Robert Gilkerson’s Union Giants were one of the best “minor league” black teams during the era of segregated baseball. Based out of Spring Valley, IL, a small coal-mining town 100 miles southwest of Chicago, the Union Giants played over 100 games per season, traveling through the Midwest and Canada each summer.
They were similar to the [...]
Entries from March 2009
March 9, 2009
Gilkerson’s Union Giants
March 6, 2009
A Good Movie Could be Made About…
the infamous Dave “Lefty” Brown.
Gary Ashwill has uncovered some very interesting information about the Negro League pitcher, posted over at agatetype. For the uninitiated, Brown was an outstanding left-hander in the early 1920s. Hall of Famer Rube Foster had supposedly posted bail for the troubled young man and gave him an opportunity in professional baseball.
After [...]
March 2, 2009
Good Wood?
February gristle…or, John Holmes: Eat your heart out.
According to Louisville’s local Fox-TV affiliate (Fox 41), Hall of Famer George “Mule” Suttles, veteran of the now-defunct Negro Leagues, had a 37-inch pole. Okay, not that pole. Talking about the big lumber one waggles back and forth across the plate, in an effort to redirect 90-mile-an-hour fastballs and [...]
