1. Sports Mem, Cards & Fan Shop
  2. Vintage Sports Memorabilia
  3. Photos

  4. Impossibly Rare 1930s Twin Cities Colored NEGRO LEAGUE PHOTOGRAPH **MUST SEE**

Impossibly Rare 1930s Twin Cities Colored NEGRO LEAGUE PHOTOGRAPH **MUST SEE** 1 of 3Only 1 left — 3 watchersImpossibly Rare 1930s Twin Cities Colored NEGRO LEAGUE PHOTOGRAPH **MUST SEE** 2 2 of 3Impossibly Rare 1930s Twin Cities Colored NEGRO LEAGUE PHOTOGRAPH **MUST SEE** 3 3 of 3 See More
See Details on eBay available at Amazon

Impossibly Rare 1930s Twin Cities Colored NEGRO LEAGUE PHOTOGRAPH **MUST SEE**

$1,000.00 Buy It Now, Click to see shipping cost, eBay Money Back Guarantee
Seller: carpal-tunnel-syndrome ✉️ (4,923) 100%, Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan, US, Ships to: US & many other countries, Item: 386925136323 Impossibly Rare 1930s Twin Cities Colored NEGRO LEAGUE PHOTOGRAPH **MUST SEE**. 1930’S TWIN CITIES COLORED GIANTS TEAM PHOTO MEASURING 5 1/2 X 7 1/2 INCHES AND IN FAIR SHAPE While the Giants would more properly be described as a barnstorming team, they played against many of the best well-known Negro League players of the era including Double Duty Radcliffe and Satchel Paige. Included in this photo is Maceo “Breed” Breedlove (bottom row third from left). Breedlove played from 1922 until 1944 and in addition to his time with the Twin Cities Giants he was also a member of the original Negro House of David team. One of his most memorable days on the diamond came in 1935 when the Giants were playing against an intergrated team from Bismarck ND that featured Satchel Paige. Breedlove homered and doubled twice in four at bats against Paige. In an interview he gave in 1980 Breedlove recalled: "At the time, Satchel Paige was the greatest man that was out there. He struck out a man any time he wanted. So they had us beat pretty bad, and wasn't nobody out there but him and his catcher [Satchel had called in all the fielders]. "Looked like everybody in North Dakota at that ball game. One boy on the Bismarck club knew me and said, 'Satchel done picked the baddest boy on the club to show up. I bet I hit 15 foul balls. He was throwing so fast I just couldn't get around in time. He couldn't get me out with his fastball so he threw me his dinky curve and I hit it into left field and nobody was out there! I ran around the bases and came in!"Breedlove was later a well known and loved usher for over 20 years at the old Metropolitan Stadium.The photo measures approximately 9 ½” x 7” and is guaranteed to be an original. I removed it from its frame and it was glued to a piece of paper (used as a matte) that I have also removed. I would describe the overall condition of the photo as good. There are some white spots on the photo and the reverse is soiled and has a bit of the paper to which it was matted attached. Note: The information about Maceo Breedlove was obtained from many sources on the internet but most notably from a book titled “Swinging For The Fences – Black Baseball in Minnesota” published by the Minnesota Historical Society Press. THANKS FOR LOOKING rank White's childhood was all about baseball — watching games at St. Paul's Lexington Park or playing catch with his dad on St. Anthony Avenue in the city's old Rondo neighborhood, before Interstate 94 barreled through it. White knew his dad was a talented athlete; he just had no idea how talented. It wasn't until the late 1980s, when he was an adult himself, that White visited a Minnesota Historical Society exhibit on African-American baseball leagues. There, he learned that his father, Louis White, had played baseball with traveling Negro League teams decades before. When he confronted his father about the never-mentioned achievement, his father simply said, "It wasn't important." Grow the Future of Public Media MPR News is supported by Members. Gifts from individuals power everything you find here. Make a gift of any amount today to become a Member! Donate Today 1910 Minneapolis Keystones The Minneapolis Keystones, photographed in 1910, were rivals to the St. Paul Colored Gophers. Courtesy Jason Miller White disagreed. Now, he's written a book on the subject, "They Played for the Love of the Game: Untold Stories of Black Baseball in Minnesota." The title comes from the reality that most African-American players, for the first half of the 20th century, were playing purely out of passion: Segregation meant African-Americans were cut off from lucrative athletic careers. It wasn't until Jackie Robinson stepped onto the field as a Brooklyn Dodger in 1947 that the racial barrier began to break down. White's book traces the history of African-American baseball players in Minnesota from 1872 through to the 1960s. Excluded from Major League Baseball, they played in semipro leagues and loosely organized clubs of all-black teams, the successes of which have largely been lost to history. White joins MPR News producer Jim Bickal to talk about his book, his father's little-known baseball career and the history of black baseball across the state. The book starts at the beginning, when the Civil War brought baseball to Minnesota. Before the war, the sport had primarily been confined to the New York area, but Union soldiers spread it as they marched, teaching regiments from other northern states how to play. When Minnesota soldiers returned home, they brought the game back with them. The first recorded African-American baseball player in the state was Prince Honeycutt, in Fergus Falls in 1872. White cites author Steven Hoffbeck for Honeycutt's story: Honeycutt was a "mess boy" during the Civil War, and he followed a Union soldier back to Fergus Falls, where he became the first black resident of the town. There, he set up shop as a barber and helped form the Fergus Falls North Star Baseball Club. Prince Honeycutt Prince Honeycutt, one of the first African-American baseball players in the state, stands outside his barbershop in Fergus Falls, Minn., in this undated photo. Courtesy Otter Tail Historical Society Honeycutt was one of several African-Americans who played across the state in the last decades of the 19th century. Though some baseball clubs began banning African-Americans as early as 1867, other leagues held out. By 1900, however, all of organized baseball "had signed on to the so-called gentleman's agreement banning African-Americans," White writes. Excluded from the rapidly developing national baseball scene, African-Americans formed their own clubs and leagues. Though Honeycutt kicked things off in Fergus Falls, the majority of the action in Minnesota was focused in the Twin