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| Smokey Joe Williams HOF getting ready to smoke another batter. Member, 1932 Pittsburgh Crawfords. |
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| Smokey Joe Williams - He dominated the 1910s and 1920s the way Satchel Paige dominated the 1930s and 1940s with a devastating fastball. He once struck out 27 batters in a game. |
THE BEST BASEBALL TEAM EVER - THE 1932 PITTSBURGH CRAWFORDS
Lots of folks like to think of the best baseball teams ever. They imagine the Yankees, or the Red Sox, the Cardinals or some of them will remember back to the Philadelphia Athletics or Oakland Athletics dyasties of the 1910s, 1930s, 1970s and 1980s of Connie Mack, Charlie Finley and Tony LaRussa, not to mention the MoneyBall days of the 2000-2005 As. But especially all those Yankees fans think the Yankees teams of 1998 or 1927 or the 1930s or 1950s or the 1977-78 version etc. were the best ever.
It's hard to argue--if you stay within the framework of "major league baseball". But what is "major league baseball"?
But let's be honest--baseball prior to 1947 was, well, a bit on the vanilla side. It was, er, a bit lacking in something or other--what was it? Oh yes---they BANNED ALL PERSONS OF RACE, including Latinos of any color--from all of organized baseball, including the lowest of low minor leagues. For an explanation of what is referred to as "the color line," see a useful introduction at the "Baseball color line" at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseball_color_line
Even after Jackie Robinson, the majors had quotas of how many Latin and Black players they would have per team--with a few key exceptions such as the Dodgers or Cardinals, who clearly excelled on the field because they were willing to start majority black and latino teams in the 1950s and 1960s, and later on, the Pirates in the 1970s. The Red Sox, in particular, were long unwilling to sign black players, and the Yankees had a race problem up until the 1970s that caused them to miss the World Series from 1964-1977.
So the results of the "major leagues"--well, it's like discussing who was the best golfer at your golf club that doesn't allow Jewish or Black or Latino members. It's a silly discussion because Tiger Woods would have blown the house down back in the day, just like he did the past ten or twenty years on the gold tour, once the pro golf tour finally actually opened itself up to people of color.
Many of us who are intelligent and reasonable baseball fans like to believe that the folks on the other side of this "Berlin Wall" of American Apartheid in Base Ball were actually better than the folks on the "official" "major league" side. Those include the Negro Leagues, the Cuban Leagues, the Mexican Leagues, and the Caribbean Leagues, all of which were color-blind and indifferent to ethnicity.
Case in point: the 1932-36 Pittsburgh Crawfords.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_Crawfords
I. THE 1935 PITTSBURGH CRAWFORDS - THE BEST EVER?
Many reasonable baseball historians believe that this was the greatest Negro Leagues team ever assembled, and that the 1935 version was the best team ever in baseball history.
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| The 1935 Pittsburgh Crawfords with Cool Papa Bell, Oscar Charleston, Josh Gibson & Judy Johnson, all in the Hall of Fame, and many other fine players, are believed by many to be the best baseball team of all time. |
The 1935 team was very, very good. It had four future Hall of Famers:
Cool Papa Bell
http://www.baseball-reference.com/nlb/player.cgi?id=bell--001coo
http://baseballhall.org/hof/bell-cool-papa
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Biography:
Among the most illustrious players in Negro league baseball history, James Cool Papa Bell was noted for his incredible speed on the basepaths, excellence as a leadoff hitter and his superb defensive play as a center fielder. He began his career as a pitcher, but his other talents ensured his future as an everyday player. Bell's career lasted 20 years with teams such as the St. Louis Stars, Pittsburgh Crawfords and the Homestead Grays.
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| HOF James "Cool Papa" Bell was the fastest baserunner in baseball history |
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| Cool Papa Bell was the greatest leadoff man in baseball history. |
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Let me tell you about Cool Papa Bell. One time, he hit a line drive right past my ear. I turned around and saw the ball hit his rear end as he slid into second.
Satchel Paige
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| Cool Papa Bell was one of six future Hall of Famers who played with the 1936 Pittsburgh Crawfords of the Negro National League?
