Separate and Unequaled: Black Baseball in the District of Columbia
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Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum Separate and Unequaled: Black Baseball in the District of Columbia Art Carter Papers,Cover Moorland-Spingarn Image: 1944 HomesteadResearch Center, Grays Howard University L-r: Jelly Jackson, Ray Battle, Edward Robinson, Sam Bankhead, Josh Gibson, Buck Leonard, Dave Hoskins, Jerry Benjamin, and James “Cool Papa” Bell. Separate and Unequaled: Black Baseball in the District of Columbia From Reconstruction to the second half of the 20th century, baseball, the great American pastime, was played in Washington, D.C., on segregated fields. This exhibition looks at the phenomenal popularity and community draw of this sport when played by African Americans. Featured are such personalities as Josh Gibson and Walter “Buck” Leonard, star players of the Homestead Grays. The show also highlights community teams that gave rise to the various amateur, collegiate and semi-pro black baseball teams and leagues. This exhibition was developed by the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum on the occasion of the 2008 opening of Nationals Park, Washington, D.C. Generously supported by the Washington Nationals Baseball Club. Image: Josh Gibson at bat Art Carter Papers, Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University Curator’s Statement eyond the post-industrial age into the Researching and bringing to life the story of black information age in which we now live baseball has baseball in the nation’s capital has been a labor of remained relevant to community life. On playgounds love. Accolades go to the repositories and lenders, and ball fields new myths and legends—like Josh to our museum partners, to the fine staff of the Gibson’s Griffith Stadium home runs that defied the Anacostia Community Museum, and to Ryan A. laws of physics—are born everyday. The history Swanson, a young scholar of race and sports, who of baseball in the African American community helped shape the narrative. Bof the District of Colulmbia illuminates the larger social history of our nation. From the abolitionism Anthony Angelo Gualtieri of Frederick Douglass and post-civil war radical Exhibit Curator reconstruction through the segregationist policies of Jim Crow to the achievement of the Civil Rights Movemen, the African American community has supported baseball. Baseball is a sport full of stories. A grand history studying baseball in the community tells us about the lives of not only the players but also of ordinary citizens. It is especially important to remember neighborhoods where baseball flourished, such as far Southeast and pre-1960s Southwest. This exhibition Photograph by Steven M. Cummings allows us to rediscover the heroes of the past and to inspire future legends. Separate and Unequaled: Black Baseball in the District of Columbia ashington, D.C., has a unique baseball history that goes back more than 150 years. Long before the Nationals brought professional baseball back to the city in 2005, baseball played out in District schoolyards and alleyways, as well as on the White House lawn. Washington, D.C., was home to the Senators, known for being “first Win war, first in peace, and last in the American League.” In the mid-1900s Josh Gibson and the Homestead Grays also played on the Senators’ home field at Griffith Stadium, winning eight of nine Negro National League (NNL) pennants at one point. Baseball really boomed in Washington following the Civil War, when thousands of men returned to the area from the battlefield and traded their rifles and canteens for bats and baseballs. According to a September 11, 1866, Daily National Intelligencer story, baseball had become “a perfect mania” in the city. Dozens and dozens of baseball clubs formed here in the 1860s and 1870s, and citizens eagerly participated in the sport. During the 19th century, even District and federal government departments formed teams as well, among them the “Typos” of the Government Printing Office and the “War Dogs” of the War Department. Chasing a foul ball, George Herman “Babe” Ruth, the legendary player of the New York Yankees, ran into Griffith Stadium’s right field wall and knocked himself unconscious. The action occurred beneath the pavilion reserved for loyal and baseball-savvy African American fans of the Washington Senators, July 5, 1924. Yet neither team had Over the years Washington, D.C., has had black black players. teams and white teams; professional teams and Courtesy Mark Rucker/Transcendental Graphics. amateur teams; neighborhood teams and city- wide teams. Baseball has long been a part of Washington, D.C.’s social fabric—a sometimes unifying factor in a city struggling not only with its local /federal government identity but also with long-standing segregationist tendencies. Baseball and Baseball Parks in the Community In the decade after the Civil War, many sandlot and professional Washington baseball teams, Aerial view of Griffith Stadium at 7th and U