Cities. # At the time, the African-American population of Minnesota was small: "Only about 4,000 of Minnesota's nearly two million residents were African-American, and more than 90 percent of them lived in Minneapolis and St. Paul," according to White. In 1907, Minnesota's "most notable black baseball team" was formed: the St. Paul Colored Gophers. The team's charismatic co-founder was Phil "Daddy" Reid, a native Kentuckian who found success as a business owner in St. Paul. Next came the team's rivals from across the river, the Minneapolis Keystones. The teams toured the Midwest "to play any team — white or black — willing to book them," White writes. "These two teams were among the best in baseball in the Midwest — regardless of skin color — and their records reflect their success." White chronicles the politics, successes and stars of Minnesota's developing African-American teams. By 1920, the Negro National League was formed, but no Minnesota teams were included. Instead, Minnesota's teams kept touring the Midwest, barnstorming towns and playing whomever they could. The Great Depression took a hard swing at baseball. "Not only did African American communities suffer greatly with the lack of available jobs and other hardships, it was particularly difficult for their ball clubs to stay afloat," White wrote. "Indeed, the overall number of baseball teams, both white and black, declined during the decade." Wheatley House Girls softball team Women got in on the game, too: Pictured are the Wheatley House Girls softball team, circa 1925. The Phyllis Wheatley Settlement House provided temporary housing and social services for young African-American women; the North Minneapolis building was demolished when I-94 was built. Courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society The 1940s came with an economic rebound and an historic moment: Jackie Robinson's first game with the Dodgers. Though it signaled a change in Major League Baseball, "many teams held off for years before signing any black players," White writes. "Giving spots to African-Americans was viewed as taking jobs away from white players." Successful African-American players in Minnesota continued to face prejudices and slurs. In 1948, Roy Campanella joined the St. Paul Saints, which was then a farm team for the Giants. He became the first African-American player in the American Association — but no hotel in St. Paul would rent him a room, according to White. As major league teams gradually added more African-Americans to their rosters, the vibrant clubs leagues that had been established in Minnesota and around the country began to fade. Fans could now go to St. Paul's Lexington Park and Minneapolis' Nicollet Park "to watch superstars like Roy Campanella, Dan Bankhead, Jim Pendleton, Dave Barnhill, and Ray Dandridge suit up for the American Association's Saints and Millers, some of them on their way to the major leagues," White writes. The legendary Willie Mays even played for the Minneapolis Millers in 1951. But desegregation also meant that "the Twin City Colored Giants — the area's last all-black team — were playing their final season in 1955," according to White. Minneapolis Millers, including Willie Mays The Minneapolis Millers, including Ray Dandridge, Dave Barnhill and Willie Mays, in 1951. Courtesy of the National Baseball Hall of Fame Library The next chapter for many players, White writes, was fast-pitch softball. "The sport took Minnesota by storm in the 1950s," and softball teams sprouted in neighborhoods where baseball had once dominated. "They Played for the Love of the Game" profiles players of all ages, from high school through the major leagues, who played a role in the African-American baseball scene across Minnesota. Minnesota baseball legend Dave Winfield, who spent more than two decades in the major leagues and earned a spot in the Hall of Fame, provided the foreword for the book. After reading White's book, he said, he gained a new perspective on his career. "It was not a straight or easy road," Winfield writes. "But I learned that my path was much easier than my predecessors'." World’s All Nations, 1912, barnstorming club sponsored by the Hopkins Brothers sporting goods company of Des Moines, Iowa. John Donaldson, pitcher (front, third from right), was known as “The World’s Greatest Colored Pitcher” throughout his 30-plus years on the mound. After his playing career Donaldson was hired as the first Black scout in the major leagues. (AUTHOR’S COLLECTION)   “The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.”—W.E.B. DuBois.1 For sixty years, professional baseball was as segregated as the Deep South. From 1887—when the unspoken national agreement prohibited African Americans from major league baseball—to 1947, when Jackie Robinson broke the color line, Black ballplayers were shut out of the highest levels of the White game.2 How could Black players, in Minnesota and in other states, respond to being banned from baseball? Well, they could have just given up and accepted segregation as grim reality. Or, young Black men could resolve to integrate the sport, town by town, city by city, one baseball diamond at a time. That’s what happened in Minnesota. Renowned author Sinclair Lewis, a native Minnesotan, once said: “To understand America, it is merely necessary to understand Minnesota.”3 Let’s look at the state’s story. In 1858, Minnesota joined the United States and its constitution declared that there would be no slavery in the state.4 In 1868, Minnesota extended voting rights to African Americans. The Minnesota Constitutional Rights Law of 1899 prohibited discrimination in hotels, theaters and restaurants, and other public places, but such a law did not apply to professional baseball. Still, the Black population of Minnesota yearned for full social equality because they faced a haphazard maze of discrimination against their best efforts, a denial of rights and opportunities, of narrow-mindedness at best and unreasoning hatred at worst. Minnesota’s Black ballplayers, therefore, worked to dismantle baseball’s color line themselves. In the 1890s, pitcher Walter Ball integrated the St. Paul city public-school baseball teams and youth teams. In 1897, Ball and the Young Cyclones ballclub won the St. Paul City Amateur Championship—he was the lone Black player on an otherwise all-White team.5   Walter Ball, one of the greatest pitchers in black baseball from 1903 through 1921. Walter Ball (1880–1946), one of St. Paul’s best amateur pitchers in 1898, became a premier hurler among Minnesota semiprofessionals by 1902. In 1903 