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Oscar Charleston
http://www.baseball-reference.com/nlb/player.cgi?id=charle001osc
http://baseballhall.org/hof/charleston-oscar
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| HOF Plaque of Oscar Charleston who was a five tool player--he could hit, hit for power, run, field and throw. He was a left-handed Willie Mays before there was Willie "Say Hey" Mays. Many rate him the greatest player ever in baseball history, even over Josh Gibson, due to his tremendous defensive abilities. |
Josh Gibson
http://www.baseball-reference.com/nlb/player.cgi?id=gibson002jos
http://baseballhall.org/hof/gibson-josh
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| Josh Gibson HOF Plaque in Cooperstown NY. 800 HR in 17 years, four batting titles and the greatest ballplayer who ever lived. Great defensive and offensive catcher. Batted over .400 multiple times in his career. Unstoppable. |
Judy Johnson
http://www.baseball-reference.com/nlb/player.cgi?id=johnso001jud
http://baseballhall.org/hof/johnson-judy
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Judy Johnson HOF 1932 and 1935 Pittsbugh Crawfords - Hall of Fame Plaque in Cooperstown, NY
He also played for three Philadelphia Hilldale Stars Champion teams 1923-25. Most of Philadelphia's best baseball teams were the Philadelphia and Hilldale Stars and Daisies teams of the Negro Leagues, not the Phillies or As. |
Also Sam Bankhead, Jimmie Crutchfield and Leroy Matlack were on the 1935 Pittsburgh Crawfords, and all three of those players should also be in the Hall of Fame. They were really great players as well.
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| Josh Gibson - HOF and the Greatest Catcher of All Time. Power, Average, Defense. He hit more Home Runs Father and Longer than Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays or Barry Bonds. He was the Greatest Player who ever lived. |
There's probably not one player on the 1935 Tigers or 1935 Cubs you'd take over any of these guys. Josh Gibson is better than Gabby Hartnett, and Cool Papa Bell and Oscar Charleston are both better than Charlie Gehringer and Hank Greenberg. Leroy Matlack is a better pitcher than anyone on either of those clubs. Judy Johnson was the best third basemen probably ever. Sam Bankhead and Jimmie Crutchfield were also terrific ballplayers, and they could field, run and hit.
If you look at the 1935 Tigers and Cubs, even though those club had HOF ballplayers, they aren't as good as the guys on the 1935 Crawfords. Goose Goslin on the Tigers is not the equal of Oscar Charleston. Charleston could run like Cobb, could field like Tris Speaker, and could hit home runs like Josh Gibson. He was a five tool ballplayer, a left-handed Willie Mays who played CF. Goslin was a power hitter but not that fast and not a very good fielder. On the Cubs you have Augie Galan, who was a good leadoff man, but Cool Papa Bell was as great a leadoff man as Lou Brock, Rickey Henderson, Ty Cobb etc. and perhaps better. Bell was also fiery and competitive like Cobb and Henderson.
Gibson we already agree was better than the great Mickey Cochrane or the great Gabby Hartnett. Gibson had better defense and more power, more average and was a better all around player. Anyone would take Gibson from among those three catchers. A reasonable rating would be Gibson first, Cochrane second and Hartnett third, though perhaps Hartnett at his peak was slightly better than Cochrane. Judy Johnson at 3d base is better than the 3d basemen of either the Cubs or Tigers, and a better infielder and hitter than Gehringer. Finally, Gibson is a better HR hitter and slugger than Hank Greenberg.
It's pretty doubtful the New York Yankees would have won even one World Series, let alone five or six, in the late 1930s, if they'd had to have played this team every year.
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Judy Johnson HOF with HOF Oscar Charleston, Terrible Ted Page and Jud "Boojum" Wilson also HOF all teammates on the 1932 Pittsburgh Crawfords together. It is doubtful any "major league" team ever had four players this talented play together at one time, but the 1932 Crawfords had SIX HOF players including Satchel Paige.
