A Legendary League: The Legacy of Baseball and Black History in Indiana

Members of the Indianapolis Clowns baseball team; Photo credit: Indiana Historical Society

The start of baseball season provides an opportunity to reflect on the sport’s complex and inspiring history, including that of Indiana’s Negro League teams. Much of the history of Black baseball went untold for many years. Major League Baseball kept minimal records on Negro League games, and reporters rarely covered them.

“When I grew up and was reading about baseball history, I didn’t know about any of these people,” baseball historian Phil Dixon says. “I couldn’t find anything on the Black players.”

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Dixon is a lifelong baseball fan originally from Kansas City, Kansas, who has researched the sport for more than 40 years. He has written 10 books on the history of baseball, all with a unique perspective.

“I write my books from an African American point of view,” Dixon says.

To Dixon the social context of baseball is critical to understanding the broader history of the sport.

“Baseball doesn’t exist in a vacuum,” he says.

Indianapolis Clowns, 1948; Photo credit: Indiana Historical Society/PO580

Striking History

The history of Black baseball teams and players is rich. In the years after the Civil War, Black communities began to organize local baseball teams. Baseball soon became more than just a recreational sport for these talented players who aimed to join professional leagues.

“That was the sport that most Black people wanted to play,” Dixon says. “It was one of the few sports that you could make a living at other than boxing.”

In the late 1800s, the so-called Negro leagues began to spring up with varying degrees of success. The first attempt at forming a league, the National Colored Base Ball League, lasted only two weeks in 1887. However, this didn’t dissuade Black communities from continuing to organize.

“Anywhere you can get a Black community and nine to 15 good players, they had a team,” Dixon says.

W.C. Madden, an Indiana resident, learned his trade as a journalist in the Air Force and has written 43 books, many about baseball. Madden lauds the fact that Black players were able to break through the color barrier and eventually earn a presence in the Major Leagues.

“They were finally able to be recognized for their ability,” Madden says. “They found a game they loved, and they organized it and were able to play baseball at a higher level.”

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Oscar Charleston played with the Indianapolis ABC and was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum in 1976. Photo credit: Indianapolis Recorder Collection/Indiana Historical Society

Teams and Talent

One of the earliest and most successful Negro League teams was the Indianapolis ABCs, founded in 1913 as a charter member of the Negro National League. Under C.I. Taylor’s management, the ABCs were able to beat the Chicago American Giants in 1915.

His brothers “Candy Jim” Taylor, Ben Taylor and “Steel Arm” Johnny Taylor were among the team’s top talent. Ben Taylor went on to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006.

Among the ABCs’ other top players was Oscar Charleston, a native of Indianapolis and another Hall of Fame inductee. The ABCs continued to play through World War I and beyond, finally disbanding in 1926.

Photo credit: Indiana Historical Society

The Indianapolis Clowns of the subsequent Negro American League were owned by Sydney Pollock in the 1940s. Pollock went on to sign one of baseball’s most notable figures, Hank Aaron, who played briefly for the Clowns in 1951. Other famous Clowns include John Wyatt, Paul Cassanova, Hal King and Clarence “Choo-Choo” Coleman.

In 1953, the Clowns made history by signing their first female player, Toni Stone – one of only three women to ever play in the league. Stone played second base, replacing Aaron after his departure.

“That opened the door for other women playing in Negro League baseball,” Madden says.

Stone was followed by Mamie “Peanut” Johnson and Connie Morgan. Morgan played second base under Charleston, while Johnson was the league’s first and only female pitcher. Johnson’s unique position in the league became an attraction that drew more people to games in the 1950s.

“They always needed gimmicks,” Dixon says. “If you just played ball, you could be the greatest baseball team in the world, but they always needed to have some kind of gimmick because people wouldn’t just accept them on ability alone.”

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The Pluto Red Devils of French Lick and West Baden in 1931. Photo credit: Indiana Historical Society/PO597

Historians Preserve Legacies

According to Dixon, when white reporters began covering Negro League games, they lamented the fact that nobody ever saw these games despite such talented players.

“But if you had 10,000 Black people at a baseball game, evidently someone saw them,” Dixon says. “They were still treating Black people as nobodies, and I wanted to treat Black people as somebody because my grandfather was certainly somebody. The neighbor across the street who used to tell me baseball stories was somebody.”

Today, the legacy of these teams lives on as more people take an interest in their history than ever before, thanks in part to dedicated baseball historians like Dixon and Madden.

“My people matter,” Dixon says. “Not only do the ballplayers matter, but the community matters. That’s the story I’m still telling today in my own way.”

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