Ball moved to Chicago where he became one of the greatest pitchers in Black baseball through 1921. (ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS / AUTHOR’S COLLECTION)   After the turn of the century, Minnesota towns began to import some Black players for their formerly all-White teams. In 1900 the small-town Waseca ballclub secured Black pitchers George Wilson and Billy Holland—two men who had played for the best Chicago-area African American teams of the late 1890s. Waseca’s EACO Flour team brought the first Black ballplayers to the ball-diamonds of southern Minnesota, and they won the state semi-professional championship.6 In 1902, Walter Ball became the first Black player on St. Cloud’s formerly White semipro ballclub. Similarly, Billy Williams, also from St. Paul, integrated his high school team and other area teams.7 Minnesota’s own Bobby Marshall gained entry onto the Minneapolis Central High School baseball team in the late 1890s and then broke the color line on the University of Minnesota’s baseball squad in 1904.8 Black businessman Phil “Daddy” Reid established Minnesota’s first all-Black professional ball club, the St. Paul Colored Gophers, in 1907, gathering top talent from Chicago and elsewhere. Home-grown Bobby Marshall became the “star slugger” on the Colored Gophers team in 1909, when the Colored Gophers claimed the championship of Black baseball by defeating Rube Foster’s Chicago Leland Giants three games to two. The Colored Gophers barnstormed throughout the Upper Midwest for five years, 1907–1911, bringing a fast and colorful brand of Black baseball to towns that had never before seen an African American ballplayer on their local diamonds.9   Marshall (second row, left) integrated the 1900 Minneapolis Central High School baseball team, above and broke the color line at the University of Minnesota. Bobby Marshall (second row, left) integrated the 1900 Minneapolis Central High School baseball team and then broke the color line on the University of Minnesota nine. Marshall (1880–1958) played first base for the St. Paul Colored Gophers and other teams, and the multi-sport star became the first Black player in the National Football League (1920). (MINNEAPOLIS PUBLIC LIBRARY / AUTHOR’S COLLECTION)     The decade from 1910 to 1919 brought a new wave of Black barnstorming teams to Minnesota from other locales. Premiere among these was the All Nations ballclub, a multi-racial team founded in 1912 by James Leslie (J.L.) Wilkinson (1878–1964). Wilkinson was a genius in marketing and publicity, as well as a true baseball man. Although Wilkinson was White, he believed that baseball fans in Minnesota and throughout the Midwest would pay to see the very best and enthusiastically embrace the skills of a truly professional touring team brought in from the top ranks of Black baseball and a world that was learning to play America’s game. The All Nations team in 1913 looked like the face of modern baseball with players coming from all over the world. It was composed of “men from all nations, including Chinese, Japanese, Cubans, Indians, Hawaiians…and the Great John Donaldson, the best colored pitcher in the United States today, also the famous [Jose] Mendez, the Cuban.”10 The All Nations squad competed against anyone who would play them—White semipro teams, regional all-star teams, and professional all-Black teams. The key player on the team, John Donaldson (1891–1970), received top billing through 1918 and would spend many years barnstorming through Minnesota. Known as a power pitcher, Donaldson was lauded as “the “greatest colored pitcher” of the decade.11 Newspapers printed a quotation from New York Giants manager John McGraw: “If I could change the color of his skin I would give twenty thousand dollars for Donaldson and pennants would come easy.”12 When Donaldson fanned 29 batters in a 16-inning game, the St. Paul Pioneer Press judged the contest to have been “one of the best games ever played in the state.”13 Jose Mendez (1887–1928), dubbed Cuba’s “Black Diamond,” was the team’s second top star. He beat the Philadelphia Athletics in 1910, struck out Ty Cobb on three swinging strikes, and was labeled the “Black Mathewson” after subduing Christy Mathewson and the New York Giants in 1911 by throwing four innings of scoreless relief.14 Donaldson, Mendez, and the All Nations brought interracial baseball to a host of Minnesota’s cities, from International Falls in the north to Sleepy Eye and Blue Earth in the south. What began as a novelty ballclub quickly became a great team, and by 1916, the All Nations vied for supremacy among the best professional teams in America outside of major and minor league ball.15 In 1920, Rube Foster, supported by others, organized the eight-team Negro National League. John Donaldson, who had pitched so many times in Minnesota, rejoined Jose Mendez as a ballplayer on Wilkinson’s new Kansas City Monarchs team. Minnesota had several all-Black teams in the 1920s, including the Askin and Marine Colored Red Sox and the Uptown Sanitary ballclub, but the state was not awarded a Negro League franchise. Racial attitudes seemed to harden in the Twenties as southern Blacks migrated north, Minnesotans began to fear Reds and foreigners, and the Ku Klux Klan stirred up hate in the “Jazz Age.” Donaldson again toured Minnesota in 1922–1923 because K.C. Monarchs owner Wilkinson needed barnstorming cash to prop up his franchise. In the mid-1920s, as Rube Foster’s mental health deteriorated and disharmony between the Eastern Colored League and the Negro National League brought turmoil to Black baseball, John Donaldson jumped from the Monarchs back to Minnesota. By this time he had pitched almost everywhere in the nation, including a number of occasions on the national stage. He had battled Rube Foster’s Chicago American Giants in 1916, and in 1918, Donaldson went head-to-head against the great Smokey Joe Williams of the New York Lincoln Giants.16 No longer a young man, John Donaldson accepted an offer to play semi-professional ball in Minnesota for the 1924 season, when he was 32 years old. He joined the Bertha Fishermen, a ballclub based in the small central Minnesota town of Bertha. Money was the chief reason—he was offered $325 per month, more than Negro Leaguers were making at the time. What’s more, Donaldson’s wife, Eleanor, was from the Twin Cities, and the couple could visit family members easily.17 In any case, when Donaldson led the squad to the Minnesota State Semi-Professional Championship in his first season, he brought instant statewide recognition to his new club. Nineteen-twenty-seven