One blogger agrees that the 1935 Crawfords are the best team of all time:
"Ok, my #1 team is different than anyone else's here. They had 4 Hall of Famers in their everyday lineup, plus a Hall of Fame ace who is on most people's top ten pitchers of all time list. It has the best player all time at his position (arguably), one of the best base stealers ever, and dominated the league with an astounding .785 winning percentage. Who are they?....The 1935 Pittsburgh Crawfords!!!!!! 5 HOFers- Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell, Oscar Charleston, Judy Johnson, Satchel Paige. Best catcher of all-time (Gibson), faster runner of all-time (all speculation, of course, but Bell), and, according to some people here, a top ten position player of all time (Oscar). And Paige in his prime (note: Paige actually missed the first half of the 35 season, but played for a while in Pittsburgh, and helped the team win the next season which also started in 1935)." pghfan987 posted 3-29-2006.
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II. THE 1932 PITTSBURGH CRAWFORDS - THE BEST EVER ALLTIME
As good as the 1935 team was, the 1932 Pittsburgh Crawfords were better, a reasonable person would argue.
This argue flows from several tributaries, but like the Allegheny and Monongahela join to form the mighty Ohio, these various arguments joint to form a mighty river of reason that culminates in an unstoppable force of nature.
First, Satchel Paige, HOF, was on the 1932 Crawfords. So good that the World Series winning Cleveland Indians gave him a job pitching at age 41 as a rookie. He pitched 72 innings for that club with an ERA+ of 165--65% better than league average. That's Roy Halladay territory good. The single greatest pitcher of all time, and still throwing his best fastball in 1932; and still good at age 41. Pitched in majors at age 59. Better at age 59 than Jamie Moyer is now at age 49 (no disrespect to Jamie Moyer, the ageless one). AL All-Star Team 1952-53 at ages 45 and 46. 3.1 WAR pitching at age 45 in 1952 (worth 3 wins to his team). 17th in MVP voting in 1952 at age 45 AL. He would have won 400 games in the majors by anyone's reasonable estimation. Better fastball then Bob Feller, Walter Johnson or Nolan Ryan by all contemporary accounts, and many changes of speed.
Satchell Paige reference pages:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/nlb/player.cgi?id=paige-001ler (Negro League stats)
http://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=paige-001ler (minor league stats)
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/p/paigesa01.shtml (major league stats) (1948-49, 1951-53 & 1965, Cleveland Indians, St Louis Browns & KC Athletics)
http://baseballhall.org/hof/paige-satchel
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| on Aug. 20, 1948, a 42-year-old Satchel Paige pitched the Indians to a 1-0 victory over the White Sox in front of 78,382 fans, a night-game attendance record that still stands |
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He made his living by throwing the ball to a spot over the plate the size of a matchbook.
Cool Papa Bell
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| Satchel Paige's famous huge leg kick aided a highly deceptive delivery. He had a devastating fastball and changed speeds masterfully. The art of pitching, he often said, was to destroy the timing of the hitter. |
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| Satchel Paige as a 41 year old rookie with the World Series winning Cleveland Indians of 1948. This is the last Cleveland Indians team to win a World Series, by the way. 64 years and counting.... |
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| Satchel Paige gets to the Mountain Top. Free at Last, Free at Last, Thank God Almighty, Free at Last. |
Second, Oscar Charleston, Josh Gibson and Judy Johnson were not only on the 1932 team, but they were three years younger. What an amazing core of offense and defense--CF, C and 3B all HOF player throwing lumber and leather at you. Jimmie Crutchfield was also on the 1932 team, another great player who could field and hit with the best of them.
Third, the team had not just Satchel Paige pitching, but also HOF Smokey Joe Williams. According to one poll, Satch & Smokey Joe are #1 and #5 of the five greatest all-time Negro Leagues pitchers. That list includes the following pitchers;
1) Satchel Paige (HOF)
2) Bullet Joe Rogan (HOF) (mainly KC Monarchs)
3) Ray Brown (HOF) (multiple teams, including Homestead/Pitt Grays in 1940s)
4) Bill Foster (HOF)
5) Smokey Joe Williams (HOF)
A reasonable fellow would rank these pitchers either Paige first and Williams second, or Williams first and Paige second. They had the best fastballs by far; Williams was the dominant pitcher of the 1910s and 1920s, while Paige dominated the 1930s and 1940s. The one time they pitched against each other is a legendary story.
