The Growth of Negro League Baseball

What teams composed Negro League Baseball? This question is complicated and will be met with a variety of answers. Some will describe the Negro Leagues as those teams that combined and played under the umbrella of the Negro National League, Negro American League or any of the other formal leagues that formed during the time of segregated baseball. Others will argue that the Negro Leagues pertain to all African-American only teams - regardless of whether or not they were associated with a formal league - that played prior to, during and right after African-Americans were banned from what evolved into today's Major League Baseball.

In this curriculum, the term "Negro Leagues" will refer to all African-American teams and leagues that played the game until and just after the integration of baseball on April 15, 1947.

By the 1890s African-Americans were no longer permitted to play professional baseball in the National League, American Association or the minors. This left talented African-American players a choice - either give up playing the game they loved or begin to form teams and leagues in order to play. The history and contributions to baseball of these players are important to note, remember and celebrate.

While many all African-American teams were in existence during the mid-late 1800s they were amateur teams, meaning the players were not paid to play. That changed in 1885 when headwaiter Frank P. Thompson of the Argyle Hotel in Babylon, New York; Stanislaus Kostka "S.K." Govern and C.S. Massey founded the professional Babylon Black Panthers; later renamed the Cuban Giants. In this sense professional meant that all players on the team were paid. Recognizing that top players could attract patrons to the hotel, the team founders sought only the best players.

The Babylon Black Panthers drew the attention of white promoter Walter Cook who helped to relocate the team to Trenton, New Jersey. Believing that a name change was necessary to attract a greater audience, the Black Panthers were renamed the Cuban Giants despite the fact that the team was not made up of Cuban players. Govern, who was the Manager of the Cuban Giants, continued to build the team by recruiting and signing the best players to one-year contracts. He was instrumental in scheduling games against major and minor league clubs as well against collegiate teams. The Cuban Giants travelled to the South during the winter pulling in revenue year round. The success of the Cuban Giants showed the strength of African-American ball clubs.

African-American baseball teams were playing throughout the country. Some players were compensated while others played for the joy of the game and the competition. The Cuban Giants showed that an all African-American team could make a profit.

Southern League of Base Ballists

The first attempt to pull African-American teams together into a league was orchestrated by The Leader, a newspaper in Jacksonville, Florida in 1886. Named the Southern League of Base Ballists, the league consisted of 10 teams:

• Charleston Fultons
• Florida Clippers of Jacksonville
• Georgia Champions of Atlanta
• Jacksonville Athletics
• Jacksonville Macedonias
• Memphis Eclipse
• Memphis Eurekas
• New Orleans Unions
• Savannah Boards
• Savannah Lafayettes

Deep in debt, the league folded after one season.

National Colored Base Ball League

The following year (1887), the National Colored Base Ball League (NCBBL) was founded with six teams:

• Baltimore Lord Baltimores
• Boston Resolutes
• Louisville Falls Citys
• New York Gorhams
• Philadelphia Pythians
• Pittsburgh Keystones

Despite being granted, under the National Agreement, official minor league status (players could not sign with another NCBBL team or play with a team outside of the NCBBL) the league lasted a mere two weeks as teams, including the Pythians and Gorhams, disbanded.

National Association of Colored Baseball Clubs of the United States and Cuba

From 1907 until the league disbanded sometime during the 1910 season the National Association of Colored Baseball Clubs of the United States and Cuba (also known as the International League of Colored Baseball Clubs of America and Cuba) operated. It was founded by Philadelphia Giants owner Henry Walter Schlichter, Sol White and Harry A. Smith and played with just four teams:

• Brooklyn Royal Giants
• Cuban Giants
• Cuban Stars of Havana
• Philadelphia Giants

Organized league success would not occur until the founding of the Negro National League in 1920.

On February 13, 1920 the Negro National League (NNL) was born and, where other previous attempts to organize African-American baseball teams into a league failed, this league found success.

The force behind the creation of the Negro National League was Andrew "Rube" Foster. Foster was a baseball man. He was considered to be one of, if not the best, pitchers during the first decade of the 20th century. Foster played for multiple teams including the Philadelphia Giants (1904-1906) whom he left in 1907 to become the player-manager for the Leland Giants in Chicago. Foster, after gaining control of the team from owner Frank Leland, renamed the club the Chicago American Giants.

During the time when there was no formal league organization, Foster's American Giants and other African-American baseball teams set their own schedules. Teams would challenge one another to play in a championship or declare themselves champions of their area.

By 1920 Foster felt the time was right to organize. He wanted to foster competition among the teams, as well as bring control to team bookings. He called together the owners of the Midwestern teams and they met at a YMCA in Kansas City, Missouri on February 13, 1920. Out of the meetings came the decision to form the Negro National League. The original Negro National League teams were the:

• Chicago American Giants
• Chicago Giants
• Dayton Marcos
• Detroit Stars
• Indianapolis ABCs
• Kansas City Monarchs
• Cuban Stars

The first game took place on May 2, 1920.