was a momentous year. The major league season was spectacular: Babe Ruth, the magnificent slugging Bambino, set a home-run record with 60 circuit clouts. The New York Yankees, led by its “Murderer’s Row” of superstars— Earle Combs, Mark Koenig, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Bob Meusel and Tony Lazzeri—earned recognition as one of the greatest first six hitters in a lineup of all time.18 It was also the year that a Minnesotan, Charles Lindbergh Jr., made world headlines when he successfully crossed the Atlantic in a solo flight. Lindbergh’s hometown was Little Falls, a thriving community located along the Mississippi River, smack-dab in the central part of Minnesota, Accordingly, Little Falls gave its favorite son a true hero’s welcome-home event on August 25, 1927. The Lindbergh Homecoming Committee arranged for a morning parade, a noon baseball game between the House of David barnstorming ballclub and Bertha, an afternoon motorcade, and an evening banquet.19 Lindbergh was scheduled to arrive at 2:00 that afternoon, so the parade and baseball game were warm-up activities for the estimated crowd of fifty-thousand adoring Lindbergh fans. The House of David ballclub amazed spectators with its dazzling skills. The bewhiskered ballplayers of this spiritual sect from Benton Harbor, Michigan, never knew a razor or scissors for beard or hair, but they knew baseball, having practiced their skills religiously. They had been touring the countryside since the 1910s and had a dominant reputation, although none of the men were Goliaths or Samsons in power.20 The Bertha Fishermen ballclub featured a Black battery of pitcher John Donaldson and catcher Sylvester “Hooks” Foreman. Foreman had been a mainstay with the Kansas City Monarchs and had a long-standing connection with Donaldson. The pitcher had faced the House of David previously, and his Bertha team had beaten the longhaired team by a score of 2–0. Game day featured the morning parade through the streets of Little Falls, with bands playing, kids smiling, and dignitaries waving. Six thousand fans packed the grandstands and bleachers, while thousands more watched from behind wire fencing that surrounded the ballpark.21 At high noon the mayor of Little Falls, Austin Grimes, threw out the ceremonial first pitch and then handed the ball to Donaldson. The pitcher proceeded to throw two shutout innings, allowing no hits, and then switched to center field because he had thrown too many innings in his previous start. Wisely, the management of Bertha’s ballclub had arranged for the mysterious Lefty Wilson as a “ringer” to lend assistance to Donaldson. The two knew each other well, having been opponents in Negro League games several years earlier. Lefty Wilson was not his real name. He was a fugitive from justice, hiding in the hinterlands of Minnesota’s semipro ball and his real name was Dave Brown. Under his real name he had become famous as one of the best left-handed pitchers in the Negro League and a key player on Rube Foster’s Chicago American Giants from 1920 to 1922. In 1923 Brown jumped ship, signing with the New York Lincoln Giants of the upstart Eastern Colored League. On May 1, 1925, Brown won a ballgame in New York, allowing just one run. After the game, however, policemen came to arrest Brown and two of his teammates for their involvement in a street brawl outside a nightclub in which one of the brawlers ended up dead. Brown fled from the ballpark that night and escaped from the city and a national manhunt.22 The authorities never found Brown. He had seemingly disappeared, slipping away into the deepest rural areas of southwestern Minnesota. There, amidst cornfields and cow pastures, Brown became “Lefty” Wilson, performing in ignominy in towns like Pipestone and Ivanhoe and Wanda. Donaldson, no doubt, assisted Bertha in securing Wilson from the Wanda team to pitch in the Lindbergh homecoming game. In the game itself Wilson allowed only two hits to the House of David barnstormers, combining with Donaldson in a 1–0 shutout. Donaldson scored the game’s only run.23 As for Charles Lindbergh, he basked in the adulation of his fellow Minnesotans. The aviation hero landed the “Spirit of St. Louis” monoplane outside of town at about 2 p.m., and the townspeople paraded him through his old hometown. Aviator Lindbergh had arrived after the ballgame had ended, and this perfectly symbolized a segregated America. Donaldson and Lefty Wilson were on the wrong side of the color line, toiling on the mound in relative obscurity. The international hero never saw them, and they likely caught little more than a glimpse of Lindbergh from afar. While the White Lindbergh was naturally feted for his historic flight, he clearly had opportunities unavailable to Black Americans. For Black men like Donaldson and Lefty Wilson, they could experience fame, but no matter how well they performed, their recognition would always be restricted by the limited nationwide interest in Black baseball. After Lindbergh’s celebrated homecoming, Wilson pitched in Minnesota for several more years and then moved away, falling off the map and the historical record. Donaldson continued as he always had, pitching wherever he got the largest paycheck, a growing necessity as the twenties melted into the 1930s and the Great Depression. The Negro Leagues crumpled into disarray after 1929 as the Depression clipped spending power, and the players scattered to cities where they could hope to earn a meager living playing ball. Barnstorming baseball teams continued to traverse Minnesota and the rest of the country, earning dimes and nickels for the players. The Chicago Defender claimed that the Black ballplayers who played for Minnesota teams in the later 1920s and into the 1930s earned the highest pay of any African American baseball stars in the nation. Donaldson stayed in the game, gathering former Negro League players in 1932 for his own team in Fairmont, Minnesota, calling it the Donaldson’s All-Stars.24 Minnesota finally got a Negro League team in 1942—the Minneapolis-St. Paul Gophers—although baseball historians don’t even bother to call it a franchise. The league they joined, the Negro Major Baseball League of America, was a flimsy patchwork that existed merely to provide opponents for the Cincinnati Clowns, which had been denied entry into the Negro American League. After the Second World War, in 1946, Jackie Robinson broke the minor league color line in Montreal; a year later, under the tutelage of Branch Rickey, he broke the major league color barrier. Donaldson had retired from