"Cyclone" Smokey Joe Williams was just that--a guy who could throw smoke past you.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/nlb/player.cgi?id=willia001smo
http://baseballhall.org/hof/williams-joe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone_Joe_Williams
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On August 7, 1930, at age 44, he struck out 27 Kansas City Monarchs in a 1-0, 12-inning victory. That same year, he beat a younger Negro league star who was just bursting into superstardom, Leroy (Satchel) Paige, also by 1-0, in their only meeting against one another
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Biography:
Tall, hard-throwing right-hander Smokey Joe Williams dominated early 20th-century black baseball. He is said to have pitched dozens of no-hitters, many of them against amateur teams, but some against the likes of the New York Giants. On Aug. 7, 1930, at age 44, he struck out 27 Kansas City Monarchs in a 1-0, 12-inning victory. In 1952, a poll taken by the Pittsburgh Courier named Williams the greatest pitcher in Negro league history.
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Fourth, the team had an outstanding supporting cast.
Walter "Rev" Cannady, an outstanding hitter for power and average.
Rap Dixon, a power hitting OF who also hit for average.
Terrible Ted Page, who was a very fast LH hitter batting .350 before a serious leg injury in the early 1930s cut short his career. HOF potential early on.
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| Terrible Ted Page - a dangerous and speedy LH hitter whose career was disrupted by a leg injury. He was a key member of the 1932 Pittsburgh Crawfords. Page was a HOF worthy player. |
There were many Negro players every bit as good as Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Larry Doby, Luke Easter, and Sam Jethroe. They just never had a chance to prove their greatness.
Fifth, the team had HOF Jud "Boojum Wilson, a LH hitting, for power and average, good fielding infielder. Wilson destroyed pitchers with his bat and could play all the infield positions.
Jud Wilson references
http://www.baseball-reference.com/nlb/player.cgi?id=wilson001jud
http://baseballhall.org/hof/wilson-jud
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Biography:
Satchel Paige named Jud Boojum Wilson as one of the two toughest hitters he ever faced, and Josh Gibson considered Wilson the game's best hitter. They all looked the same to me, said Wilson of Negro leagues and white major league hurlers. A squat, lefty hitter who could play anywhere in the infield, Wilson was known for his potent bat as a line drive hitter to every corner of the ballpark. His temper and ferocity on the field, also defined his career. After starring with the Baltimore Black Sox for most of the 1920s, Wilson moved to the Homestead Grays, where he captained the formidable 1931 squad. After seven years with the Philadelphia Stars, Wilson returned to the Grays, helping the powerful club to numerous championships in the early 1940s.
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If you could those up, that makes SIX HALL OF FAMERS ON ONE TEAM--two HOF pitchers among the greatest of all time, and four HOF players, including two HOF infielders, a HOF CF and a HOF C, which means that this team was strongest on pitching, defense and up the middle, as well as offensively and preventing runs.
But why take our word for it? According to another blogger who simmed the 1932 Pittsburgh Crawfords against the so-called "best" major league teams of all time, the Crawfords achieved better than a .750 winning percentage against them. It's not even close--this is clearly the best team of all time. While not a scientific, representative or statistically significant sample size, this is indicative in our view of how dominant the Crawfords would be if we ran actual Monte Carlo simulations against other ballclubs in this fashion.
Another blogger actually ran simulations of this team v. other great "white" major league teams using strat-o-matic:
1932-1936 Pittsburgh Crawfords 162 game season
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Widely regarded as one of the best ( if not the best ) Negro League teams of all time , I have been taking the Crawfords against some major league teams throughout the years.
It's going to be 54 , 3-game series (162 games) . I have been working on this since the set came out , in between projects , so it's been slow moving .
