EPISODE 245: Integrating the Negro Leagues - With Sean Forman

We geek out this week with Sports Reference, LLC founder and president Sean Forman ("The Negro Leagues are Major Leagues: Essays and Research for Overdue Recognition") for an inside look into the complex and detailed process of integrating the statistics of the recently elevated Negro Leagues into the official records of Major League Baseball.

Advocated for decades by countless baseball researchers and historians - and buoyed by MLB's long-overdue proclamation in December 2020 that seven of Black baseball's segregated professional leagues between 1920-1948 finally deserved "major league" status - the incorporation of Negro League player data into the sport's overall statistical record has been both swift and meticuluos.

Forman talks us through how the company's vaunted Baseball Reference team partnered with Negro League stats specialist Seamheads.com to onboard and combine data from the Negro National League (I) (1920–1931); the Eastern Colored League (1923–1928); the American Negro League (1929); the East-West League (1932); the Negro Southern League (1932); the Negro National League (II) (1933–1948); and the Negro American League (1937–1948).

And how the process will remain iterative for some time to come.

The Negro Leagues Are Major Leagues: Essays and Research for Overdue Recognition - buy book here

EPISODE 210: An Unlikely Negro League Story - With Cam Perron

There’s one question Cam Perron ("Comeback Season: My Unlikely Story of Friendship with the Greatest Living Negro League Baseball Players") has heard over and over again: “How does a white kid from a suburb of Boston become friends with all of these former Negro League baseball ­players?”

An ardent Red Sox fan, Perron grew up during the '00s loving history, and from an early age, had a knack for collecting. But when he was twelve and bought a set of Topps baseball cards featuring several players from something called "the Negro Leagues," his curiosity was piqued.

In 2007, while still in middle school, Perron started writing letters to former Negro League players, asking for their autographs and a few words about their careers. What he got back was much more than he expected.

The former players responded with detailed stories about their glory days on the field, as well as disconcerting descriptions of the racism they faced - including run-ins with the KKK. They explained how they were repeatedly kept out of the major leagues and confined to the lower-paying and lesser-publicized Negro Leagues - even after Jackie Robinson had supposedly broken the color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947.

By the time Perron started high school, letters had turned into phone calls, and he was spending hours a day talking with dozens of seemingly forgotten ex-players. Many of them professed ignorance as to the existence or whereabouts of any records of their play, and sadness at how they'd lost touch with their former teammates.

In 2010, with the help of a small group of fellow researchers, a then-15-year-old Perron helped organize the first annual Negro League Players Reunion in Birmingham, Alabama, where he finally got to meet his new friends - all of them 50-to-70 years his senior - in person. Their bond was natural and instant.

In between subsequent reunions, Perron has become deeply involved in an ever-expanding mission to help ex-players get rightly-owed pension monies from Major League Baseball, while simultaneously working to get the Negro Southern League Museum in Birmingham opened in 2015.

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Comeback Season: My Unlikely Story of Friendship with the Greatest Living Negro League Baseball Players - buy book here

EPISODE 201: Eddie "The Mogul" Gottlieb - With Rich Westcott

Philadelphia's dean of baseball writers Rich Westcott ("The Mogul: Eddie Gottlieb, Philadelphia Sports Legend and Pro Basketball Pioneer") steps outside the batter's box this week to help us go deep into the story of one of pro basketball's most foundational figures, Eddie Gottlieb.

Armed with a great smile and a razor-sharp memory, the Ukranian-born and South Philly-raised Gottlieb was a multi-faceted hoops pioneer - rules innovator, successful coach, masterful promoter, and logistics wizard - whose tactical talents and business acumen gave rise to what would ultimately evolve into today's NBA.

In 1918, Gottlieb organized and coached a social club-sponsored amateur team for the South Philadelphia Hebrew Association (SPHA) that he grew into a regionally dominant and ultimately professional powerhouse; from the late 1920s to early 1940s, the SPHAs dominated the original Eastern and American Basketball Leagues, winning multiple championships and regularly beating prominent touring clubs like the Original Celtics and the New York Renaissance Five (Rens).