baseball in 1943 at age 52. With the integration of the sport, Donaldson finally joined major league ball in one of few capacities then open, becoming the first Black major league scout for the Chicago White Sox.25 Donaldson had begun his career in Missouri in 1908 and pitched just about everywhere over the next 35 years. Despite the many stops, Donaldson had a stellar reputation in knowledgeable baseball circles. Former Negro League ballplayers selected him as their first-team left-handed pitcher in the definitive 1952 Pittsburgh Courier newspaper poll. Modern research over the past decade has only enhanced that reputation. Intense combing of North American newspapers, both in newly-digitized and old microfilm versions, has shown that John Donaldson earned 413 wins in his career, the most by any left-handed pitcher in Black baseball history. Documented strikeout totals for Donaldson are equally impressive as he accumulated 5,081in his lifetime—again, the most strikeouts for an African American left-handed pitcher in all of baseball history.26 We consider John Donaldson the best left-handed barnstorming pitcher in Black baseball history. It might be argued that the Black ballplayers from 1887 to 1947 sought to rectify social injustice by developing their individual talent, so that they would be a credit to the “Negro race.” This was the accomplishment of the “talented tenth” of Black Americans, as called forth by early civil rights leader W.E.B. DuBois—to rise and pull others up with them “to their vantage ground.” While the talent level was wildly uneven and the organization often chaotic, there can be little doubt that blackball hosted some of the finest individuals to ever play baseball.27 In 2006, Major League Baseball sought to correct some of the errors of the past when a select list of Negro League and pre-Negro League players, managers, and owners gained posthumous entry into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Included in this group were two who had barnstormed through Minnesota: J.L. Wilkinson, the White owner of the All Nations (1912–1918) and the Kansas City Monarchs, who guided the Monarchs to become among the most successful franchises in Black baseball history, and Jose Mendez, whose early career in Cuba and his accomplishments with the Monarchs, including leading the team to three consecutive Negro League pennants (1923–25) as player-manager, gave him a reputation as a premier Black pitcher of his generation.28 Regrettably, John Donaldson was bypassed despite the support of Fay Vincent, the former baseball commissioner and chairman of the special election committee, who believed Donaldson would make the final list. Vincent had become well-versed regarding Donaldson’s reputation and statistics.29 The contributions of Black ballplayers in Minnesota are better known now because SABR researchers have worked together to document and preserve the history of Black baseball in the state since the 1970s. What is significant about this story is that Black baseball players in Minnesota, such as John Donaldson, Jose Mendez, Bobby Marshall, and Walter Ball, as a microcosm of baseball in America, played the national game in order to integrate baseball, and they succeeded, ultimately, in breaking the color line—one diamond at a time, team by team, town by town. 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 the late 19th century, the baseball color line developed in professional baseball, excluding African Americans from league play.[1] The first league, the National Colored Base Ball League, was organized strictly as a minor league[2] but failed in 1887 after only two weeks owing to low attendance. After several decades of mostly independent play by a variety of teams, in 1920 the first Negro National League was formed and ultimately seven major leagues existed at various times over the next thirty years.[3] After integration, the quality of the Negro leagues slowly deteriorated and the Negro American League of 1951 is generally considered the last major league season. 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 was added to the six historical "major league" designations it made in 1969. It classified the seven "major Negro leagues" as additional major leagues, thus recognizing statistics and approximately 3,400 players who played from 1920 to 1948.[4] Etymology During the formative years of black baseball, the term "colored" was the accepted 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 20s or 30s, 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.[5] By about 1970, the term "Negro" had fallen into disfavor, but by then the Negro leagues were mere historic artifacts. History of the Negro leagues Amateur era Octavius Catto, black baseball pioneer 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.[6] 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.[7] 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. By the end of the 1860s, the black baseball mecca was Philadelphia, which had an African-American population of 22,000.[8] 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."[9] Professional baseball Bud Fowler, the first professional black baseball player with one of his teams, Western of Keokuk, Iowa Baseball featuring African American players became professionalized by the 1870s.[10] 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.[11] Moses Fleetwood Walker and his brother, Welday Wilberforce Walker, were the first two 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.[12] 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.[13] 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 US 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 leagues members.[14] The few players on the white minor league teams were constantly dodging verbal and physical abuse from both competitors and fans. Then the Compromise of 1877 removed the remaining obstacles from the South's enacting the Jim Crow laws. To make matters worse, 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, military style as was his custom, he demanded that the blacks not play. Newark capitulated, and later that same day, league owners voted to refuse future contracts to blacks, citing the "hazards" imposed by such athletes.[15] 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. Frank Leland Chicago Union Giants in 1905 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.[16] 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.[16] 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). 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.