849: The Detroit Tigers Foundation, the Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation and the Kresge Foundation. The stadium was renovated, and reopened in June 2022. In 2020, the field was renamed in honor of Turkey Stearnes. Hamtramck Stadium is one of only 12 remaining Negro League baseball stadiums. Of those 12, the majority hosted only occasional league games, and only Hinchliffe Stadium in Paterson, New Jersey and Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama were in use longer than Hamtramck Stadium. At least 16 future members of
2000-584: 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
2080-482: 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 . 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
2160-523: 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. 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
2240-590: The Negro National League completed only half their season before folding. In 1932, a new Negro league, the East-West League , was founded with the Detroit Wolves as the Detroit franchise. The Wolves played their home games in Hamtramck Stadium; however, the league and the Wolves quickly went bust. The Detroit Stars were reconstituted in 1933, also playing at Hamtramck Stadium, but lasted just one season. In
2320-578: 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
2400-468: 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 . Some proposals were floated to bring the Negro leagues into "organized baseball" as developmental leagues for black players, but that
2480-672: 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 ,
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2560-471: The Wayne County Road Commission and the city of Hamtramck, renovated Veterans Park, including the Hamtramck Stadium. The project was jointly sponsored by the Wayne County Road Commission and the city. The total cost of the project was $ 200,000. It is uncertain what the 1941 renovation entailed, but it is certain that at least the steel frame of the grandstand is original. After this renovation,
2640-403: The club folded after a single year. As with most fields of the era, Hamtramck Stadium was available for rental for other sporting events or activities. The site hosted a number of high school baseball and football games, as well as, in 1934, a football game between Wilberforce University and West Virginia State University , two Historically black colleges and universities . In the mid-1930s,
2720-535: The color line. His list was eventually narrowed down to three: Roy Campanella , Don Newcombe and Jackie Robinson . 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, Robinson signed the contract which stipulated that from then on, Robinson had no "written or moral obligations" to any other club. By
2800-446: The concrete-and-steel grandstand. Most seats were on wooden benches, but a few box seats were separated from the rest by iron rails. Bleachers down the right-field line seat held about 1,000 more people. Later renovations reduced the grandstand to approximately half of its original size, and it now has a seating capacity of approximately 1,500. The steel frame of the grandstand is original. Grandstand seating begins 6 feet (1.8 m) off
2880-457: The corner of Mack and Fairview in Detroit to house his teams. Mack Park had seating for perhaps 6,000 people. In 1919, Rube Foster organized a number of baseball teams featuring black players in northern cities. The Detroit franchise, the Detroit Stars , was owned by Tenny Blount . The team rented Roesink's Mack Park for their games. The 1919 games were a success, so in 1920, Foster organized
2960-571: The end of Negro National League. 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.". By May 1932,
3040-491: The end of the 1867 season, "the National Association of Baseball Players voted to exclude any club with a black player." 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." Baseball featuring African American players became professionalized by
3120-568: 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
3200-485: The field itself remains unobstructed. The pitcher's mound and flagpole remain from the original field. Negro league baseball 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
3280-586: 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. 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
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3360-478: The grandstand. However, as Dodge Main and the Catholic High Schools were closed, the usage of Hamtramck Stadium declined. Some time in the 1990s the grandstand was fenced off, and was not used for decades. In 2012, the Friends of Historic Hamtramck Stadium nonprofit organization was formed to preserve and restore the stadium. Eventually a total of $ 2.6 million in funding was secured from Wayne County, as well as National Park Service African American Civil Rights grants,
3440-418: The ground, and is accessed via three concrete ramps. The wooden bleacher seats sit on wooden deckes, which are supported by steel I-beams . The I-beam structure continues above the bleachers, and supports a corrugated metal roof. Chain link fences behind the bleachers and atop the roof protected cars from foul balls. As of 2012, a fencing surrounded the grandstand to deter vandals. Although covered with graffiti,
3520-406: The highest single-season major league batting average at .466 (1943) and the highest career batting average at .372. 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),
3600-410: 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. With the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the United States
3680-426: 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
3760-407: 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
3840-656: The last professional club, the Indianapolis Clowns , operated as a humorous sideshow rather than competitively from the mid-1960s to the 1980s. 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. 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
3920-480: The late 19th century, the baseball color line developed, excluding African Americans from play in Major League Baseball and its affiliated minor leagues (collectively known as organized baseball ). The first professional baseball league consisting of all-black teams, the National Colored Base Ball League , was organized strictly as a minor league but failed in 1887 after only two weeks owing to low attendance. After several decades of mostly independent play by
4000-461: The league, took a five percent cut of all gate receipts. On May 2, 1920, the Indianapolis ABCs beat Charles "Joe" Green's Chicago Giants (4–2) in the first game played in the inaugural season of the Negro National League, played at Washington Park in Indianapolis. 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
4080-415: 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. Because
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#17328586274894160-437: 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. On February 13 and 14, 1920, talks were held in Kansas City, Missouri , that established the Negro National League and its governing body the National Association of Colored Professional Base Ball Clubs . The league