In 1946, Gottlieb helped establish a new professional league - the Basketball Association of America. As owner, general manager, coach, and "promoter-in-chief" of the league's Philadelphia Warriors, he won the BAA’s first championship in 1946-47.

Three seasons later, Gottlieb played a pivotal role in the merger of the BAA with the National Basketball League to form the National Basketball Association, where his Warriors would win a second league crown in 1956, and to which he would later add the groundbreaking talents of one Wilt Chamberlain in 1959.

After selling the team in 1962, Gottleib became the NBA's "Mr. Basketball" - the definitive and authoritative resource spanning league rules, history, scheduling, and operations - until his death in 1979.  He is immortalized not only as a member of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, but also as the name on the trophy given annually to the NBA's Rookie of the Year.

The Mogul: Eddie Gottlieb, Philadelphia Sports Legend and Pro Basketball Pioneer - buy book here

EPISODE 186: Negro Leaguers & Baseball's Hall of Fame - With Steven Greenes

When legendary Red Sox slugger Ted Williams gave his induction speech at the National Baseball Hall of Fame on July 25, 1966, he unexpectedly included a blunt admonition to the sport's establishment that something in the hallowed Hall was significantly awry - the absence of standout players from the Negro Leagues:

"I've been a very lucky guy to have worn a baseball uniform, and I hope some day the names of Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson in some way can be added as a symbol of the great Negro players who are not here - only because they weren't given a chance."

The "Splendid Splinter" was referring to two of the most famous names in the Negro Leagues, who were not given the opportunity to play in the Major Leagues until Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947. (Gibson died early in 1947 and never played in the majors; Paige's brief major league stint came long past his prime.) Williams biographer Leigh Montville called the broadside "a first crack in the door that ultimately would open and include Paige [in 1971] and Gibson [1972] and other Negro League stars in the shrine."

The Hall has been playing catch-up ever since - and as this week's guest Steven Greenes (Negro Leaguers and the Hall of Fame: The Case for Inducting 24 Overlooked Ballplayers) argues - still has plenty of ground to cover if it is to fully memorialize the contributions of some of the best talent to have ever played the game.

Negro Leaguers and the Hall of Fame: The Case for Including 24 Overlooked Ballplayers - buy book here

EPISODE 183: Negro League Baseball's "Invisible Men" - With Donn Rogosin

From the book jacket of the 2007 reissue of Invisible Men: Life in Baseball's Negro Leagues - the seminal 1983 book by this week's guest Donn Rogosin:

"In 1947, Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color barrier and became a hero for [B]lack and white Americans, yet Robinson was a Negro League player before he integrated Major League baseball. Negro League ballplayers had been thrilling [B]lack fans since 1920. Among them were the legendary pitchers Smoky Joe Williams, whose fastball seemed to "come off a mountain top," Satchel Paige, the ageless wonder who pitched for five decades, and such hitters as Josh Gibson and Buck Leonard, 'the Ruth and Gehrig of the Negro Leagues.'"

"Although their games were ignored by white-owned newspapers and radio stations, [B]lack ballplayers became folk heroes in cities such as Chicago, Kansas City, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York, and Washington, DC - where the teams drew large crowds and became major contributors to the local community life. This illuminating narrative, filled with the memories of many surviving Negro League players, pulls the veil off these 'invisible men' who were forced into the segregated leagues. What emerges is a glorious chapter in African American history and an often overlooked aspect of our American past."

Invisible Men: Life in Baseball’s Negro Leagues - buy book here

EPISODE 168: Cumberland Posey’s Negro League Homestead Grays – With Jim Overmyer

Negro League ace historian/author Jim Overmyer (Queen of the Negro Leagues: Effa Manley and the Newark Eagles; Black Ball and the Boardwalk: The Bacharach Giants of Atlantic City) returns for a deep dive into the extraordinary dual-sport career of Negro League baseball AND Black Fives-era basketball legend Cumberland Posey – including the two dominating teams he founded, owned, managed, and played for – baseball’s Homestead Grays and basketball’s Loendi Big Five.

Considered the best African-American hoops player of his time (although not inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame until 2016), Posey was a standout collegiate player at Pitt, Penn State and Duquense before launching his semi-pro Loendi club in 1915 – which he built and led to four consecutive Colored Basketball World's Championships from 1919-1923.