Streets near Florida Avenue NW; May 30, 1955. white and black, played on the White Lot, now the Ellipse. The White Lot took its name from Photograph by Paul Schmick for the Washington Star, Star Collection, DC Public Library; a painted white board fence that surrounded the White House grounds on the south side; ©Washington Post ca. 1860-1865. Illustration sketched by Frank Schell and published in Frank Leslie’s illustrated newspaper, December 12, 1874. Courtesy Library of Congress eighborhood and organized teams played From 1891 to 1965 Griffith Stadium, at 7th Street wherever they could. Very few teams had their and Florida Avenue NW, hosted the games of both own fields. Many white clubs held favorable leases black and white ball clubs. White-owned and one for city land on which to build humble ballparks. Yet of only two segregated major league ballparks the District’s black clubs such as the Washington (Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis was the other), the Mutuals and the Alert Base Ball Club were forced to stadium sat in one of the District’s most vibrant rely on the generosity of other clubs with fields or black neighborhoods. When white clubs played, black play on open public spaces. During the 1860s the spectators sat mostly in the right field seats. Still, MutualsN and the Alert played most of their games black semi-pro ball clubs, such as the Washington on the White Lot, the baseball field located on what Potomacs, the Pilots, and the Elite Giants, frequently is known now as the White House Ellipse. In 1874, rented Griffith Stadium, often drawing capacity however, the White Lot was abruptly closed to all crowds more than the hometown Senators did. clubs but the white Creighton Club (not the best Hundreds of young black and white boys from the team in the city), in part to keep off “the gangs surrounding neighborhoods worked at stadium of lazy negroes and other vagrants infesting the events handling concessions for black and white grounds” (Sunday Herald and Weekly National patrons. Thus the black clubs came and went until Intelligencer, September 4, 1874). the Homestead Grays came to town formally in 1940. Lorenzo Dow Turner, pioneering linguist and Africanist, played varsity and professional A sandlot (neighborhood) team, the Oriental Tigers played at Randall Playground in baseball to help pay for college. He credited baseball for his guiding philosophy: “. I have Southwest Washington, D.C. They were city champions 1927-1930; several players, including a lot of patience. I think possibly my experience as a teacher and in baseball have done a “Blackfoot” Scrivener, pitcher (#10 in this photo), played with the professional Homestead lot to help me in that regard. You know sometimes you get three men on base and nobody Grays after they came to the district. The Tigers played against other neighborhood teams, out, and it doesn’t help to get excited, at all. When you get in a hole, the only thing to do is to such as the LeDroit Tigers and the Georgetown Teddy Bears. calm down and take it easy. “ Howard University varsity baseball team, 1911. Lorenzo Dow Photograph by Joseph O. Curtis Turner Papers, Anacostia Community Museum Archives, Smithsonian Institution, Gift of Lois Courtesy Washingtoniana Division, DC Public Library, Curtis Collection Turner Williams Homestead Grays vs. New York Black Yankees scorecard (cover, back and inside); Background image, crowd in stands at Griffi th Stadium. Courtesy Art Carter Papers, Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University World War II, the Negro Leagues, and the Homestead Grays “Cool” Papa Bell in action. Courtesy National Baseball Hall of Fame Library s World War II raged in Europe and the Pacific, The U.S. war effort snagged many of the era’s best the Washington Homestead Grays dominated the ballplayers: Joe DiMaggio, and Stan Musial of the Negro Leagues. The District, however, had to share Major Leagues, and Larry Doby, Connie Johnson, and its team with Pittsburgh. The Grays, formed in1910 Buck O’Neil, among others, of the Negro Leagues. in Homestead, Pennsylvania, originally brought For a time black and white ballplayers shared the together a group of black steelworkers to play same uniform—that of the U.S. Army, Navy, and baseball. The club began splitting its games between Marines. The Negro Leagues, however, prospered APittsburgh and Washington, D.C., in 1937—playing during the war in part because the leagues’ two in Forbes Field when the Pirates were out of town most famous players, Satchel Paige of the Kansas and at Griffith Stadium when the Senators traveled. City Monarchs and Josh Gibson of the Homestead During the club’s tenure in D.C. (1937–1948), the Grays, were both declared “4-F.” Paige’s flat feet and Washington Homestead Grays won nine straight Gibson’s creaky knees kept them from serving the Negro National League (NNL) pennants (some war effort. Black fans, with more disposable income experts say it was 8 out of 9), and two consecutive than ever from increased employment opportunities Colored World Series.