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 Negro Leagues Photo Gallery
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1939 Negro League East-West All-Star Game

With the baseball season in full swing, we’ll soon be hearing more about the upcoming 2021 All-Star game. This always presents me with the opportunity to write about the Negro Leagues. Every so often, I like to repost one of my favorite photos: the great featured photo above from the 1939 Negro League East-West All-Star game. 

There were two Negro League All-Star games in 1939. Pictured here is the East team from the first game, played at Comiskey Park on August 6, 1939, in front of an estimated 40,000 fans. The West team won the game, 4-2. The winning pitcher was Ted “Doubleduty” Radcliffe, and the loser was Roy Partlow. The West team hit two home runs, the first by Neal Robinson of the Memphis Red Sox, and the second by Ted Strong of the Homestead Grays.  

 

I count five Hall-of-Famers in the photo. I was able to do complete player identifications, so see how many you can pick out before looking at the names below. I’ll give you one hint: The great Josh Gibson is in the top row, third from right.

The Negro Leagues were hit especially hard during the Depression, as was all of America; so with all the hardships they had to endure, it’s amazing that they survived this period, much less put on All-Star games. But somehow they managed to do so. The idea of a Negro League All-Star game was first suggested by Gus Greenlee, owner of the Pittsburgh Crawfords. The idea caught on, and over time, the game became a summer social highlight for the African-American community. When you read Buck O’Neil’s quote below, you’ll know what I mean. 

Since the Negro League structures were always rather shaky, votes were not tallied by the league itself, but by geographical location, East and West. The two major African-American weekly newspapers, the Chicago Defender and the Pittsburgh Courier were in charge of the event and did the vote counting. That’s how the games became known as the East-West All-Star games. The top vote-getters for this game were Ted Strong (506, 327), Pepper Bassett (502, 394), and Willie Wells (226,514).

Here’s a wonderful quote from Buck O’Neil which shows just how important the East-West All-Star game became to the African-American community:

“The game was something very special. It was the greatest idea Gus Greenlee ever had, because it made black people feel involved in baseball like they’d never been before. While the big leagues left the choice of players up to the sportswriters, Gus left it up to the fans …. That was a pretty important thing for black people to do in those days, to be able to vote, even if it was just for ballplayers, and they sent in thousands of ballots …. Right away it was clear

that our game meant a lot more than the big league game. Theirs was, and is, more or less an exhibition. But for black folks, the East-West Game was a matter of racial pride. Black people came from all over Chicago every year — that’s why we outdrew the big-league game some years, because we almost always had 50,000 people, and almost all of them were black people …. The weekend was always a party. All the hotels on the South Side were filled. All the big nightclubs were hopping.”

Here’s a video highlighting the Negro League Museum in Kansas City. If you watch the first couple minutes or so, you’ll understand just how important this game was in the African-American community. The excitement Buck O’Neill describes above that descended upon Chicago’s Southside during the All-Star game weekend, is palpable:

1939 Negro League East-West All-Star Game Player Identications:

Standing, L-R: Buck Leonard (Homestead Grays), Willie Wells (Newark Eagles), Jose Fernandez (New York Cubans), Sammy Hughes (Baltimore Elite Giants), George Scales (New York Black Yankees), Mule Suttles (Newark Eagles), Pat Patterson (Philadelphia Stars), Josh Gibson (Homestead Grays), Wild Bill Wright (Baltimore Elite Giants), Roy Partlow (Homestead Grays).

Kneeling, L-R: Bill Byrd (Baltimore Elite Giants), Leon Day (Newark Eagles), Bill Holland (New York Black Giants), Cando Lopez (New York Cubans), Homer “Goose” Curry (New York Black Yankees), Red Parnell (Philadelphia Stars).

Hall-of-Famers: Buck Leonard, Willie Wells, Mule Suttles, Leon Day, and Josh Gibson. 

Gary Livacari

Photo Credits: All from Google search

Information: Excerpts and quote edited from the Negro Leagues Wikipedia page and Buck O’Neil Wikipedia page.