Negro league baseball

:Part of the History of baseball in the United States series.

Paige, Gibson and Greenlee

Just as Negro league baseball seemed was at its lowest point and was about to fade into history, along came Cumberland Posey and his Homestead Grays. Posey used the popularity of the Grays as a foundation of a new Negro league in 1932, the East-West League. Joining his Homestead Grays, were the Cleveland Stars, Newark Browns, Washington Pilots, Detroit Wolves, Hillsdale Daises, Baltimore Black Sox, and the Midwest edition of the Cuban Stars. 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.

Related Topics:
Cumberland Posey - 1932 - East-West League - Cleveland Stars - Newark Browns - Washington Pilots - Detroit Wolves

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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 blackball: Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson.

Related Topics:
Gus Greenlee - Numbers runner - Pittsburgh Crawfords - Launder money - Homestead - August 6 - Satchel Paige - Greenlee Field - April 30 - Josh Gibson

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In 1933, Greenlee, riding the popularity of his Crawfords, decided to be 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. The members of the new league were the Pittsburgh Crawfords, Columbus Blue Birds, Indianapolis ABCs, Baltimore Black Sox, Brooklyn Royal Giants, Cole's American Giants (formerly the Chicago American Giants and 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 on the participants.

Related Topics:
1933 - National Organization of Professional Baseball Clubs - Negro National League - Columbus Blue Birds - Chicago American Giants - Major League Baseball All-Star Game

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The new version of the Negro National League did well enough that it admitted two more teams for the 1934 season, the Philadelphia Stars and Newark Dodgers. The league continued to thrive despite the departure of its number one star, Paige, who chose to play for more money in Bismarck, North Dakota. Paige returned to the Crawfords for the 1936 season, much to the delight of Greenlee.

Related Topics:
1934 - Philadelphia Stars - Newark Dodgers - Bismarck - North Dakota - 1936

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In 1937, Greenlee gave his blessing for J.L. Wilkerson to create a new Negro league in the Midwest, the Negro American League. The teams that made up the league were the Chicago American Giants (shifting to its appropriate geographical conference), Birmingham Black Barons, Cincinnati Tigers, Detroit Stars, Indianapolis Athletics, Kansas City Monarchs, Memphis Red Sox and St. Louis Stars. But before the beginning of the season, Paige signed to play in the Dominican Republic and took six other men with him, including Gibson and Bell. As a result, the league banned its number one player, Paige. Midway through the 1937 season, Greenlee was ousted as president in a coup led by Posey. After the season, the league rescinded the bans on the players that left and Greenlee ended up selling Paige's contract to Effa Manley's Newark Eagles. Instead of playing for the Eagles, Paige jumped to the Mexican League. In a meeting with other team owners, the Eagles threatened to pull out of the league, and take several teams with them, if the Paige issue wasn't resolved. The Eagles signed two players from the Toledo Crawfords in exchange for letting go of the rights to Paige, narrowly averting disaster for the Negro National League. In late September 1940, Paige made his debut with the Kansas City Monarchs.

Related Topics:
1937 - Negro American League - Birmingham Black Barons - Cincinnati Tigers - Indianapolis Athletics - Memphis Red Sox - Dominican Republic - Effa Manley - Newark Eagles - Mexican - Toledo Crawfords - 1940

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