The roster is :
P- Satchel Paige , Leroy Matlock , Double Duty Radcliffe , William Bell , Sam Streeter , Roosevelt Davis
C- Double Duty Radcliffe , Bill Perkins , Josh Gibson
INF- Jud Wilson , Dick Seay , Judy Johnson , Sam Bankhead , Oscar Charleston , Rev Cannady
OF- Vic Harris , Jimmie Crutchfield , Cool Papa Bell , Rap Dixon
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The schedule has been completed through the first 13 series , the results are as follows :1. 2008 NYY -- Crawfords win 2-1 2. 2008 Tampa -- Crawfords win 3-03. 2002 Anaheim-- Crawfords win 2-14. 2001 SF Giants-- Crawfords win 2-15. 2008 Phillies -- Crawfords win 3-06. 1951 NY Giants-- Crawfords win 2-17. 1951 NYY -- Crawfords win 3-08. 1951 Brooklyn -- Crawfords win 3-09. 1964 NYY-- Crawfords win 3-010. 1964 Philadelphia-- Crawfords win 3-011. 1964 St Louis -- St Louis win 2-1 12. 1965 LA Dodgers-- Crawfords win 3-013. 1933 NY Giants -- Crawfords win 2-1
series 14 -- 1931 A's Behind the hitting Mickey Cochrane and Al Simmons and the pitching of Grove,Earnshaw and Walberg the A's managed to sweep the Crawfords . The trio of Grove , Earnshaw and Walberg held the Josh Gibson and Co. to a total of 6 runs for the series . Cochrane and Simmons did the damage with the bats :Cochrane - 5-10 4R 7RBI HR 3B Simmons- 5-12 4R 3RBI 2-2B 2-HR The Crawfords record now stands at 32-10 . Of 14 series played , they have won 12 -- losing to the '31 A's (3-0) and '64 St Louis (2-1).
series 15-- 1950 Phillies
The Crawfords won game 1 , 11-0 behind Josh Gibson and Cool Papa Bell who each had 3 hits and 3 rbi . Meanwhile Satchel Paige was just his normal self , pitching an 8 hit shutout to run his record to 12-2 .
The Phillies won a very exciting game 1-0 in 12 innings in walkoff fashion . Del Ennis hit a 2 out homer off Sam Streeter to end it in the 12th . Streeter up to that point had carried a 1-hitter , a single by Richie Ashburn in the 4th , but took the tough luck loss by going 11.2 innings and giving up 2 hits .
The Crawfords took game 3 by scoring 5 runs over the last 2 innings to win 6-4 . Rap Dixon hit a 3-run pinch hit homer in the 9th to break a 3-3 tie .
The Crawfords record now stands at 34-11.
Some pretty impressive matchups for Satchel and the outcome :
Beat Carl Hubbell
Beat Bob Gibson
Beat Jim Bunning
Beat Sandy Koufax
Beat Don Newcombe
Beat Vic Raschi
Beat Jim Bouton
Lost to Livan Hernandez
Beat Cole Hamels
Beat Russ Ortiz
Lost to Sal Maglie
Beat James Shields
Beat Mike Mussina
Lost to Rube Walberg
Beat Robin Roberts
TOPIC: 1932-1936 Pittsburgh Crawfords 162 game season
III. The Boston Red Sox - a Postscript
Here's what the Wiki on the "color line" has to say about the Boston Red Sox and their informal refusal to integrate until well into the 1990s:
Boston Red Sox The Boston Red Sox were the last major league team to integrate,[9] due to the steadfast resistance provided by owner Tom Yawkey. The Red Sox had refused to consider signing Jackie Robinson after a brief tryout at Fenway Park in April 1945.[9] Boston city councilor Isadore Muchnick spurred that tryout by threatening to revoke the team's exemption from Sunday blue laws.The segregation policy was enforced by Yawkey's general managers: Eddie Collins (through 1947), Joe Cronin (1948–58), and Mike "Pinky" Higgins (field manager 1955–59 and 1960–62, special assistant to the owner 1960, and general manager 1963–65). A strong team in the late 1940s, the Red Sox finished perpetually in the second division during the early and mid-1960s, the implication being that Boston shut itself off from the expanded talent pool due to its segregation policy.When integration did come, it may have been half-hearted. The new General Manager Bucky Harris promoted Pumpsie Green from Boston's AAA farm club in July 1959, but Green did not become a regular player, though Green's minor league record suggests he probably was no better than a fourth outfielder. Earl Wilson began a nearly five year run as a regular in the Red Sox' rotation beginning 1962. Felix Mantilla was slowly promoted from utility infielder to regular second baseman from '63-'65. By 1966, semi-dark skinned Jose Santiago had joined Wilson in the rotation and Boston had very dark skinned George Scott, George Smith, and Joe Foy in their regular line-up.After a dismal ninth-place finish in 1966 and ninth