Steel Town Baseball

Home of steel mills, the Carnegie family, Pittsburgh Plate Glass, the Golden Triangle business district, Duquesne University, and the meeting place of the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio Rivers.

The "Hearth of the Nation," a nickname derived from the fact that the red glow from its steel mills maybe seen for miles at night, Pittsburgh is known across the country as a "working man's" city. The image of a hard working individual sweating in the steel mills that helped our in times of both war and peace is one familiar to every American. Hard work is the earmark of the Steel City, and they also play hard, expecting the very best when it comes to professional sports teams, and the very best is what they had when two of the greatest franchises in Negro League history called the city home.

One of the greatest teams in all of baseball, black or white, was the Homestead Grays. During it's history, the team won nine consecutive pennants, a record unsurpassed in sports. The Grays were originally called the Murdock Grays, a semi-pro team that was managed by Terry Veney and were sponsored by the Harbison-Walker Brick Yard and the Carnegie-Illinois Steel Mills. They became the Homestead Grays in 1911, the same year they were joined by collegiate Cumberland Posey, Jr. By 1913, the local press reported that the Homestead nine won 42 games in a row. Posey became the team captain in 1916 and owner by the early twenties.

In 1929, the Grays joined the American Negro league but the crush of the Great Depression caused the league to collapse. Formed to play independent ball until 1932, Posey and other owners established a new league, call the East West. Despite their valiant efforts, the league folded in mid-season.

The Grays fielded highly successful teams in 1930 and 1931, but by 1932 the team was just a shell of it's former self due to the players raids made by the numbers king of The Hill, Pittsburgh's black district, Gus Greenlee. Greenlee lured players from Posey's team and signed them to play for his new Pittsburgh Crawfords. The Crawfords would become one of the best franchises in Negro League baseball for the next few years, winning pennants in 1935 and 1936.

Greenlee's contributions to Negro League baseball were not limited to Pittsburgh however. He was responsible for the formation of the second Negro National League and the annual East-West All-Star Game, both of which debuted in 1933.

While the Negro National League would last until 1948 and the East West Game would go on until the early 1960's, the Crawfords' success was shorted lived.

The beginning of the Crawfords decline marked the rise of the Grays as 1937 marked the beginning of the Grays records string of consecutive pennants. They would win the Negro National League pennant every year from 1937 through 1945.

In 1942, for the first time since 1927, the Negro League World Series was held and pitted the Grays against the Kansas City Monarchs. The Grays lost the series that year but won it the following two years with victories over the Birmingham Black Barons. The Homestead Nine lost the 1945 series to the Cleveland Buckeyes but returned in 1948 to capture the Negro League World Championship for a third time by once again beating the Birmingham Black Barons.

1945 marked the return to Pittsburgh of the Crawfords, who had played 1938 in Toledo and 1939 in Indianapolis. This time around they were part of the United States League, which was founded by Gus Greenlee and Branch Rickey. According to published reports, Rickey was trying to bring stability to the black baseball leagues. The truth of the matter was that Rickey was using the USL and his entry into it, the Brooklyn Brown Dodgers to scout the Negro Leagues for the man he would use to break major league baseball’s color barrier. He found that man in Jackie Robinson.

The debut of Robinson with the Dodgers in 1947 caused a mass exodus of fans from the Negro League to the majors. As a result teams folded and leagues collapsed. After the Negro National League folded at the end of the 1948 season, the Homestead Grays carried on as an independent team before folding at the end of the 1950 season.