[17] The league 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).[17] Foster, as booking agent of the league, took a five percent cut of all gate receipts. Golden age On May 2, 1920, the Indianapolis ABCs beat Charles "Joe" Green's Chicago [18] Giants (4–2) in the first game played in the inaugural season of the Negro National League, played at Washington Park in Indianapolis.[19] 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.[20] 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.[21] 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. The two opposing teams line up at the 1924 Colored World Series. 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.[22] 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.".[23] 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.[24] 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.[25] 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. 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.[26] But 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 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 the owner of the league's Portland (Oregon) Rosebuds franchise.[27] The WCBA disbanded after only two months.[27] Integration era 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,[28] 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. In March 1945, 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 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,[how?] Robinson signed the contract which stipulated that from then on, Robinson had no "written or moral obligations"[29] 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. 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 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."[29] 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 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. 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.     Negro National League (I), 1920–1931.     Eastern Colored League, 1923–1928.     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 National League (II), 1933–1948.     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. Colored and Negro World Series Main article: Negro World Series See also: List of Negro league baseball champions See also: List of Negro league baseball postseason games 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. Minor Negro leagues See also: List of minor Negro league baseball teams 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:     Southern League of Colored Base Ballists, 1886     National Colored Baseball League, 1887 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:     International League of Independent Professional Base Ball Clubs, 1906.     National Association of Colored Baseball Clubs of the United States and Cuba, 1907–1909. 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:     Texas Colored League/Texas–Oklahoma–Louisiana League/Texas–Louisiana Negro League, 1919–1931     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     Negro Southeastern League, 1921     Interstate League, 1926 and 1940 (mixed-race league)     Tri State League, 1935     Negro American Association, 1939 and 1948–1949     Negro Major League, 1942 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:     Negro Southern League (II), 1945–1951     United States League, 1945–1946     West Coast Negro Baseball Association, 1946     East Texas Negro League, 1946     Negro Texas League, 1949     Negro American League, 1951–1960 – considered a major league from 1937 until integration diminished the quality of play around 1950/51     Arkansas–Louisiana–Texas League, 1951     Eastern Negro League, 1954     Negro National Baseball Association, 1954 The Negro leagues and the Hall of Fame See also: 2006 Baseball Hall of Fame balloting and 1971 Baseball Hall of Fame balloting 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. From 1995 to 2001, the Hall made a renewed effort to honor luminaries from the Negro leagues, one each year. There were seven selections: Leon Day, Bill Foster, Bullet Rogan, Hilton Smith, Turkey Stearnes, Willie Wells, and Smokey Joe Williams. 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. Negro league players (7)     Ray Brown; Willard Brown; Andy Cooper; Biz Mackey; Mule Suttles; Cristóbal Torriente; Jud Wilson Pre-Negro league players (5)     Frank Grant; Pete Hill; José Méndez; Louis Santop; Ben Taylor Negro league executives (4)     Effa Manley; Alex Pompez; Cum Posey; J. L. Wilkinson Pre-Negro league executive, manager, player, and historian (1)     Sol White 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. Last Negro leaguers 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. Willie Mays Ernie Banks Elston Howard 2008 Major League draft Main article: 2008 Major League Baseball draft § Negro Leagues Special Draft On June 5, 2008, Major League Baseball held a special draft of the surviving Negro league players to acknowledge and rectify their exclusion from the major leagues on the basis of race. The idea of the special draft was conceived by Hall of Famer Dave Winfield.[30] Each major league team drafted one player from the Negro leagues. Bobo Henderson, Joe B. Scott, Mule Miles, Lefty Bell, James "Red" Moore, Mack "The Knife" Pride and his brother Charley Pride (who went on to a legendary career in country music), were among the players selected. Also drafted, by the New York Yankees, was Emilio Navarro, who, at 102 years of age at the time of the draft, was believed to be the oldest living professional ballplayer. Museum The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum is located in the 18th and Vine District in Kansas City, Missouri. Postage stamp recognition On July 17, 2010, the U.S. Postal Service issued a se-tenant pair of 44-cent U.S. commemorative postage stamps, to honor the all-black professional baseball leagues that operated from 1920 to about 1960. The stamps were formally issued at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, during the celebration of the museum's twentieth anniversary.[31][32] One of the stamps depicts Rube Foster.[33][34] See also     iconBaseball portal     East–West All-Star Game     List of first black Major League Baseball players     List of Negro league baseball players     List of Negro league baseball teams     Negro World Series     Negro Leagues Baseball Museum     Ted Williams Museum and Hitters Hall of Fame (including "The Negro Leagues" wing)     The Soul of Baseball, 2007 book by Joe Posnanski     Toni Stone, Mamie Johnson, Connie Morgan (the only women to play in the leagues) The National Colored Base Ball League, the National Colored League, or the League of Colored Baseball Clubs was the subsequent attempt, after the Southern League of Colored Base Ballists,[1] to have a league consisting of all-black teams. It predated Rube Foster's Negro National League by over three decades. History The league was organized by Walter S. Brown, a newspaperman with the Cleveland Gazette.