Posey was already moonlighting as a player with Negro League baseball’s Grays starting in 1911, becoming the team’s manager in 1916, and finally its owner by the early 1920s – ultimately building one of the powerhouses of black baseball.  Posey’s Homestead franchise won eleven pennants across three leagues – including nine consecutive Negro National League titles from 1937-45 – and three Negro World Series Championships (against counterparts from the Negro American League) in ’43, ’44 & ’48.

Overmyer discusses his new book (Cum Posey of the Homestead Grays: A Biography of the Negro Leagues Owner and Hall of Famer), Posey’s prodigious talents both as a player and owner (which garnered him posthumous induction in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006), and the Grays’ twin homes of both suburban Pittsburgh and Washington, DC.

This week’s episode is sponsored by the Red Lightning Books imprint of Indiana University Press – who offer our listeners a FREE CHAPTER of pioneering sportswriter Diana K. Shah’s new memoir A Farewell to Arms, Legs and Jockstraps!

          

Cum Posey of the Homestead Grays - buy book here

Queen of the Negro Leagues: Effa Manley and the Newark Eagles - buy book here

Black Ball and the Boardwalk: The Bacharach Giants of Atlantic City - buy book here

EPISODE 164: Negro League Baseball’s Atlantic City Bacharach Giants – With Jim Overmyer

The curious story of baseball’s Atlantic City (NJ) Bacharach Giants originates from a unique intersection of racism, tourism, and politics.

In 1915, an independent semi-pro “Atlantic City Colored League” was formed to provide an entertainment outlet for the city’s 11,000+ black residents – with the hope being they would attend the games and stay off the boardwalk, a then-booming summer haven for white tourists.  

Two black businessmen active in the local Republican political machine asked an existing area team to join the league and promotionally rename itself after politician Harry Bacharach, the once-and-future mayor of Atlantic City.  When the team refused, the duo travelled south and convinced eight members of the Duval Giants, a black amateur team in Jacksonville, Florida, to venture north and create the foundation for a new independent club instead.

The “Bacharach Giants” largely dominated whatever opponents came their way during the late 1910s, despite persistent financial wobbliness.  In 1920, the team began a three-year stint as an associate member of Rube Foster’s new Negro National League (NNL) – allowing them to retain official independence, but also to coordinate non-league games with the teams from Foster’s largely Midwest-based circuit. 

In 1923, Atlantic City broke from the NNL to help start the rival Eastern Colored League (ECL), where they achieved their greatest success – including winning two league pennants in 1926 and 1927 – though losing both times in subsequent Negro League World Series play to the NNL’s Chicago American Giants.

Beset by rancorous squabbles over player contracts, the ECL folded in 1928.  Five of its clubs – including the Bacharach Giants – formed the bulk of a new American Negro League for 1929, only to see both the league and its team from Atlantic City fold by the end of the season. 

Author/historian Jim Overmyer (Black Ball and the Boardwalk: The Bacharach Giants of Atlantic City) joins to discuss the history of the club, and some of the legends that emanated from it, including Negro League standouts Dick Lundy, Oliver Marcell, Dick Redding, “Nip” Winters, Chanel White, “Rats” Henderson, Claude Grier, and Luther Farrell – and National Baseball Hall of Famer John Henry "Pop" Lloyd.

Black Ball and the Boardwalk: The Bacharach Giants of Atlantic City - buy book here

EPISODE 144: Year-End Holiday Spectacular – With Paul Reeths & Andy Crossley

We put the wraps on an event-filled 2019 with our first-annual holiday roundtable spectacular featuring the return of fellow defunct sports enthusiasts Paul Reeths (OurSportsCentral.com, StatsCrew.com & Episode 46) and Andy Crossley (Fun While It Lasted & Episode 2) – for a spirited discussion about the past, present and potential future of “forgotten” pro sports teams and leagues.

It’s a no-holds-barred look back on some of the year’s most notable events and discoveries, including:

• The short rise and quick demise of the Alliance of American Football;

• Major League Soccer’s (unsustainable?) expansion to thirty teams;

• The folding of the Arena Football League – again;

• Major League Baseball’s minor league contraction plan; AND

• Raiders NFL football moves on from Oakland for good.

