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

9Pursuing Peace

309 9 Pursuing Peace The Colored World Series of 1924 was a response to a supposed demand of the fans and the black press and simultaneously became the means to formalize a peace settlement between the two warring leagues. Rube Foster seized the opportunity to seek a compromise with the ECL commissioners. The Colored World Series did not realize the large profits the black press had projected, but the event was promoted as a symbol of race pride and racial advancement. Black baseball’s first world series revealed the contrasting agendas of the black press on the one hand and the Negro League owners on the other regarding the sport’s purpose and the ways in which the leagues should operate . The black press believed the Negro Leagues should be patterned after the white Major Leagues, with the postseason series serving as evidence of racial progress. The NNL, on the other hand, utilized the demand for the series to get an agreement from the ECL owners to respect the contracts that the NNL owners had with the players. Once an agreement was reached, each league could run its affairs in a manner it deemed necessary. The club owners met in the winter of 1924 to ratify the tentative agreement made prior to the Colored World Series. Ed Bolden nominated Rube Foster as chairman of the joint session, and the magnates adopted territorial boundaries and a standard players’ contract. A reserve list was drawn up by both leagues to protect the contract rights of league clubs, which placed their players on the list so no other club could tamper with them. A player limit was established, and a discussion ensued over devising a salary limit. The club owners also instituted an arbitration committee to resolve disputes between the two leagues. 310 ◆ Negro National and Eastern Colored Leagues, 1920–1931 At the same time, the leagues met separately to make plans for the 1925 season. Foster was reelected president and treasurer, and he made plans to set his league in order. In concert with Chicago Defender sportswriter Frank Young, Foster began a media campaign to discredit Detroit Stars’ owner, John Tenny Blount, for his “maverick” ways during the 1924 season. When the NNL owners supported Foster’s actions, the Detroit magnate was deposed. Foster also dealt with the familiar challenges of constant franchise shifting and took on the task of formulating a balanced schedule. To stimulate fan interest, the club owners mapped out a one-hundred-game split season, with the winner of each half to play a best four-out-of-seven game series for the NNL pennant. If the same club won in both halves, it would represent the NNL in the Colored World Series. Finally, after a variety of complaints from players, owners, and fans, Foster dismissed several black umpires, marking the end of their short, bittersweet tenure in the NNL. Much like their midwestern cohorts, the Eastern Colored League underwent a season of transition. The ECL owners reelected Ed Bolden as chairman, and once in office, he began to confront several old and new challenges. The Bacharach Giants began the season under new management, while the Washington Potomacs relocated to Wilmington , Delaware. The league schedule became a source of controversy when it was deliberately left incomplete to allow league clubs to book additional games with white semiprofessional teams. The commissioners adopted a rotating system for their umpires and hired Bill Dallas, a white semipro league official and a sportswriter with the Philadelphia Public Ledger, as the arbiters’ supervisor. The black press was highly critical of Bolden’s decisions regarding the schedule arrangement and the hiring of Dallas. These choices led Oscar Charleston to accuse the commissioners of making decisions that were not in the ECL’s best interests. Although Bolden received a lot of unwanted press attention, he did get some satisfaction from the season when his Hilldale Club met the Kansas City Monarchs in black baseball’s second Colored World Series. Pursuing Peace ◆ 311 Addressing the Public Demand: Getting A Tentative Agreement By August 1924, several black newspapers had reported being besieged by letters asking why there was no Colored World Series. Kansas City Call sportswriter Ollie Womack urged black fans in league cities to call for a world championship series. Womack envisioned this series as paralleling the World Series in Organized Baseball. The fans of Kansas City were reportedly “demanding reward for their...