[2] Brown served as the league president and secretary, he was also the owner of the Pittsburgh club.[3] On March 14 and 15, 1887, after a series of meetings throughout the winter, team representatives met at the Douglass Institute in Baltimore to finalize the schedule. Acknowledging the experimental nature of the new league, the various delegates kept the schedule short leaving "plenty of open dates between championship games, so as to permit the clubs to take advantage of every opportunity for exhibition games."[4] "Player salaries were to range from $10 to $75 per month; each club was to hire a local umpire; visiting teams were guaranteed $50 plus half the gate receipts, and were to receive $25 from the home team in case of rainout."[3] They adopted the Reach brand baseball, and in return the company would supply the league with two gold medals: one for highest batting average and the other for highest fielding percentage at the end of the season. The league consisted of eight teams: The Baltimore Lord Baltimores, Boston Resolutes, Louisville Falls Citys, New York Gorhams, Philadelphia Pythians, Pittsburgh Keystones, Washington Capital Citys, and Cincinnati Browns.[5][6] Neither Washington nor Cincinnati would play a game as they "failed to put up their bonds"[4] at the beginning of the season.[7] The Cuban Giants declined Brown's invitation to join the league as they were unwilling to sacrifice more lucrative Sunday bookings in Brooklyn.[3] On opening day, May 5, 1887, the Lord Baltimores beat the Pythians 15–12.[8] The league quickly experienced financial problems. Due to the passage of the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, railways revoked the reduced "group rates" normally enjoyed by traveling baseball teams. Fares fluctuated wildly and could double or triple overnight, wreaking havoc on the budgets of baseball teams throughout the country (even those in the American Association and the National League). A storm from the west, coupled with the rate hikes, led to disaster for the traveling Boston Resolutes on their way to Louisville. The storm caused the Resolutes to cancel several exhibition games they had planned along the way to help them pay for their trip. They missed their first scheduled game with the Louisville Falls City, and barely arrived for the second on May 7.[7] Despite all the turmoil, the Resolutes beat the Falls City 10–3.[9] Unfortunately, the revenue from the sparsely attended game was not enough to cover the cost of the trip to their next game in Pittsburgh, as a result the Resolutes were stranded in Louisville.[10] The Philadelphia Pythians withdrew from the league after their May 16 game with the Gorhams failed to take in enough money to pay for the use of the Athletics ball park.[11] By May 28, the league had folded.[12] Season standings 1887 National Colored Baseball League Standings[13] Team     W     L     Pct.     GB Philadelphia Pythians     4     3     .571     - Baltimore Lord Baltimores     5     5     .500     0.5 Pittsburgh Keystones     3     3     .500     0.5 Louisville Falls City     2     2     .500     0.5 Boston Resolutes     1     1     .500     0.5 New York Gorhams     3     4     .429     1.0 Cincinnati Browns     0     0     .000     - Washington Capital Citys     0     0     .000     - Notable players Sol White Frank Grant[14] Oscar Jackson Andrew Jackson Robert Jackson William Malone John Nelson William Selden Windsor Terrill The first Negro National League (NNL) 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. League history Founding Rube Foster, 1924, NNL League President Led by Rube Foster, owner and manager of the Chicago American Giants, the NNL was established on February 13, 1920, by a coalition of team owners at a meeting in a Kansas City YMCA.[1] The formation included the creation of the NLL constitution, written by journalist Cary B. Lewis, David Wyatt from the Indianapolis Ledger, Elwood C. Knox from the Indianapolis Freeman, and attorney Elisha Scott.[2][3] The new league was the first African-American baseball circuit to achieve stability and last more than one season. At first the league operated mainly in midwestern cities, ranging from Kansas City in the west to Pittsburgh in the east; in 1924 it expanded into the south, adding franchises in Birmingham, Alabama, and Memphis, Tennessee. Competition The two most important east coast clubs, the Hilldale Club of Darby, Pennsylvania, and the Bacharach Giants of Atlantic City, were affiliated with the NNL as associate clubs from 1920 to 1922, but did not compete for the championship. In 1923 they and four other eastern teams formed the Eastern Colored League (ECL) and raided the NNL for many of its top players, including John Henry Lloyd, Biz Mackey, George Scales, George Carr, and Clint Thomas, and signing Oscar Charleston, and Rube Curry in 1924. The war between the two leagues came to an end in 1924, when they agreed to respect each other's contracts and arranged for the Colored World Series between their champions. Difficulties and demise The NNL survived controversies over umpiring, scheduling, and what some perceived as league president Rube Foster's disproportionate influence and favoritism toward his own team. It also outlasted Foster's decline into mental illness in 1926, and its eastern rival, the ECL, which folded in early 1928. The NNL finally fell apart in 1931 under the economic stress of the Great Depression. Legacy The Negro American League, founded in 1937 and including several of the same teams that played in the original Negro National League, would eventually carry on as the western circuit of black baseball. A second Negro National League was organized in 1933, but eventually became concentrated on the east coast. To distinguish between the two unrelated leagues, they are usually referred to as the first Negro National League (NNL I) and the second Negro National League (NNL II). Negro National League franchises     Annual final standings: 1920, 1921, 1922, 1923, 1924, 1925, 1926, 1927, 1928, 1929, 1930, 1931     Chicago American Giants (1920–1931) – Known as the Chicago Columbia Giants in 1931; Associate team 1931.     Chicago Giants (1920–1921)     Cuban Stars (1920–1930) – Known as the Cincinnati Cubans in 1921.     