The story of how the Negro Leagues' East-West All-Star Sport got here to be – MLB.com

Dan Cichalski
On a cloudy, sodden September day in 1933 at Comiskey Park on Chicago’s South Aspect, Invoice Foster went into his windup and delivered a pitch to Cool Papa Bell on the plate. And with that, a crowd of 19,568 — a quantity that actually would’ve been greater had been it not for the storm clouds threatening rain — witnessed the beginning of a 20-year custom that might come to outline the Negro Leagues: the East-West All-Star Sport.
From the beginning, the East-West Sport was destined to be the jewel occasion on the Negro Leagues calendar, even greater than the Negro World Collection, which was performed sporadically as groups (and leagues) got here and went. Within the leadup to the primary East-West Sport, the Black press referred to it because the “Sport of Video games,” an occasion that might deliver the most important stars of the Negro Leagues collectively on the identical subject.
“It’s indeniable that the East-West traditional was the spotlight of any season,” Negro Leagues researcher Larry Lester wrote in his 2001 historical past of the occasion, “Black Baseball’s Nationwide Showcase: The East-West All-Star Sport, 1933-1953.” “Many veterans of the Negro Leagues emphasised the all-star sport as the top of their careers. … The sport grew to become the showcase for the most effective Black stars throughout baseball’s segregated period. It was the mecca of Black baseball. It was the final word thrill for the followers, who witnessed the most effective gamers from across the league in a single ballpark, in distinction to the league’s world collection, which featured solely two groups.”
Lester cites sportswriters Roy Sparrow of the white Pittsburgh Solar-Telegraph and Invoice Nunn of the Black weekly Pittsburgh Courier as first arising with the thought for a North-South All-Star Sport to be performed at Yankee Stadium. Once they introduced this concept to Pittsburgh Crawfords proprietor Gus Greenlee in July 1933 — shortly after MLB staged its first All-Star Sport at Comiskey Park — he advised an East-West Sport along with Chicago American Giants proprietor Robert Cole. These two, together with Nashville Elite Giants proprietor Tom Wilson, grew to become the preliminary sponsors of the competition, although it was Greenlee who put up the $2,500 wanted to lease the ballpark.
In Seattle for tonight’s @MLB All-Star Sport. Do you know the Negro Leagues East-West ASG debuted in 1933, the identical yr as MLB’s Mid-Summer season Traditional? The brainchild of Pittsburgh Crawfords proprietor, Gus Greenlee, the sport grew to draw over 50k followers to Chicago’s Comiskey Park! RT pic.twitter.com/XlWu1WhQDt
On July 29, 1933, the primary East-West All-Star Sport was introduced. Scheduled for Sept. 10 that yr, groups could be composed of gamers chosen by followers through mail-in ballots printed in Black newspapers. With greater than 1 million votes solid, Crawfords first baseman Oscar Charleston led all gamers with 43,793, whereas Foster paced West gamers with 40,637.
For the primary sport, every group consisted of 17 gamers: a beginning 9, three or 4 utility gamers, an additional catcher and three or 4 further pitchers. The East was made up of the Crawfords, Philadelphia Stars, Homestead Grays and New York Black Yankees. The Chicago American Giants, Cleveland Giants, Nashville Elite Giants and Kansas Metropolis Monarchs represented the West.
The inaugural exhibition drew followers from everywhere in the nation, with railroads including automobiles to trains certain for Chicago to accommodate for the inflow in passengers. Foster, the brother of Negro Nationwide League founder Rube Foster, went the space within the West’s 11-7 victory, the one full sport of the 26 exhibitions held (some years featured a second contest staged in a unique metropolis).
Sam Streeter of the Crawfords fanned Turkey Stearnes of the American Giants within the first for the sport’s first strikeout. Jud Wilson of the Philadelphia Stars recorded the sport’s first hit within the second. Sam Bankhead of the Elite Giants scored the primary run within the third inning, pushed in by Stearnes. The primary stolen base was swiped by Rap Dixon of the Philadelphia Stars within the fourth. And, identical to in MLB’s first All-Star Sport earlier that yr, the primary house run was slugged by the pre-eminent energy hitter within the sport: Mule Suttles, representing the American Giants, went deep within the fourth.
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“200 and thirty kilos of strong bone and muscle, together with his knock-knees carrying his big body alongside, and with the most important bat on the sphere being carried as if it had been a toothpick, Mule superior to the plate,” Nunn wrote within the Courier. “What an ovation he received? As a result of, Mule, to coloured fandom, is what Ruth is to Main League Baseball.”
The East-West Sport proved to be so fashionable that by its fourth yr, 1936, it outdrew MLB’s Midsummer Traditional, drawing 26,400 followers to Comiskey Park whereas 25,556 attended the AL/NL contest at Boston’s Braves Discipline. In all, attendance on the Negro Leagues’ model could be greater eight instances, together with yearly from 1942-48 (although MLB didn’t placed on an All-Star Sport in ’45 due to World Conflict II). In these seven years, the East-West Sport averaged 44,560 followers, with a excessive of 51,723 in ’43 and a low of 33,088 in ’45.
“Optimistically, the house owners hoped for achievement with this new enterprise,” Lester wrote in his ebook. “To everybody’s shock, particularly league officers, this occasion grew to become the most important annual sporting occasion in Black American historical past. The East-West Sport grew to become the spirit and lifetime of Negro League baseball, serving to entertain, educate and in the end present a discussion board to combine our nationwide pastime a few years later.”
In all, 35 East-West alumni would ultimately play within the AL or NL, starting with Jackie Robinson’s debut in 1947. (Robinson went 0-for-5 in his lone East-West Sport in ’45.) Seven East-West stars additionally appeared in MLB’s All-Star Sport throughout their careers: Ernie Banks, Roy Campanella, Larry Doby, Junior Gilliam, Minnie Miñoso, Satchel Paige and Robinson. Gilliam is the one participant to homer in each video games, going deep within the 1950 East-West Sport and the ’59 All-Star Sport.
Twenty-seven East-West stars have been inducted into the Corridor of Fame, and lots of of them prepared the ground on the East-West leaderboards compiled by Lester. Buck Leonard’s all-time excessive of 13 video games (tied with Alec Radcliffe) helped him prime a couple of different classes: runs (9), house runs (three), RBIs (14) and complete bases (27). Josh Gibson’s 17 hits prepared the ground, and he’s one in every of solely two gamers with 4 hits in an East-West Sport (he did it in 1935 and Artie Wilson matched it 12 years later). Willie Wells’ seven doubles are three greater than some other participant, and Suttles’ .941 slugging proportion (minimal 15 at-bats) is .149 factors higher than the subsequent participant.
The ultimate East-West Traditional on Aug. 16, 1953, drew solely an estimated 10,000 followers. Although he went 0-for-4, a 22-year-old Ernie Banks was cited for his sure-handed play at shortstop for supervisor Buck O’Neil’s West squad. Simply 32 days later, Banks debuted for the Cubs at Wrigley Discipline.
In 26 video games performed over 21 years, the West claimed a 14-12 edge. However the sport’s legacy would stick with it as its gamers starred within the built-in Main Leagues.
“Immediately, it was clear that our sport meant much more than a giant league sport,” O’Neil recalled in his memoir, “I Was Proper On Time.” “Theirs was, and is, kind of an exhibition. However for black of us, the East-West Sport was a matter of racial delight. Black individuals got here from throughout to Chicago yearly – that’s why we outdrew the massive league sport some years, as a result of we at all times had fifty thousand individuals at ours, and nearly all of them had been Black individuals; not till after Jackie Robinson [played] did any white come out.”

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