As well as some predictions on what might transpire in 2020, as:

• The second coming of Vince McMahon’s XFL kicks off in February;

• Baseball celebrates the Negro Leagues’ 100th anniversary;

• Las Vegas takes its biggest sports gamble yet with the Raiders;

• The MLS Players’ Association flexes its pre-season bargaining muscles;

• The Chargers and Clippers grapple with second-fiddle status in LA; AND

• Mark Cuban’s Professional Futsal League . . . well, your guess is as good as ours!

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EPISODE 143: Negro League Superstar Oscar Charleston – With Jeremy Beer

Baseball biographer Jeremy Beer (Oscar Charleston: The Life and Legend of Baseball’s Greatest Forgotten Player) joins the podcast this week to discuss the life and career of one of baseball’s greatest, though largely unsung, players – and provide us a convenient excuse for a deeper dive into the endlessly fascinating vagaries of the sport’s legendary Negro Leagues.

Buck O’Neil once described Oscar Charleston as “Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, and Tris Speaker rolled into one,” while baseball historian Bill James ranked him as the fourth-best player of all time – inclusive of the Major Leagues, in which he never played.  During his prime, he became a legend in Cuba as well one of black America’s most popular celebrities.  Yet even among serious sports fans, Charleston is virtually unknown today.

In a lengthy career spanning 1915-54, Charleston played against, managed, befriended, and occasionally brawled with baseball greats like Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Lefty Grove, Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, Jesse Owens, Roy Campanella, and Branch Rickey – with a competitive “hothead” reputation that sometimes brought him trouble – but more often delivered victories, championships, and profound respect.

Charleston played for 11 clubs across at least five different Negro Leagues, and doubled as manager for a number of them – including the 1935 Negro National League pennant-winning Pittsburgh Crawfords – considered by many baseball scholars to be the best black baseball team of all time.

Though he never got the chance to play in the bigs, Charleston was still a trailblazer – becoming the first African-American to work as a Major League scout, when Brooklyn Dodgers owner Branch Rickey hired him for to oversee his fledgling United Baseball League “Brown Dodgers” feeder club.

A National Baseball Hall of Fame inductee in 1976, Charleston’s combined record as a player, manager, and scout makes him the most accomplished figure in black baseball history – and, without question, beyond.

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EPISODE 142: Birmingham’s Black Barons – With Bill Plott

Journalist-author/Alabama native Bill Plott (Black Baseball's Last Team Standing: The Birmingham Black Barons) joins the show to help us discover more about the legendary Negro League franchise regarded by most baseball historians as the “jewel of Southern black baseball."

The first Black Barons team began in 1920 as charter members of the Negro Southern League, an eight-member circuit that largely mirrored the all-white minor-league Southern Association – right down to the sharing of ballparks.  Three years later, Birmingham made the leap to Rube Foster’s major league Negro National League, black baseball’s highest professional level at the time – soon to feature eventual All-Star legends like George “Mule” Suttles and Leroy “Satchel” Paige.

The team survived the Great Depression by bouncing between the major Negro National and minor Negro Southern leagues during the 1930s, finally returning to the bigs in 1940 via the newly ascendant Negro American League.

The 1940s was the zenith of the franchise's history, catalyzed by new owners Tom Hayes (a prominent Memphis funeral home operator) and sports entrepreneur Abe Saperstein – whose Harlem Globetrotters provided off-season employment to some of the players.  (Reese Tatum, the team’s popular centerfielder, joined the ‘Trotters as “Goose” Tatum, the “Clown Prince of Basketball” – eventually earning greater fame for his achievements on the hardwood than those on the diamond.)

The Black Barons were among the Negro Leagues’ elite teams, winning NAL pennants (though losing Negro World Series’) in 1943, 1944 and 1948 – and featured a who’s who of standout on-field talent such as Lorenzo "Piper" Davis, Lyman Bostock, Bill Powell, Bill Barnes, Joe Bankhead, Ed Steele, Bill Greason, Artie Wilson, Jehosie Heard, and a teenage sensation named Willie Mays – many of whom left for the soon-to-be integrated major leagues.