Though now a formal league, the schedules of the teams varied greatly because each team scheduled their own games. This meant that teams played games against not just league opponents but also teams outside of the league. Complicating matters was that there was no set number of games that teams had to play against league opponents nor was there a set number of overall games that teams were required to play.

By 1930 the Negro National League was struggling. The Great Depression, triggered by the stock market crash in late October 1929 culminated in a $30 billion loss on October 28-29. People everywhere were feeling the impact of the economic times and the Negro National League was no different. The highly successful Kansas City Monarchs withdrew from the NNL believing playing the independent circuit would prove more profitable. By 1931 the NNL was down to five teams and the financial pressures finally proved to much as the league shuttered at the conclusion of the season.

In 1920, Nashville Elite Giants owner Thomas T. Wilson founded the Negro Southern League (NSL). In existence until the 1940s, the Negro Southern League was far less organized and profitable than the Negro National League. The NSL was considered, for the majority of its existence, to be a minor league and feeder into the Negro National League and Eastern Colored League (1923-1928).

During the first two seasons of the Negro National League the Hilldale Athletic Club (also known as the Hilldale Daisies) located in Darby, Pennsylvania and the Bacharach Giants were associate clubs of the NNL. As an associate member of the NNL, players were unable to be raided from their teams. However, the protection also came with the rule that NNL associate teams could not play against teams outlawed by the league. This caused Hilldale and the Bacharach Giants to lose profits as they were forced to turn down games with outlawed teams. This led Hilldale president Ed Bolden and the Bacharach Giants to break from the NNL and join with Nat Strong, a white promoter in New York, to form the Eastern Colored League in 1923. The first season featured:

• Baltimore Black Sox
• Bacharach Giants
• Brooklyn Royal Giants
• Cuban Stars (East)
• Hilldale
• Lincoln Giants of New York

The relationship between the Eastern Colored League and the Negro National League was not a good one. The ECL routinely raided players from NNL rosters and both leagues claimed to be the superior one. After much fighting, a deal was struck for the leagues to coexist and led to the creation of the Colored World Series. The first Colored World Series pitted the NNL best Kansas City Monarchs against the Hilldale squad of the ECL. The contest, that was played over three weeks and in four different cities, was won five games to four by the Monarchs.

The ECL continued until 1928 but did not finish the season. Handicapped by Bolden withdrawing his Hilldale squad because he felt higher profits could be found as an independent team and by the withdrawal from the league prior to opening day by the Brooklyn Royal Giants and the Harrisburg Giants (who joined the ECL in 1924), the ECL folded.

Just two short years after the Negro National League folded, Gus Greenlee, the owner of the Pittsburgh Crawfords and a successful bar owner, launched a second incarnation of the league.

Initially the Negro National League included teams from the both the Eastern and Midwestern parts of the United States but by the 1936 season the League consisted solely of Eastern teams. This led to Southern and Midwestern teams banding together to form the Negro American League in 1937.

Beginning in 1942 the champions of the Negro National League and the Negro American League competed in the Negro World Series. This lasted until 1948 when the Negro National League ceased operation, a result of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in Major League Baseball the previous year.

Not all teams in the Negro National League were ready to fold. Those remaining were absorbed by the Negro American League or continued to play as independent entities. The Negro American League would continue to play until 1962 when, due to the full integration of Major League Baseball, teams could no longer attract the top talent or interest to play in the League.

East-West All Star Game of the Negro Leagues

Gus Greenlee was also the architect of the East-West All-Star Game of the Negro Leagues. The first contest was played was first played in 1933. Though Greenlee originally conceived the game as a promotional activity to make money, it quickly turned into an annual match-up and huge event within Negro League Baseball. The game was constructed similarly to that of Major League Baseball's All-Star Game with fans voting for the starting line-ups. Due to the set-up of leagues and the fact that the Negro League teams often played independently, the All-Star teams were constructed by the geographic region designations of East and West. Additionally, the game was played near the conclusion of baseball season rather than in the middle like MLB's game. The East-West All-Star Game was played until 1962 with the first, and majority of contests thereafter, held at Chicago's Comisky Park.

Negro League schedule conflicts

The creation of African-American baseball leagues was a trying endeavor. Teams had their own agendas and even when leagues attempted to form, it was difficult to prevent stars from being recruited from other teams, including those within their own league; set a standardized schedule or follow a set of rules. Additionally, teams looked out for the interests of their team above the interests of their respective league. The possibility of a higher payday led teams to schedule games against teams outside of their affiliated league even if the game conflicted with an already scheduled league game. This caused instability within the leagues and had an impact on the leagues ability to operate successfully.