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100 years of baseball history: Remembering the Negro Leagues' inaugural World Series

16 October 2024Last Update :
100 years of baseball history: Remembering the Negro Leagues' inaugural World Series

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A large group of men — 33 ballplayers, six executives and two trainers — stood shoulder to shoulder for an iconic photograph. The moment occurred minutes before one of the most important games in the history of the Negro Leagues.

Oct. 11, 1924, marked the pivotal fifth game of the inaugural Negro Leagues World Series, then called the Colored World Series. The men, most representing the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro National League or the Hilldale Club of the Eastern Colored League, stood in front of thousands of fans — Black and White patrons, many sitting beside each other — at Muehlebach Field. A handful of players, most wearing Hilldale’s road uniform, smiled. Meanwhile, all of the executives, including the two men who helped create the two leagues, had blank, serious facial expressions.

At the time, they were all amid one of baseball’s greatest championship series, a momentous occasion as entertaining as it was significant for the growing viability of the Negro Leagues. The event was supposed to be a nine-game series spread over venues in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Kansas City and Chicago. It was so loaded with dramatic play and stellar pitching that, because of a tie score in Game 3 and the game being called on account of darkness, an unexpected 10th game was added to decide a champion.

The Monarchs won the series, winning five games to four and taking four of the final five contests. With this year being the 100th anniversary of the series, the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum has spent the past few months sharing details of the event.

“Most fans have no idea about this,” said Bob Kendrick, the museum’s president. “Even more so than the Monarchs winning that World Series, it was to help baseball fans understand that this was the Negro Leagues adding additional credence to their existence.”

The museum’s newest exhibit — a free, self-guided tour called “The Kings of KC” — includes stories and statistics of the Monarchs’ most prominent players and executives, along with hundreds of photographs and artifacts that highlight the legacy of Kansas City’s pioneer championship franchise.

The biggest fixture in the gallery is centered on informing fans about the 1924 series. The first noticeable photograph on the large board is the same iconic photograph captured on Oct. 11, 1924.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the photograph, one of only a few taken during the series, involves two men standing next to each other between the Monarchs and Hilldale: Andrew “Rube” Foster, the club owner of the Chicago American Giants and the man who led the Negro National League, and Ed Bolden, the owner of Hilldale and the man who led the Eastern Colored League. The men were embittered rivals; the series almost didn’t happen because of a conflict between them. Bolden thought Foster misled him.

“Ed was under the belief he would be allowed into the Negro National League in 1920,” Kendrick said. “Rube didn’t let him in.”

The misunderstanding needed more than a year to resolve, but Foster and Bolden ultimately agreed to have the champion of their leagues play each other in a winner-take-all series.

“It’s just like today’s game. It’s all these political agendas and ‘What’s in it for me?’” said Larry Lester, an author and historian who has helped codify and contextualize the Negro Leagues. “But they did it for the fans.”

Known earlier in his career as an exceptional pitcher, Foster was Black baseball’s first major marketing innovator.

Foster had the idea to convince seven other men to gather inside the Paseo YMCA, the historical building within Kansas City’s 18th and Vine district, to establish the Negro National League on Feb. 13, 1920, with each individual becoming a club owner. The league’s motto was bold: “We Are the Ship, All Else the Sea,” with the symbolism of the eight NNL clubs representing the ships of hope to battle the sea of racism. Desiring to compete against the all-White major leagues, Foster originally wanted all of the NNL club owners to be Black.

Foster, though, made one exception: J.L. Wilkinson, a White man who was the owner of the Monarchs for many years. Wilkinson embraced players of all nationalities, and most Monarchs players later considered him an approachable, considerate and generous club owner.

“Wilkinson had been promoting baseball, and he had access to stadiums,” Kendrick said. “The Monarchs were a Black team that had a Cuban manager in José Méndez and a White (club) owner.”

Though the league began with eight charter members from the Midwest, the league also accepted three associate members from the East: Hilldale (from Darby, Penn.), the Atlantic City (N.J.) Bacharach Giants and the Cuban Stars out of New York. Though those three clubs couldn’t compete for the league’s championship, they paid $1,000 each to be associate members, twice the amount of charter members.

By 1922, Bolden withdrew Hilldale from the NNL, upset that two member clubs refused to travel to Darby, just eight miles south of Philadelphia, to play his team.