Dayton Marcos (1920, 1926)     Detroit Stars (1920–1931)     Indianapolis ABCs (1920–1924, 1925–1926) – Dropped from league mid-season 1924 but returned the following season.     Kansas City Monarchs (1920–1931) – Associate team 1931.     St. Louis Giants (1920–1921) – Replaced by St. Louis Stars in 1922, which was virtually the same team with new owners.         St. Louis Stars (1922–1931) – Replaced the St. Louis Giants.     Columbus Buckeyes (1921)     Cleveland Tate Stars (1922–1923) – Dropped out mid-season 1923.         Toledo Tigers (1923) – Mid-season replacement for Cleveland Tate Stars.     Pittsburgh Keystones (1922)     Milwaukee Bears (1923)     Birmingham Black Barons (1924–1925, 1927–1930) – Associate team 1931.     Cleveland Browns (1924)     Memphis Red Sox (1924–1925, 1927–1930) – Mid-season replacement in 1924 for Indianapolis ABCs.     Cleveland Elites (1926) – Closely related to both Cleveland Hornets and Cleveland Tigers.     Cleveland Hornets (1927) – Closely related to both Cleveland Elites and Cleveland Tigers.     Cleveland Tigers (1928) – Closely related to both Cleveland Hornets and Cleveland Elites.     Nashville Elite Giants (1930) – Became Cleveland Cubs for 1931 season.         Cleveland Cubs (1931) – Returned to Nashville in 1932 after NNL folded.     Indianapolis ABCs (2nd team) (1931)     Louisville White Sox (1931)     Columbus Blue Birds – Associate team 1931.     Cuban House of David – Associate team 1931. Member timeline     1920: Formation of NNL consisting of 8 teams – Chicago American Giants, Detroit Stars, Kansas City Monarchs, Indianapolis ABCs, St. Louis Giants, Cuban Stars, Dayton Marcos and Chicago Giants.     1921: Dropped Dayton Marcos; Added Columbus Buckeyes.     1922: Dropped Columbus Buckeyes, Chicago Giants; Added Cleveland Tate Stars, Pittsburgh Keystones.     1923: Dropped Cleveland Tate Stars (mid-season), Pittsburgh Keystones; Added Toledo Tigers (mid-season), Milwaukee Bears.     1924: Dropped Toledo Tigers, Milwaukee Bears, Indianapolis ABCs (mid-season); Added Cleveland Browns, Birmingham Black Barons, Memphis Red Sox (mid-season).     1925: Dropped Cleveland Browns; Re-added Indianapolis ABCs.     1926: Dropped Memphis Red Sox, Birmingham Black Barons; Added Cleveland Elites, re-added Dayton Marcos.     1927: Dropped Dayton Marcos, Indianapolis ABCs; Re-added Birmingham Black Barons, Memphis Red Sox.     1929: Dropped Cleveland Tigers.     1930: Added Nashville Elite Giants.     1931: Dropped Memphis Red Sox, Birmingham Black Barons, Cuban Stars; Added Louisville White Sox, (new) Indianapolis ABCs. League fell apart before season end. League champions Pennant winners From 1920 through 1924, the team in first place at the end of the season was declared the Pennant winner. Due to the unorthodox nature of the schedule (and little incentive to enforce it), some teams frequently played many more games than others did in any given season. This led to some disputed championships and two teams claiming the title. The 1931 season did not finish all games, which meant that while St. Louis was awarded the title, non-member Pittsburgh Crawfords disputed their status as champion.[4] From 1924 to 1927, the pennant champion went to play in the Negro World Series. Generally, the team with the best winning percentage (with some minimum number of games played) was awarded the Pennant, but other times it was the team with the most victories. The "games behind" method of recording standings was uncommon in most black leagues. Year     Winning team     Manager     Reference 1920     Chicago American Giants     Rube Foster     [5] 1921     Chicago American Giants (2)     Rube Foster     [6] 1922     Chicago American Giants (3)     Rube Foster     [7] 1923     Kansas City Monarchs     Sam Crawford José Méndez     [8] 1924     Kansas City Monarchs (2)     José Méndez     [9] 1925†     Kansas City Monarchs (3)     José Méndez     [10] 1926†     Chicago American Giants (4)     Rube Foster Dave Malarcher     [11] 1927†     Chicago American Giants (5)     Dave Malarcher     [12] 1928†     St. Louis Stars     Candy Jim Taylor     [13] 1929     Kansas City Monarchs (4)     Bullet Rogan     [14] 1930†     St. Louis Stars (2)     John Reese     [15] 1931     St. Louis Stars (3)     John Reese     [16] † – Pennant was decided via a split-season schedule with the winner of the first half of the season playing the winner of the second half of the season, unless one team won both halves. League play-offs From 1925 through 1931, the NNL split the season into two halves. The winner of the first half played the winner of the second half for the league Pennant. As mentioned above, disputes also occurred in the split season finishes. 1929 and 1931 saw Kansas City win both halves.[17][18] Year     Winning team     Games     Losing team     Reference 1925     Kansas City Monarchs (first half)     4–3     St. Louis Stars (second half)     [19] 1926     Chicago American Giants (second half)     5–4     Kansas City Monarchs (first half)     [20] 1927     Chicago American Giants (first half)     4–1     Birmingham Black Barons (second half)     [21] 1928     St. Louis Stars (first half)     5–4     Chicago American Giants (second half)     [22] 1930     St. Louis Stars (first half)     4–3     Detroit Stars (second half)     [23] Colored World Series Main article: Negro World Series For the duration of the league, a Colored World Series took place four times, from 1924 through 1927. The NNL Pennant winner met the champion of the rival Eastern Colored League. Three out of the four years, the Negro National League team (below in bold) won. Year     Winning team     Games     Losing team 1924     Kansas City Monarchs     5–4–(1)[T]     Hilldale Club 1925     Hilldale Club     5–1[T]     Kansas City Monarchs 1926     Chicago American Giants     5–4–(2)[T]     Bacharach Giants 1927     Chicago American Giants     5–3–(1)[T]     Bacharach Giants
  • Sport: Baseball
  • Size: 5 1/2 X 7 1/2 INCHES
  • Original/Reproduction: Original
  • Country/Region of Manufacture: United States
  • Team-Baseball: TWIN CITIES COLORED GIANTS
  • Vintage: Yes

PicClick Insights - Impossibly Rare 1930s Twin Cities Colored NEGRO LEAGUE PHOTOGRAPH **MUST SEE** PicClick Exclusive

  •  Popularity - 3 watchers, 0.8 new watchers per day, 4 days for sale on eBay. High amount watching. 0 sold, 1 available.
  •  Best Price -
  •  Seller - 4,923+ items sold. 0% negative feedback. Great seller with very good positive feedback and over 50 ratings.

People Also Loved PicClick Exclusive