straight losing season, General Manager Dick O'Connell promoted Dick Williams, manager of the club's Triple-A Toronto affiliate, to lead the major league team. Williams brought along many of his minor league players, some of whom were black. The Red Sox went on to win the "Impossible Dream" pennant and battle the fully integrated St. Louis Cardinals for seven games in the 1967 World Series. African-American Reggie Smith finished second for the "Rookie of the Year"; George Scott had been third in 1966.After Williams was fired in 1969, any commitment to a fielding a color-blind team began to slip. Perennially in need of pitching, the Red Sox made a habit of trading away its top black players: Scott went to the Milwaukee Brewers, where he became a home run champion; Smith was peddled to the Cardinals and later became a top star with the Los Angeles Dodgers. In the mid-1970s, future home run champion Ben Oglivie was traded to Detroit (he became a star in Milwaukee); future star first-baseman Cecil Cooper was traded directly to Milwaukee to bring back an aging Scott.Tom Yawkey died in 1976 and Dick O'Connell failed in his efforts to acquire the team. Tom's widow Jean Yawkey eventually sold to Haywood Sullivan and former team trainer Edward "Buddy" LeRoux, even though they did not have enough funds to run a top franchise in the dawning era of free agency.[citation needed] By the early 1980s, the Red Sox were almost bereft of African Americans not only on the field, but even in the minor leagues.[citation needed] In 1983, the first losing season since 1966, only one player on the major league roster was black, the perennial star Jim Rice. As George Scott noted in a Boston Globe article on the team's apparent racism, not having many black players on the team meant that there was a dearth of social as well as psychological help for a black player, particularly in a city racked by racial turmoil.[citation needed] Other professional sports teams in Boston were integration leaders, however.[10]The institutional racism of the Red Sox had become a public scandal in New England. Most journalists[citation needed] laid the blame on owner Sullivan, a Southerner. Yawkey has frequently been labeled a Southerner in spirit.[citation needed] In fact, he was a Michigan-born, New York-bred timber baron who had been friends with the overt racist Ty Cobb as a young man and maintained an estate in South Carolina. Sullivan hailed from Alabama and seemed an unreconstructed Southerner despite all his years in New England. He had made his career with the Red Sox by good relations with Mrs. Yawkey, becoming something akin to an adopted son to the childless couple.[citation needed]As chief executive, Haywood Sullivan found himself in another racial wrangle that ended in a courtroom. The Elks Club of Winter Haven, Florida, the Red Sox spring training home, did not permit black members or guests. Yet the Red Sox allowed the Elks into their clubhouse to distribute dinner invitations to the team's white players, coaches, and business management. When the African-American Tommy Harper, a popular former player and coach for Boston, then working as a minor league instructor, protested the policy and a story appeared in the Boston Globe, he was promptly fired. Harper sued the Red Sox for racial discrimination and his complaint was upheld on July 1, 1986.[11] Sullivan sold his share of the Red Sox in November 1993. In 2000 Harper rejoined the Boston organization as a coach and in 2007 he was listed as a player development consultant for the team.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseball_color_line (citations omitted)
So much for the vaunted "Sawx".
Widely regarded as one of the best ( if not the best ) Negro League teams of all time , I have been taking the Crawfords against some major league teams throughout the years.
It's going to be 54 , 3-game series (162 games) . I have been working on this since the set came out , in between projects , so it's been slow moving .
The roster is :
P- Satchel Paige , Leroy Matlock , Double Duty Radcliffe , William Bell , Sam Streeter , Roosevelt Davis
C- Double Duty Radcliffe , Bill Perkins , Josh Gibson
INF- Jud Wilson , Dick Seay , Judy Johnson , Sam Bankhead , Oscar Charleston , Rev Cannady
OF- Vic Harris , Jimmie Crutchfield , Cool Papa Bell , Rap Dixon