4240-627: The moribund Philadelphia Phillies and stock them with Negro league stars. However, when Landis got wind of his plans, 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]. In March 1945,
4320-401: The new league was the same as the old league Negro National League which had disbanded a year earlier in 1932. 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
4400-423: 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
4480-411: 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. Pressured by civil rights groups, the Fair Employment Practices Act was passed by the New York State Legislature in 1945. This followed the passing of
4560-553: 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. 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
4640-454: 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
4720-401: The owner of the league's Portland (Oregon) Rosebuds franchise. The WCBA disbanded after only two months. 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
4800-434: 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
4880-431: 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. 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
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#17328586274894960-417: The same year, John Roesnick had tax problems and lost control of Hamtramck Stadium. The fate of the park became an issue in 1935 when Gus Greenlee wanted to move the Nashville Elite Giants to Detroit; with no park available, the franchise wound up in Columbus, Ohio instead. Still, there was one more Negro League season at Hamtramck Stadium in 1937, when the Detroit Stars were again reconstituted. As before,
5040-444: The stadium was used by church leagues and leagues associated with the nearby Dodge Main plant. Hamtramck High School and teams from both St. Ladislaus High School and St. Florian High School also regularly used the field. Starting in 1953, the field was used by Hamtramck's Little League Baseball teams. Over the years, eleven Hamtramck teams in the various Little League divisions went to their division's World Series, with two winning
5120-407: The start of the 1930 season; Roesink hired Ty Cobb to throw out the first pitch. This was, however, the beginning of the Great Depression . Black fans, angry at Roesnick for the 1929 fire, boycotted the Stars, and Roesnick sold the team after the 1930 season to black racketeer Everitt Watson (although he retained ownership of the stadium). Hard times extended to the rest of the league, and in 1931,
5200-424: The structure is still in good shape. The field has a relatively short distance to the left field fence from home plate (315 feet (96 m)), contrasted with a deep right field (407 feet (124 m)), and a substantial center field (515 feet (157 m)). The outfield was surrounded by a twelve-foot high corrugated metal fence, a fairly unusual and expensive feature for its time. The fence has now been removed, but
5280-440: The team in 1907 to play and manage the Leland Giants (Frank Leland renamed his Chicago Union Giants the Leland Giants in 1905). 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
5360-522: 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
5440-406: The title. In 1955, concession and maintenance buildings were constructed along the field's third base line. In 1973, the grandstand was again renovated, where the roof, seating, and ramps of the grandstand were rebuilt. This renovation reduced the grandstand to approximately half of its original size. Additional renovations carried out in 1976 eliminated portions of the arms extending on each side of
5520-426: The white majors created the Major League Committee on Baseball Integration . Its members included Joseph P. Rainey , Larry MacPhail and Branch Rickey . Because MacPhail, who was an outspoken critic of integration, kept stalling, the committee never met. Under the guise of starting an all-black league, Rickey sent scouts all around the United States, Mexico and Puerto Rico , looking for the perfect candidate to break
5600-440: The white majors were barely recognizable, while the Negro leagues reached their highest plateau. Millions of black Americans were working in war industries and, making good money, they packed league games in every city. Business was so good that promoter Abe Saperstein (famous for the Harlem Globetrotters ) started a new circuit, the Negro Midwest League , a minor league similar to the Negro Southern League. The Negro World Series
5680-453: Was initially composed of eight teams: Chicago American Giants, Chicago Giants , Cuban Stars, Dayton Marcos , Detroit Stars , Indianapolis ABCs , Kansas City Monarchs, and St. Louis Giants . Foster was named league president and controlled every aspect of the league, including which players played on which teams, when and where teams played, and what equipment was used (all of which had to be purchased from Foster). Foster, as booking agent of
5760-637: Was not rebuilt. In the fall of 1929, Roesink began construction on a baseball park in Hamtramck to replace Mack Park. He leased land near the Grand Trunk Railway tracks from the Detroit Lumber Company. The land was, at the time, an older portion of the Detroit Lumber Company's yard. Roesink spent an estimated $ 100,000 of his own money to construct the field and grandstands. The park opened in May 1930 for
5840-713: 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. 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
5920-526: Was organized strictly as a minor league 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
6000-502: 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. Hamtramck High School Too Many Requests If you report this error to
6080-469: Was rededicated on June 20, 2022, as part of the Juneteenth celebration. In 2020, the stadium's field was renamed Norman "Turkey" Stearnes Field , after Detroit Stars player Turkey Stearnes . John A. Roesink moved to Detroit in 1900 and established a successful clothing store. Roesnick was an avid baseball fan, and sponsored a number of semi-pro teams. In 1910, he built a substantial field, Mack Park , on
6160-525: Was revived in 1942, this time pitting the winners of the eastern Negro National League and midwestern Negro American League . It continued through 1948 with the NNL winning four championships and the NAL three. In 1946, Saperstein partnered with Jesse Owens to form another Negro league, the West Coast Baseball Association (WCBA); Saperstein was league president and Owens was vice-president and
6240-683: Was the last season blacks were permitted in that or any other high minor league. 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 . The success of the Cubans led to the creation of the first recognized "Negro league" in 1887—the National Colored Base Ball League . It
6320-633: 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. Just like the major leagues, the Negro leagues saw many stars miss one or more seasons while fighting overseas. While many players were over 30 and considered "too old" for service, Monte Irvin , Larry Doby and Leon Day of Newark ; Ford Smith , Hank Thompson , Joe Greene , Willard Brown and Buck O'Neil of Kansas City ; Lyman Bostock of Birmingham ; and Lick Carlisle and Howard Easterling of Homestead all served. But
6400-469: 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,
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