The Museum of Bus Transportation will be honoring the Negro League Baseball Teams during Black History Month (February, 2010).
Decades before Jackie Robinson crossed the infamous color barrier in Major League Baseball, black baseball players were making names for themselves on the diamond in another way. African Americans had been playing the game of baseball since the mid to late 1800's, forming teams after the Civil War days and traveling on their own around the country to play anybody that would challenge them.
It was not until 1920 that a meeting was held between owners of these independent teams that the Negro National League was formed. The first organized Negro league consisted of teams from the Midwest. With the organization of the league came more upstart leagues along the east cost, and in the south. The game of baseball was quickly spreading to communities in more urban and rural regions. Visit the Museum during the month of February and see the types of vehicles used to transport the teams from one town to another and enjoy some baseball history along the way. Sometimes they rode all night on the bus to get to the next town for another game….stopping in places that were segregated-they often bought their food at the back door of the restaurant and ate on the bus.
Display includes posters about the Negro Leagues along with memorabilia of the individual teams and similar vintage buses that the teams rode.
Homestead Grays - Homestead, PA - The Homestead Grays club is, perhaps, black baseball's most storied franchise. Formed in 1912 by Cumberland Posey, the Grays would be in continuous operation for 38 seasons.
Favoring independent play to the constraints of a league structure Posey abstained from participation in league play until 1932 when he himself organized the ill-fated East-West League. Reflecting the economic plight of the nation at that time the league collapsed before completing its first and only season.
Ultimately recognizing the financial benefits of affiliating with a strong league organization, Posey entered his Grays in the Negro National League in 1935. While the all-star lineup of the Pittsburgh Crawfords kept the Grays well out of pennant competition during their first two seasons in the NNL, the tide turned in 1937.
With the near collapse of the Crawfords, Josh Gibson returned to the Grays in 1937 and combined with slugger Buck Leonard to power the Grays to nine consecutive Negro National League championships and three Negro World Series titles.
After the collapse of the Negro National League after the 1948 season, the Grays struggled to continue as an independent club, but ultimately disbanded at the close of the 1950 season.
During the late 1930s through the 1940s the Grays played their home games at Pittsburgh's Forbes Field, home of the Pittsburgh Pirates. However, during this same period the club adopted the Washington, D.C. area as its "home away from home" and scheduled many of its "home" games at Washington's Griffith Stadium, the home park of the Washington Senators.
Pittsburgh Crawfords - Pittsburgh, PA - The cornerstone of Gus Greenlee's new Negro National League in 1933, the Crawfords fielded some of the strongest lineups in baseball history during the 1930s. The East team roster of the 1933 East-West All-Star game looked very much like the everyday Crawfords lineup, featuring no fewer than five future Hall-Of-Famers including Satchel Paige, Cool Papa Bell, Josh Gibson, and Judy Johnson.
Owned by Pittsburgh gambling and numbers racketeer Gus Greenlee, the Crawfords was the nest financed team in black baseball during its early years. Revenue generated from his "business" operations allowed Greenlee to sign black baseball's biggest names. It also enabled him to build his own ballpark, Gus Greenlee Field, in Pittsburgh's Hill District.