“Ed asks for his $1,000 deposit back, and Rube says no,” Lester said. “I think Rube was getting 5 percent of the receipts of every game. Rube said, ‘We don’t refund the deposit,’ and Ed said, ‘We’re not doing anything until I get my money.’”

Inside Philadelphia’s Christian Street YMCA on Dec. 1, 1922, Bolden led the establishment of the Eastern Colored League, which began with six clubs. Bolden wrote a letter to Foster two weeks later in protest of his decision.

The financial tension between the men intensified when Bolden persuaded several top players from the NNL — including catcher James “Biz” Mackey, first baseman George “Tank” Carr, pitcher Rube Curry, outfielder Clint Thomas and second baseman Frank Warfield — to sign with Hilldale.

“I tell people there’s got to be a dramatic TV series done on the Negro Leagues,” Kendrick said. “In 1925, Rube was exposed to a gas leak in his hotel room. He was one of the most brilliant minds in baseball history. He died (in 1930 at age 51) in an insane asylum.

“There’s great belief that Rube might’ve been set up because so many people didn’t like him, including Ed Bolden.”

By late August 1924, fans and newspaper sportswriters were aware that the Monarchs and Hilldale were going to win their respective league’s pennant for the second consecutive season. The success of both clubs generated plenty of buzz about the potential of an inaugural Colored World Series. Foster and Bolden, however, needed someone to arbitrate the conditions of the series.

Somewhat surprisingly, Foster and Bolden agreed to have the arbitrator be Kenesaw Mountain Landis, a former federal judge who was Major League Baseball’s first commissioner. A known segregationist, Landis helped Foster and Bolden negotiate several issues, including standardized player contracts, salaries and the schedule of the series’ games. Bolden also promised to waive his $1,000 protest.

“It makes me re-examine Landis,” Kendrick said. “I’ve always theorized that maybe he wasn’t as vile as he’s been portrayed to be. He and Foster had a very interesting relationship that I think was beyond cordial. I do think that Landis, in many ways, was carrying out what the (major-league) owners wanted because the owners didn’t want to be portrayed as racists.”

The bigger winner in the negotiations, Lester said, was Foster.

Although the Monarchs and Hilldale wanted the series to be arranged and executed under the same plan as the major leagues’ championship series, Foster was able to get what he wanted: a nine-game series (instead of seven) set to be played in four cities.

“He wanted the final games to be played in his hometown (Chicago) because he could make more money, regardless of who the two league champions were,” Lester said of Foster. “He could get a cut of the gate receipts. That’s why he wanted the final games in his ballpark.”

Prior to Game 3 of the series, Foster and Bolden shook hands in front of fans in Baltimore, which served as a symbolic gesture to prove their working relationship was amicable.

In the two weeks leading up to Game 1, played Oct. 3, 1924, most sportswriters thought Hilldale was the favorite. Hilldale, which won the ECL pennant with a 47-26 record, was led by three future Hall of Famers: Mackey, third baseman Judy Johnson and catcher Louis Santop.

Johnson, the Negro Leagues’ best third baseman, was known for being a clutch hitter in the middle of Hilldale’s lineup. Santop’s batting was so potent that he was believed by some to be considered the first Negro Leaguer nicknamed “The Black Babe Ruth.”

“Hilldale had a good outfield, probably a faster outfield than the Monarchs, based on scouting reports,” Lester said. “But the Monarchs had better pitchers.”

The Monarchs entered the series having played the most games of any club in the two leagues, boasting a 57-22 record. One advantage the Monarchs had, Kendrick said, was having the series’ best player: future Hall of Famer Charles Wilber “Bullet” Rogan.

“As Satchel Paige would say, Rogan was the onliest ballplayer that pitched and hit cleanup and played the outfield,” Kendrick said. “Ever since Shohei (Ohtani) became this phenomenon here (in the United States), it has opened up the opportunity to talk about the great two-way stars of the Negro Leagues. Rogan was that great, first two-way star.”

Game 1 was the first time the Monarchs ever played in Philadelphia. That game was held at the Baker Bowl, the home venue of the Phillies. With most of the fans in attendance pulling for Hilldale, the Monarchs were led by Rogan, who pitched a complete game, allowing two runs on eight hits. Rogan also recorded two hits, an RBI and a stolen base.

The Monarchs won the game 6-2 by scoring five runs in the sixth inning. In the same inning, Hilldale committed six errors, including four throwing errors by pitcher Phil Cockrell.

