Willie Wells, a member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and one of Negro League baseball's greatest stars has been laid to rest in the Texas State Cemetary, an honor reserved for those few individuals who have made a significant contribution to the State of Texas. Wells, who died in 1989, had previously been buried in another Austin cemetary.
Online polls across the Internet show that there is considerable support in D.C. for naming the new National League franchise after the Homestead Grays. Those in favor of christening the team with the name of the legendary black team say that it would be a fitting tribute to great players who wore the Grays uniform in Griffith Stadium in relative obscurity.
Most everyone knows that Jackie Robinson was the first African-American to play major league baseball during the modern era. Suprisingly, few people have given much thought to how Robinson came to the attention of major league scouts, where he played before signing with the Dodgers, or just what the nature of baseball in the black community might have been before professional baseball's integration.
In the following paragraphs we'll take a quick trip through the years of baseball in black America that led up to Robinson's 1947 debut in Brooklyn.
The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission has voted to honor the Harrisburg Giants (Eastern Colored League) with a historical marker to be dedicated in Harrisburg later this year.
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