Talk:Negro National League (1933–1948)

September 2012

Moved from my talk page since it's a dynamic IP. --64.85.220.132 (talk) 15:52, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Do you have sources for the recent edits you made at Negro National League (1933–1948)? I'm assuming you do. It might be helpful for you to reference your sources. Zepppep (talk) 14:28, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm out of time today, but other than the Chicago American Giants and St. Louis Stars (baseball) articles, I used Holway's Complete Book and Lowry's Green Cathedrals. I'm lacking much info on the 1943 season for the Harrisburg-STL Stars, so that could be challenged. I'll elaborate on the Stars reference in a day or two. (Dynamic IP, will change when I log off.) --64.85.220.132 (talk) 15:52, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

"Homestead Grays" or "Washington Grays"

A recent edit added the word "Washington" into the Washington-Homestead Grays' name. The summary of that edit said "did not even acknowledge 'Homestead' in name when playing in DC in later years".

Having reread the edit, I'm undoing my original reversion of it; I originally read it as having removed "Homestead" from the name "Washington-Homestead". Damn my eyes.

I wish to disagree, however, with the assertion that "Homestead" was not used. A cursory check through ProQuest (covering 1940-1948, when the Grays were still active in the NNL), showed more than 3,000 references to "Homestead Grays" or "Washington Homestead Grays". A more careful analysis shows that the Washington Post almost universally called them throughout that time the "Washington Homestead Grays", while the NYT simply called them the "Homestead Grays". I did spot checks of all the available African-American weeklies (Defender, Amsterdam News, Atlanta Daily World, and the Pittsburgh Courier), and they all referred to the team as either the "Homestead Grays" or the "Washington Homestead Grays", most frequently the former.

My own ongoing and fairly extensive research into the 1942 NAL and NNL seasons almost never finds them named the "Washington Grays", even by the DC dailies; during that season, they played 16 games (regular season) at Griffith Stadium and 11 games in Forbes Field, plus one game in each park during the 1942 Negro World Series. Granted, they drew their largest crowds when playing in DC (and those games got better coverage than the ones in Pittsburgh), but the name "Homestead" stuck with them throughout.

It appears that the Washington newspapers were the only ones that ever called the team the "Washington Grays" and were practically the only ones that didn't generally call them the Homestead Grays. -- Couillaud 14:54, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

My actual edit to the article only added "Washington" to the post-1938 seasons and "(Washington)" to situations that referred to both pre- AND post-1938 seasons. The edit summary was merely making a point in reference to the previous edit summary, which read: "The name of the team was HOMESTEAD Grays, they did play some games in Washington but HOMESTEAD was their home city, it is an actual municipality." which in their edit they removed every mention of "Washington" from the article. Looking at that editor's history, they appear to practically only edit Pittsburgh articles, so it appeared as if "Washington" was being white-washed from the article. Since you self-reverted, I guess we're on the same page then. Sorry for the confusion. Rgrds. --64.85.214.75 (talk) 17:31, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Didn't read the previous edit; I just saw the "did not acknowledge 'Homestead'" and jumped on that. Sorry. Carry on.

Off-topic, my signature (which should just be my user name) does not (in my Preferences) appear to be broken. The "Treat above as Wiki markup" is checked, with no customization. No idea what's wrong there.

Who WAS that Masked Man?  :-) -- Couillaud 18:19, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

According to Brad Snyder's book about the Grays in the 1940s, Beyond the Shadow of the Senators, the Grays first played in Washington in 1940. From 1940 to 1942, they played about half their games in Washington and half in Pittsburgh, wearing uniforms with a "W" on the sleeve when they were playing in Washington and with an "H" on the sleeve when they were playing in Pittsburgh. From 1943 on, they played the great majority of their games in Washington, and I think the usage of "Washington Homestead Grays" increases substantially about that time.BRMo (talk) 05:16, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

I have access to no sources right now, but I thought 1939 was the beginning of the DC trips. Rgrds. (Same dynamic IP as above.) --64.85.217.121 (talk) 16:56, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

According to Snyder, in 1939 the Grays scheduled all of their home games at Forbes Field (Greenlee Field having been demolished after the 1938 season), but in July 1939 they announced their interest in moving home games to Washington. In February 1940 they announced that they would play some home games in Washington, and that year they played half their home games in Washington and half in Pittsburgh. BRMo (talk) 03:13, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

