Black Baseball Entrepreneurs, 1902-1931: The Negro National and Eastern Colored Leagues

4Years of Transition,1911–1913

104 4 Years of Transition, 1911–1913 The 1911 season marked the beginning of a transition in the ownership of eastern and midwestern black baseball teams. Sol White left the Brooklyn Royal Giants and became the manager of the newly created Lincoln Giants. White assembled one of black baseball’s strongest teams, and it dominated black and white semipro clubs throughout the season. Turmoil among the Lincoln’s management team, however, resulted in White leaving it in September. Despite losing some of his best players, John Connor maintained a competitive club, and his Royal Giants embarked upon their first extended tour of the South and Midwest . When the Royals returned to New York, Connor secured a lease on a playing grounds in Harlem where the team would play its home games. The formation of the Lincoln Giants and the acquisition by Connor of a playing grounds ended the National Association of Colored Baseball Clubs of the United States and Cuba’s booking control. The state of confusion that characterized eastern black baseball at the end of the 1911 season continued the following year. Amid the chaotic 1912 season, the Brooklyn Royal Giants set out on their second extended tour of the Midwest. They played the top black and white semipro clubs, with the tour including a six-game series with Rube Foster ’s Chicago American Giants. Simultaneously, the turmoil that continued to surround the Lincoln Giants’ management team and the collapse of the NACBC resulted in a competition for players by several black baseball magnates seeking an opportunity to capitalize on the national game. The competition for players resulted in the temporary departure Years of Transition ◆ 105 from black baseball of John Connor and the assumption of control of the Brooklyn Royal Giants by Nat Strong. On the other hand, the Lincoln Giants emerged as the top touring team of the East, but their financial problems placed the club on economically shaky ground. While eastern black baseball underwent its transitional period, midwestern black baseball in Chicago was also in turmoil. Rube Foster left the Leland Giants Baseball and Amusement Association and formed the Chicago American Giants. Foster’s defection heightened tensions between Chicago’s leading black baseball entrepreneurs, who competed against each other for players, gate receipts, and preeminence in the Midwest. The Chicago American Giants and Chicago Giants competed against each other in a series of games for midwestern supremacy that was marked with controversy. Despite their squabbling, a second series was scheduled between the two clubs. The Leland Giants, on the other hand, suffered through a dismal season. Beauregard Moseley failed to recognize the importance of maintaining a symbiotic business relationship with white semiprofessional teams and sustaining consistent press coverage. In its competition for players with the American Giants and the Chicago Giants, the Lelands lost several of their best team members. When the 1911 season ended, the Leland Giants club was a shell of its former self. Rube Foster took his American Giants on extended barnstorming tours of the East and West. The extended tours represented Foster’s goal from the outset: to make his club a touring team. The American Giants made two tours to the East, and in 1912 they made their first appearance in the California Winter League. The winter tour continued into the 1913 season, and Foster’s club played a reported 104 games. Foster concurrently urged black baseball club owners to organize a league patterned after the white Major Leagues. The call for an organized league was in response to the decline of white semiprofessional baseball in Chicago and the need for club owners to protect their investments. He envisioned a circuit composed of teams in Chicago; Detroit; Indianapolis; Kansas City, Missouri; Louisville; and St. Louis. Foster expressed his willingness to organize a league with the purpose of placing the black game on a sound economic footing. 106 ◆ Independent Ball, 1902–1920 Eastern Black Baseball’s Rocky Transition At the end of the 1910 season, Sol White broke with John Connor, and along with white sports promoters Roderick “Jess” McMahon and his brother Ed, formed the Lincoln Giants. The New York Age reported the McMahon brothers were “well-known promoters of sporting events in New York,” and they supposedly organized several fight promotions in Gotham. The McMahons secured a lease on Olympic Field, located on 136th Street and Fifth Avenue, and stated they would not give a percentage to anyone...