Military war vets in the Negro league

Sometimes we tend to forget how strong the men were who played in the Negro League. I mean, players like Mr. William "Skinny Legs" Blair, Jr, who served in the US Army and then played in the League too. Or Negro League player Johnny Washington, 77, has two Purple Hearts for his time in Korea. I am on a search for more players who served double duty for our country. They protected us and entertained us at the same time. We need to take the time out to at least say think you to this brave MEN!!!!

Two Players honored.

On Tuesday, the baseball pioneers were honored at Sovereign Bank Stadium as the York Revolution paid tribute to the Negro Leagues. They worked full-time jobs, afterward changed into flannel uniforms - even on the hottest summer days - and stepped onto a field, sometimes one that was made of stones. But having the chance to play baseball made it all worthwhile, said Harrisburg residents Jim Weedon 85 and Willie Fordham 80. Both Players played for the Harrisburg Giants of the Negro Leagues during the 1950s.

I feel this is a wonderful thing for the league, but it should be done at least on any quarterly basis. The players of the Negro league deserve the honor and respect from America in general. It extend past the baseball fields into mainstream media. There are so many players still alive and would love to tell their story about their time in the league.

New exhibit honors Negro League star Josh Gibson

Josh Gibson was the greatest power hitter in black baseball, pounding out home runs with regularity despite playing most of his career in two of baseball's most cavernous ballparks: Forbes Field and Griffith Stadium. He utilized a fluid, compact swing to hit for both average and power, and tales of his mammoth home runs became legend. In recorded at-bats against big league pitching, Gibson batted .426. He died just three months before the integration of baseball in the major leagues. If he would have lived to make the major leagues. He would have broke all the home run records, including Babe Ruth's. A special exhibit honoring the Hall-of-Famer was unveiled Wednesday at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington D.C.

First Team to be on Salary pay

The New York Cuban Giants was the first team to get paid salary wages. Plus, they were first professional black team was the Cuban Giants. They called themselves "Cuban" to hide the fact that they were black. They used "Giants" after the popular New York Giants. It was said that they spoke gibberish to each other during the game so that fans would think they were speaking Spanish. Formed and financed by Trenton promoter and businessman Walter Cook in 1885 -- and without a single Cuban among them -- the Cuban Giants won all 10 of their games against white Long Island clubs that first summer and came to be dubbed the "world colored champions’’ of 1887 and 1888, according to a Negro Leagues Baseball Museum website.

The team’s name, The Cuban Giants, was one which Cook believed would feed off whites’ prejudices at the time, according to Mark Ribowsky’s "Complete History of the Negro Leagues."

Cook believed that white crowds would have sooner handed over their money to see Latinos play ball than they would to see blacks play.

So the black Cuban Giants were instructed to "bound onto the field chirping pidgin Espanol and cackling loudly, in a gross parody of everybody’s idea of how Hispanics acted,’’ Ribowsky wrote.

In his book, "In Search of a Community’s Past: The Black Community in Trenton, New Jersey, 1860-1900," city high school history teacher Dr. Jack Washington says the Cuban Giants managed to look past the racial hatred of the day and play the game with near perfection.

Washington said the Cuban Giants was "perhaps one of the most, if not the most, respected African-American team."

The team won 40 consecutive games in its first full season of summer baseball in 1886.

In that first season, Clarence Williams, catcher Arthur Thomas, Billy Whyte, Shep Trusty, pitcher George Stoney, first baseman Jack Frye, second baseman George Williams, shortstop Abe Harrison, third baseman Ben Holmes, left fielder Bill White, and center fielder Ben Boyd, ushered in a new era for baseball and chipped away at America’s color complex.

"Pitchers and catchers were paid $18 a week (a handsome sum for the 1880s and 1890s), plus expenses; infielders got $15 and outfielders got $12," according to Washington’s book.
The Giants won many championships including:
DURATION: 1885-1899
HONORS: COLORED CHAMPIONS (1887-'88)
EASTERN CHAMPIONS ('94)
AFFILIATIONS: INDEPENDENT ('85-'88, '92-'99)
MIDDLE STATES LEAGUE ('89-'90)
CONNECTICUT STATE LEAGUE ('91)

The first Black Player to intergrate Baseball

I know many people think Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier, but in 1878: Bud Fowler, becomes the first Negro player to cross the color barrier as a pitcher for the Lynn, Mass. Live Oaks of the International League.One of the top black baseball teams of the 1890s, the Page Fence Giants were based in Adrian, Michigan and named after the Page Woven Wire Fence Company. The team was sponsored by the company's founder, J. Wallace Page.

Formed in 1894, the team played its first game on April 9, 1895. Bud Fowler and Home Run Johnson organized the team, which was managed by Gus Parsons. Fowler picked players who did not drink and aimed for a group with high moral character. Five of the 12 players were college graduates. Fowler played second base while Johnson manned shortstop. The team played in 112 towns that year against all kinds of competition, going 118-36-2. They were 8-7 against clubs from the white Michigan State League. They lost games by scores of 11-7 and 16-2 against the Cincinnati Reds. The club lost Fowler and pitcher George Wilson to the white Adrian-based team in the MSL during the season.