(←) I must concede that you & Couillaud probably have done more research than I, and have more in-depth sources, so I have some discrepancies to iron out. I have not gone through that book, but it's from 2003, right? So the books I have at my fingertips (Green Cathedrals from 2006 & Holway's Complete Book from 2001) both have 1939 as the season when the DC home games began. As far as Wikipedia goes, a year or so back I went through most team pages and made consistent all of the seasons played -- re: the Grays, I made all of their mentions in WP articles have 1939 as the DC beginning. What to do now? Rgrds. --64.85.217.8 (talk) 14:05, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Ok, time for a little research with newspapers of the period. The Afro-American of July 22 [1] reports the Grays played a doubleheader the previous Sunday at Washington's Griffith Stadium against the Philadelphia Stars. The box score shows the Grays as the home team in both games, and Josh Gibson hit 3 home runs. The article also describes the doubleheader as "Washington's first taste of sepia organized baseball," implying that this was the first game the Grays had played in Washington that season. (Obviously, other Negro league teams, such as Washington Black Senators and the Elite Giants, had played in Washington in prior years.) I have access to a database of historic black newspapers, consisting of the Chicago Defender, the New York Amsterdam News, the Atlanta Daily World, and the Baltimore Afro-American, and ran a search for "Homestead Grays" and "Washington" (or "Griffith") during 1939, and those games are the only ones I found.

So should the Grays be counted as being located in Washington in 1939? As noted, by July 1939 they were apparently testing the idea of moving home games to Washington. On the other hand, when they announced their schedule at the beginning of the season, all the home games were scheduled for Pittsburgh. (However, I'll also note that Negro league schedules were always incomplete and never rigorously followed.) Furthermore, it was standard practice for Negro league teams to play occasional games in other cities, perhaps due to scheduling problems in rented stadiums, or just for the novelty. For example, one week after the July doubleheader in Washington, the Stars and Grays faced each other again in Yankees Stadium, and the Baltimore Elite Giants played a doubleheader at Griffith Stadium against the Newark Eagles. So is one doubleheader in Washington sufficient to shift the Grays' location for that season? I tend to think that the doubleheader was regarded as just a simple one-time out-of-town game, not as a different home city, and that 1940 should be regarded as their first season co-located in Pittsburgh and Washington. BRMo (talk) 17:47, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

I can't argue that. But why would the other authors come to a different conclusion if the info was so easily available? Specifically Lowry, who did an exhaustive collaboration with SABR? Surely they thought to check these newspapers, too. I want to say "now I'm convinced," but all I can muster is "now I'm confused." Dammit. --64.85.216.49 (talk) 19:18, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

I remember my first impression when I started reading about Negro league baseball was that everything was confusing, with one source contradicting another, or in some cases inconsistent within the same source. Now that I have access to some of the historical newspapers, my preference is to try to check the facts against the contemporary newspapers. It doesn't always work (sometimes the news reports at the time were contradictory), but it does help. BRMo (talk) 23:18, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

To be completely honest, it sometimes is hard to distinguish the "home base" for even the most established Negro league teams. Coverage of the teams was spotty; local dailies didn't cover the teams when they were on the road, and frequently forgot to cover them when at home. There were few African-American weeklies that were truly national in scope at the time, and what you considered the Grays' home town to be depended a great deal on which paper you read. In 1942, the Cincinnati Buckeyes were called by that name in Cincinnati (when they got any press coverage, that is), but were considered by the black weeklies as the Cincinnati-Cleveland Buckeyes elsewhere (they played more home dates and got better coverage in the Cleveland papers anyway), but in Meadville, PA, where their owner had a financial interest in that town's ballpark, they were the Cincinnati-Cleveland-Meadville Buckeyes (and this in a white daily paper) and treated like the home-town team. The Kansas City Monarchs were always known as the Kansas City Monarchs throughout their history, despite the fact that their home base was Grand Rapids, MI after 1955, and that they almost never played in KC the last 10 years of their existence. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.

All clear as mud now, right? :-) --- Couillaud 15:30, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

And a quick answer about Green Cathedrals: Lowry (with the help of many SABR members) did an exhaustive study to build that book, but it was STILL rife with errors, even on still-standing ballparks. Phil Lowry published everything he knew to be true at that time, but there was a lot that was not known at that time, and there were a lot of mistakes. It was groundbreaking in its day, and it is still the most authoriative source for that kind of information (and possibly has the single best title of any baseball-related work), but is not much of its data (especially about Negro league teams and Negro league-specific ballparks) should be taken advisedly. Negro league research is frequently like paleontology; we are constantly uncovering data that no-one knew was there, or at never bothered to search, or until recently never found available. I suspect it will be that way for many years yet. --- Couillaud 15:30, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Noted. Going forward then, I believe I will (eventually) update the Grays articles with the 1940 date and the above Afro-American cite. Thank you both. Rgrds. --64.85.217.242 (talk) 16:37, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

As always, glad to help (or at least try to help) -- Couillaud 16:49, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

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