Birmingham soldiered on post-integration into the 1950s, striving to maintain professional relevance and outlasting most of the remaining Negro League teams in the process; by 1960, the Black Barons had been reduced to a barnstorming outfit, fading into obscurity against the backdrop of the Civil Rights movement – giving up the ghost for good in 1963.

Still, the team’s legend – and original ballpark (Birmingham’s Rickwood Field) – live on.

PLUS: Charley Pride gets traded for a team bus!

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Black Baseball’s Last Team Standing: The Birmingham Black Barons - buy here

The Negro Southern League: A Baseball History - buy here

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EPISODE 131: Calling Balls & Strikes in Baseball’s Negro Leagues – With Byron Motley

Multi-talented singer-songwriter, photographer, and soon-to-be sports history documentarian Byron Motley joins the show this week to discuss his late father’s colorful career as an umpire in baseball’s legendary Negro Leagues – the subject of his 2007 collaborative oral history, Ruling Over Monarchs, Giants, and Stars.

A child of Depression-era rural Alabama, a teenaged Bob Motley migrated north in the early 1940s to his uncle’s home in Dayton, OH in search of work – and a tryout as a Negro League pitcher.  World War II intervened, and Motley was soon off to the front lines as one of the first African-Americans in the then-segregated (Montfort Point) Marines – receiving both a Purple Heart (shot in the foot during combat) and a Congressional Gold Medal of Honor for his service.

While recovering from his wounds, Motley caught wind of a baseball game outside his military hospital and volunteered to umpire – crutches and all.  Despite earning him an immediate trip back to the battlefield, it set the stage for his post-discharge career ambitions.

Relocated to Kansas City in 1946, Motley supplemented his day job at a local GM plant with persistent attempts to umpire games with KC’s fabled Monarchs, ultimately yielding a decade-long moonlighting career calling contests across the Negro Leagues.  Known for a flamboyant acrobatic style, Motley became nationally known as the most entertaining game-caller in the Negro majors – as much an attraction as the pioneering players and teams themselves.

Though a Major League call-up never came, Motley still broke barriers in Triple-A and NCAA ball, and was instrumental in helping usher in the eventual arrival of the first African-American umpire (his Pacific Coast League colleague Emmett Ashford) in 1966.  

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EPISODE #116: A Thinking Man’s Guide to Defunct Leagues – With Stephen Provost

This week, we offer a refresher course in the history of forgotten pro sports leagues with veteran newspaper editor, current long-form author and fellow defunct sports enthusiast Stephen Provost – whose recent book A Whole Different League is an essential primer for anyone seeking an entrée into the genre.

Provost serves up a smorgasbord of highlights gleaned from his personal memories of and research into the various nooks and crannies of what “used-to-be” in professional team sports, including:

• The curiosity of 9,000 Los Angeles Aztecs NASL soccer fans in a cavernous 100,000-seat Rose Bowl;

• The oft-forgotten Continental Football League of the late 1960s, operating in the shadows of the mighty NFL and colorful AFL;

• The enigmatic one-season wonder of the 1961-62 National Bowling League;

• Jackie Robinson’s almost pro football career;

• Federal League all-star Benny Kauff and the major league baseball career-ending auto theft he didn’t commit; AND

• The legend of the World Football League’s Jim “King” Corcoran – the “poor man’s Joe Namath.”

PLUS: we revisit the story of women’s pro basketball pioneer (and “Good Seats” episode #28 guest) “Machine Gun” Molly Bolin (Kazmer), the subject of Provost’s new biography, The Legend of Molly Bolin: Women's Pro Basketball Trailblazer.

Indulge all of your defunct league memories at SportsHistoryCollectibles.com, 503 Sports, OldSchoolShirts.com, and Streaker Sports!

      

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The Legend of Molly Bolin: Women’s Pro Basketball Trailblazer - buy here

EPISODE #110: Cleveland’s Historic League Park – With Ken Krsolovic

Author Ken Krsolovic (League Park: Historic Home of Cleveland Baseball, 1891-1946) joins the podcast to go deep into the history and legacy of Cleveland’s first major league sports stadium.