In 1896 Charlie Grant replaced Fowler at second. The Page Fence Giants beat the Cuban X-Giants in a 15-game series, 10 games to 5, to claim they were the top team in black baseball. Overall they went 80-19 through August 1. In 1897 they went 125-12 with 82 consecutive wins. The 1898 tour was the club's last and the next year many of the players went to the new Columbia Giants.

The Father of the Negro Leagues

Born in Calvert, Texas, Foster started his professional career with the Waco Yellow Jackets, an independent black team, in 1897. Over the next few years he gradually built up a reputation among white and black fans alike, until he was signed by Frank Leland's Chicago Union Giants, a team in the top ranks of black baseball, in 1902. After a slump, he was released, and signed with a white semipro team based in Otsego, Michigan - Bardeen's Otsego Independents. Toward the end of the season he joined the Cuban X-Giants of Philadelphia, perhaps the best team in black baseball. The 1903 season saw Foster establish himself as the X-Giants' pitching star. In a post-season series for the eastern black championship, the X-Giants defeated Sol White's Philadelphia Giants five games to two, with Foster himself winning four games.
In 1920, Foster, Taylor, and the owners of six other midwestern clubs met in the spring to form a professional baseball circuit for African-American teams. Foster, as president, controlled league operations, while remaining owner and manager of the American Giants. He was periodically accused of favoring his own team, especially in matters of scheduling (the Giants in the early years tended to have a disproportionate number of home games) and personnel: Foster seemed able to acquire whatever talent he needed from other clubs, such as Jimmie Lyons, the Detroit Stars' best player in 1920, who was transferred to the American Giants for 1921, or Foster's own younger brother, Bill, who joined the American Giants unwillingly when Rube forced the Memphis Red Sox to give him up in 1926. His critics believed he had organized the league primarily for purposes of booking games for the American Giants. With a stable schedule and reasonably solvent opponents, Foster was able to improve receipts at the gate. It is also true that when opposing clubs lost money, he was known to help them meet payroll, sometimes out of his own pocket

The first to play..

Many people just think of Jackie Robinson as the first to play baseball on a all white team. Well, African-Americans began to engage the game of baseball in the mid to late 1800s. They played on military teams, college teams, and company teams. They eventually found their way to professional teams with white players. Moses Fleetwood Walker and Bud Fowler were among the first to participate. In 1887 Fleetwood played with Newark in the International League, where he and George Stovey formed the first black battery, and Walker hit .263 and stole 36 bases for the season. The superstar of the era, Cap Anson, refused to play in the game because of their presence, setting the stage for future exclusion of blacks from the established leagues. Before the color line was established, Walker also played with Cleveland in the Western League in 1885, but the team folded in June and he joined the Waterbury team, which played in both the Southern New England League and the Eastern League, during the remainder of the season. In 1886 he hit .209 with Waterbury, and he joined Newark in 1887. When the Newark team folded in the fall, he was signed by Syracuse of the International League, and after the 1889 season he was out of baseball.
However, racism and "Jim Crow" laws would force them from these teams by 1900. Thus, black players formed their own units, "barnstorming" around the country to play anyone who would challenge them.

Negro League Museum Visit

Today I got the chance to finally visit the Negro League Museum in Kansas City, Mo. I really enjoyed myself and learned a great deal about the league. I mean, some untold history was in this museum. Did you know that the KKK played against black players in the late 1800's. I mean, America has always knew the greatness of the African American Players, but was afraid to change. But in 1947. They finally gave the blacks a chance. Did you know the Negro League Baseball games was the first league to have a night game. Yes, the Major League Baseball teams didn't have night games until 5 years later. In desperation, the Kansas City Monarchs' owner, a gentle, kindly white man named J. L. Wilkinson, sank his life savings into a set of revolutionary portable lights. On April 6, five years before the first major-league night game, Wilkinson, to the delight of a crowd in Enid, Oklahoma, set up his lights, and the umpire yelled "Play ball!" So with the Negro League, where would the famous night World Series game be...

Mr. William "Bill" Blair

Today I got the honor to sit down and interview Mr. William "Bill" Blair. Mr. William Blair is one of the nicest men I ever interviewed. He told me stories about the Negro League that I couldn't get from the history books. A native of Dallas, Texas, William (Bill) Blair, Jr. was born on October 17, 1921. A former Negro League baseball player turned newspaper publisher, Blair has been the voice of the Dallas community for over forty years. Blair attended Booker T. Washington High School and Prairie View A&M University. After six months at Prairie View A&M, Blair enlisted in the United States Army and became the youngest black first sergeant in the United States Army during World War II.

Blair, a Negro League Baseball Museum inductee, pitched from 1946 to 1951 for the Indianapolis Clowns and other Negro League baseball teams. His baseball career includes pitching a no-hitter in the Denver Post Tournament, playing with the late Winfield Welch, Jesse "Hoss" Walker and Buster Haywood and touring with Jesse Owens and the Harlem Globetrotters. Blair was instrumental in the development of the African American Museum's Texas Sports Hall of Fame and serves on its advisory board. He was inducted in 1996 as a member of its inaugural class.