In Game 2, James Henry “Nip” Winters, a 20-game winner and a lefty with a fast curveball, threw a complete-game shutout in Hilldale’s 11-0 victory. But Game 3, which went 13 innings, was the first indication of how close the teams were. As the home team, Hilldale tied the score in the fifth, ninth and 12th innings after trailing. The game was called after the 13th inning because of darkness with the score tied at 6. Instead of continuing Game 3 the next day, the teams agreed to begin Game 4.

Four of the next five games were decided by one run. Five of the final seven games were decided in the final inning, including a 12th-inning run by the Monarchs — driven in by Rogan, who hit a single off Winters — in Game 7.

“That’s why it’s the greatest World Series ever played,” Lester said.

The Monarchs won games 6, 7 and 8, all by one run, but Hilldale stayed alive in the series with a 5-3 Game 9 victory. Game 10 resulted in one of the greatest performances of Méndez’s Hall of Fame career, as he pitched a complete-game shutout while dealing with a viral infection. Méndez used his deceptive fastball and a knee-buckling curveball to surrender just three hits. He never let a Hilldale runner reach second base.

The game’s final unexpected twist occurred in the eighth inning. In a scoreless game, Lee decided to change his pitching delivery for the Monarchs, going from his usual submarine style to overhand. Offensively, the Monarchs scored five runs in the inning, earning a 5-0 win.

As champions, the Monarchs earned $10,000, half of which went to Wilkinson.

Though the series proved entertaining, the 18-day event was not an overwhelming financial success. The Negro Leagues had a profitable series, grossing $52,114 on ticket prices that were $1.65 for a box seat and $1.10 for a seat in the grandstand. But the overall attendance, just 45,857 for the series, was considered a disappointment.

“The (players’) winning share was $308,” Lester said. “The Washington Senators won the (MLB) World Series the same year, when they beat the New York Giants. The winning share for each Senator was about $6,000.

“A Black player was making roughly what a factory worker, a packing house worker, a postal employee or a schoolteacher was making at the time.”

Based on records and newspaper accounts, the Monarchs didn’t receive a trophy or a championship banner for winning the Colored World Series. No celebratory photo was captured. Hours after Game 10, though, the Monarchs were recognized in Chicago at a banquet inside the Sunset Cafe. Several players commemorated their championship on a single baseball, each using the same pen to write their name and their primary position above 1924.

Bolden and Foster were satisfied with the series’ impact on the sport. The event generated plenty of national coverage, furthering the topic of sportswriters and fans comparing the excellence of the Negro Leaguers to major leaguers.

“It would’ve been interesting if you would’ve staged a true series between the winners,” Kendrick said, regarding the Negro Leagues champion and the MLB champion. “I think the major leagues would’ve felt they had too much to lose, because if they lost this series, there’s no basis whatsoever for keeping these guys out (of MLB). You’re talking about another 23 years before (Jackie) Robinson broke the color barrier.”

In honor of the inaugural Colored World Series, the museum created a red, white and blue commemorative logo featured on several merchandise items such as caps, clothing and baseballs. Kendrick and Kiona Sinks, the museum’s community engagement and marketing manager, also secured partnerships with local companies that will donate a portion of the proceeds to the museum.

A limited-edition set of baseball cards was made for museum visitors to learn about the series. Jay Caldwell, a baseball collector and a business partner with the museum, thought of making a set of illustrated cards. This summer, four artists — Brian Kong, Mike Kupka, Jeff Suntala and Darryl Matthews — created 67 cards, one for every player and their statistics, each stadium and the key highlight in every game of the series.

“It was something I always wanted to do, to have my work on a baseball card,” said Matthews, whose father, Francis Oliver Matthews, played parts of five seasons with the Newark Eagles of the Negro Leagues. “Those players really loved the game. This is another way of honoring the players. They opened the door for Black players now.”

Visitors will be able to see the free exhibit through Oct. 30. Along with information on the 100-year history, Kendrick likes sharing with visitors that one of the greatest baseball franchises in the sport’s history was owned by Wilkinson, a diminutive White man from Algona, Iowa, who became one of the biggest figures in Black baseball history.

“You can’t make this stuff up,” Kendrick said. “This history is just so fascinating. Our mission is to educate. If we don’t tell these stories, who will?

“It’s incumbent on this museum to make sure that these milestones don’t go unnoticed.”

(Illustration: Kelsea Petersen / The Athletic; photos: Nate Taylor / The Athletic)

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