Originally built for the National League’s Cleveland Spiders, team owner Frank Robison strategically built the wood-constructed League Park at the corner of Lexington Avenue and Dunham (now East 66th) Street in the city’s Hough neighborhood, where the streetcar line he owned conveniently stopped.  It debuted on 5/1/1891 with a Spiders 12-3 victory over the Cincinnati Reds, with the legendary Cy Young throwing the first pitch.  Despite being competitive during the decade (including a Temple Cup in 1895), the Spiders drew poorly, leading Robison to ship his best players to his new fledgling St. Louis Browns franchise in 1899 – and the Spiders to on-field (20-134) and off-field (6,088 fans for the season) collapse.

After a year of minor league play, League Park became the home of the Cleveland Bluebirds (aka Blues) of the new “major” American League in 1901 – the team that would ultimately evolve (1902: Broncos; 1903-14: Naps) into today’s Cleveland Indians.  The park was rebuilt in 1910 as a then-state-of-the-art concrete-and-steel stadium, debuting on 4/21/1910 (a 5-0 Naps loss to the Detroit Tigers before 18,832) – a game also started by Cy Young.

Though the Indians were League Park’s primary team, they were not the only tenants over the stadium’s later decades.  In 1914-15, the Naps/Indians shared the stadium with the minor league Cleveland Bearcats/Spiders (actually, the temporarily relocated minor league Toledo Mud Hens) to discourage the upstart Federal League from placing a franchise in Cleveland.  The Negro American League’s Cleveland Buckeyes held court at the park during much of the 1940s – including a Negro World Series title in 1945. 

And the fledgling sport of professional football also called League Park home during the NFL’s formative 1920s in the forms of the Cleveland Tigers (1920-22), Indians (1923), Bulldogs (1924-27) – and most famously with the Cleveland Rams of the late 1930s/early 1940s.

Like the Rams, the baseball Indians began moonlighting games and eventually full seasons with the larger, more modern (and lighted) Municipal Stadium during the WWII and post-war eras – ultimately sealing the venerable League Park’s fate by 1946. 

After years of neglect and urbanization, a modern restoration of League Park and its original ticket house was completed in 2014, where fans can now play on the original field where Cleveland’s pro players once roamed.

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League Park: Historic Home of Cleveland Baseball 1891-1946 - buy here

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EPISODE #104: Big League Baseball in WWII Wartime Washington – With David Hubler & Josh Drazen

On a cold and ominous Sunday, December 7, 1941, Major League Baseball’s owners were gathered in Chicago for their annual winter meetings, just two months after one of the sport’s greatest seasons. For the owners, the dramatic news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor earlier that morning was not only an assault on the United States, but also a direct threat to the future of the national pastime itself.

League owners were immediately worried about the players they were likely to lose to military service, but also feared a complete shutdown of the looming 1942 season – and perhaps beyond.  But with the carefully cultivated support of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, organized baseball continued uninterrupted – despite numerous calls to shut it down.

Authors David Hubler and Josh Drazen (The Nats and the Grays: How Baseball in the Nation’s Capital Survived WWII and Changed the Game Forever) join host Tim Hanlon to discuss the impact of World World II on the two major professional teams in Washington, DC – the American League’s Senators (aka Nationals), and the Negro National League’s Homestead Grays – as well as the impact of the war on big league baseball as a whole, including:

• How a strong friendship between Senators owner Clark Griffith and Roosevelt kept the game alive during the war years, often in the face of strong opposition for doing so;

• The continual uncertainties clubs faced as things like the military draft, national resources rationing and other wartime regulations affected both the sport and American day-to-day life; AND

• The Negro Leagues’ constant struggle for recognition, solvency, and integration.

PLUS: The origin of the twi-night doubleheader!

AND: The ceremonial first-pitch ambidexterity of President Harry Truman!

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EPISODE #96: The National Pastime in the Nation's Capital – With Fred Frommer

We throw another chunk of firewood into our baseball hot stove this week, as we warm up with the surprisingly long and rich history of the National Pastime in the Nation’s Capital with sports PR veteran Fred Frommer (You Gotta Have Heart: A History of Washington Baseball from 1859 to the 2012 National League East Champions).