Blair founded the Highlight News (1947-1957). He also later founded the Southwest Sports News, a newspaper that specialized in publishing scores from Black college games throughout the United States. The paper was renamed The Elite News in 1960. One of the most influential black newspapers in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metropolis, Elite News created "The Elite News Awards Night," which was the first African American awards ceremony in Dallas when it began in 1975.

Blair has been a civil rights activist for more than six decades. In 1986, Blair launched the first Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Parade, and this parade is now an institution in Dallas. Blair is a major force in local and state politics and is also an advocate for the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance. In 2004, he founded the Religious Hall of Fame to honor African American ministers. Blair is also the author of two books, 1990 and 1991 pictorial history, The Dallas I Know.

Blair lives in Dallas, Texas with Mozelle, his wife of sixty-three years. All of his children are involved in the family business.

MLB negro league museums

Many baseball fans doesn't know that many MLB stadiums of today has a Museum for the Negro Players. I just want to list a few stadiums that honors the Forgotten League Players.

The Texas Rangers
Legends of the Game Museum
Legends of the Game also includes exhibits on:
• Heroes of the Negro Leagues
• Women in professional baseball
• A replica of the KLIF radio broadcast booth
• A special section on the early Texas League
• Famous ballparks
• The Dallas Stars hockey team

St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame Museum

I will continue to find more stadiums..

Timeline 1886-1896

1884
Moses "Fleetwood" Walker becomes first African-American player in major league baseball, signing with the Toledo club in the American Association.

Walker, a star catcher at Oberlin College, despite a creditable performance with Toledo, was cut from the squad after the season, but continued to play in organized baseball with minor league teams.

Several African-American players were active on the rosters of white minor league teams during the period.

1885
The first all-black professional team, the Cuban Giants, is founded in Babylon, New York.

1887
The National Colored Base Ball League, the first attempt at a professional Negro League, is formed.

The league includes Lord Baltimores (Baltimore), Resolutes (Boston), Browns (Cincinnati), Falls City (Louisville), Gorhams (New York), Pythians (Philadelphia), Pittsburgh Keystones, Capital City Club (Washington).

Two weeks later the league will fail from lack of attendance.

1890
The International League implements a ban on African-American players. The league's ban will continue until 1946.

1895
"Bud" Fowler forms the Page Fence Giants club, one of black baseball's early powerhouse teams. Based in Adrian, Michigan the club tours the Midwest and East in their own railroad car taking on all comers, including major league clubs like the Cincinnati Reds.

1896
In the famous Plessy vs. Furgeson case the United States Supreme Court upholds Louisianna's law requiring "separate but equal" public facilities for blacks. The decision firmly establishes the docrine of racial segregation throughout the South and much of the nation.

1896
The Page Fence Giants and Cuban Giants, the undisputed champions of black baseball in the East, play an historic series of games billed as a "national championship" series. The Page Fence fence club prevails, winning 10 of 15 games.

Barry Bonds

Many critics are very worried about Barry Bonds becoming the All time Home-run hitter. I feel he should just prove to the world and himself that he is still a true home run hitter. Bonds has been through so much needs on people hating the fact that he broke Babe Ruth's record. Hey, it is baseball and it is a competitive game. In a recent interview Bonds talked about how is not really trying to beat Hank Aaron's record, but the fact how proud he is to know Willie Mays. Bonds have also spoke about the fact that he is only 159 hits from 3,000. Now that is something to think about... Bonds is just a kid looking up to the great baseball players of the past. Willie Mays is Bond's godfather and that is the superstar in his life. See, that is the side of the man that the media leaves behide. They focus on the negative aspect of his career and not all the positive things he has done for the game of baseball. The Negro league was based on that exact principle. They wanted the players to have a love for one another and their community.

Female Owner

I am very proud to discuss the life of Effa Manley. She was the first African American Female to own a Negro League team. She broke not only the color barrier, but she became a new icon for women. Effa gave the black woman a chance to dream big and to understand their true potential in life. Women of her time were only used to raise children and clean Anglo American houses. She along with her husband Abe Manley orchestrated a new era in baseball with the purchase of the Brooklyn Eagles.

I totally agree about how the African American community are not sharing the knowledge of league. The Elderly people that lived through that time period.. tries to cover up the not so good history of that time period.. I feel they have put blinders on to mask the pain and suffering they went through. So, they forgot about the good times and all the history behide it.

The beginning

I have heard so many stories of how wonderful Baseball was back in the day. It really brought families together and also unified the community too. Many people don't know that the league started in Galveston, Texas in 1897. Even though many history books only talk about the teams and leagues in the north and midwest. I feel that we need to hear the real history and be proud of our stamp on this nation.

The league

Many baseball players have experienced the life on the grassy and sandy fields. But how many people have even heard of or experienced the rich history of Negro League Baseball. I would like to know if others have been told about this lost history of this league.