While historically smaller in population than its more industrial neighbors to its north and west, Washington, DC was regularly represented in the highest levels of baseball dating back to the earliest professional circuits – including the 1871-75 National Association’s Olympics, Blue Legs, and two named the “Nationals”; two new and separate Nationals clubs in the competing Union and American Associations of 1884; and two teams each in the American Association (another Nationals in 1884; Statesmen in 1891), and early National League (yet another Nationals from 1886-89; and “Senators” from 1892-99).

But it was the creation of the American League in 1901 that solidified the city’s place in baseball’s top echelon, as the (second) Washington Senators launched as one of the junior circuit’s “Classic Eight” charter franchises – establishing an uninterrupted presence for Major League Baseball in the District that endured for more than seven decades.  (Technically, the original AL Senators stayed until 1960, when the franchise moved to Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN to become the Minnesota Twins – only to be immediately replaced by a new expansion Senators the next season, that lasted 11 more seasons until they moved to Arlington, TX to become the Texas Rangers in 1971.)

Frommer joins host Tim Hanlon to look back on DC’s deep and oddly curious relationship with baseball, including:  

• The Senators’ often-lamentable on-field performance that entrenched Washington as “First in war, first in peace, and last in the American League;"

• The advent of the ceremonial Presidential season-opening “first pitch” tradition;

• New York’s rival “Damn Yankees;”

• The Negro National League’s Homestead Grays’ second home; AND

• Why it took 33 years for Major League Baseball to finally return to the Nation’s Capital.

Thanks to our great sponsors: 503 Sports, SportsHistoryCollectibles.com, Streaker Sports, and OldSchoolShirts.com!

You Gotta Have Heart: A History of Washington Baseball from 1859 to the 2012 National League East Champions - buy here

EPISODE #54: Effa Manley & the Negro National League’s Newark Eagles with Biographer Bob Luke

Baseball historian Bob Luke (The Most Famous Woman in Baseball: Effa Manley and the Negro Leagues) joins host Tim Hanlon to delve into the intriguing story of the first (and still only) woman to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame – and the second Negro National League’s Newark Eagles franchise she successfully co-owned (with husband Abe) and general managed from 1936-48.  

A student of the sport since early childhood with a keen sense of promotion, marketing and player welfare, Manley blended a strong baseball operations IQ with a savvy aptitude for local politics and African-American community issues to become a dominant front office force in the Negro Leagues, and a persistent champion of player integration that ultimately transformed the white-male-dominated National and American “major” leagues in the late 1940s. 

Manley’s Eagles teams consistently performed well on the field and at the gate, and her deft management style culminated in a Negro World Series championship for the Eagles in 1946, and fueled the careers of no less than six eventual baseball Hall of Famers (Larry Doby, Ray Dandridge, Leon Day, Monte Irvin, Biz Mackey, and Willie Wells), as well as dozens of other players who soon found their way into the majors after the demise of the team and the Negro Leagues in the early 1950s.   

Manley, herself, gained Hall of Fame induction in 2006 – albeit posthumously – alongside a number of her fellow Negro League pioneers.

Thanks to Podfly, Audible and SportsHistoryCollectibles.com for supporting this episode!

The Most Famous Woman in Baseball: Effa Manley and the Negro Leagues - buy book here

EPISODE #13: Author Bill Young & the Legacy of J.L. Wilkinson's Kansas City Monarchs

Religious studies professor-turned-baseball-historian Bill Young (J.L. Wilkinson & the Kansas City Monarchs: Trailblazers in Black Baseball) joins Tim Hanlon to discuss the life and legacy of one of baseball’s most overlooked and underappreciated executive figures.  Young recalls the photograph at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City that inspired him to pursue the telling of Wilkinson’s story, and describes how the quiet-yet-influential pioneer affectionately known as “Wilkie”: built one of the Negro Leagues’ most formidable franchises from modest Midwestern barnstorming beginnings; ingeniously kept his club relevant during lean Depression-era times through innovations such as portable night-time lighting; and nurtured a stunning array of all-star players that transcended both Negro and Major league rosters – 11 of whom were ultimately enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame.  This week’s episode is sponsored by our friends at Audible!

J.L. Wilkinson & the Kansas City Monarchs: Trailblazers in Black Baseball - buy book here