Negro Leagues DB Update: 1940 NNL & NAL

After two years of relative stability, 1940 proved to be a difficult season for the Negro leagues, as the trickle of players defecting to Venezuela or (especially) Mexico became a flood. Many of black baseball’s biggest stars—Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell, Willard Brown, Leon Day—spent most or all of 1940 south of the border. Compounding […]

Negro Leagues DB Update: 1939 NNL & NAL

This week we’re adding further results of our collaboration with the Negro League Researchers and Authors Group (Larry Lester and Wayne Stivers) with the unveiling of the 1939 Negro league season. We’ve got both leagues, the Negro National League and Negro American League, plus the postseason series. This represents the first NAL season we’ve done […]

Negro Leagues DB Update: 1918/19 Cuban League

The 1918/19 Cuban winter season was the only time Tinti Molina’s Cuban Stars, normally a summertime traveling team in the United States, competed under that name for the regular Cuban League championship. (Molina would enter teams that were essentially his Cuban Stars in the league under different names: as the “White Sox” in 1916/17, and […]

Negro Leagues DB Update: 1925 ECL & NNL

In 1925 the Hilldale Club got its revenge on the Kansas City Monarchs, with the help of a toddler wielding a sewing needle. The year before, the Monarchs had ridden their luck to a thrilling 5 games to 4 victory in the first Colored World Series. In 1925 Hilldale won the ECL after a close […]

Negro Leagues DB Update: 1938 Negro National League

In 1938 the Homestead Grays solidified their dominance of the Negro National League. Winning both halves at a trot, Cumberland Posey’s powerhouse team had essentially killed off interest in the league by September. At the end of the season a playoff scheme involving the top four teams was introduced, but the Grays pulled their team […]

Negro Leagues DB Update: 1937 Negro National League

Today we’re used to complaining that too much of the sports news takes place off the field of play—strikes, business deals, scandals, crimes. We may not realize it, but this is nothing new. The story of the 1937 Negro National League, the newest addition to the Seamheads Negro Leagues Database, is a prime example.  The […]

Negro Leagues DB Update: 1932 East-West League

The 1932 East-West League, plus four independent east coast teams from that year, forms the latest addition to the Seamheads Negro Leagues Database. This was the year when Pittsburgh numbers operator Gus Greenlee really got serious about baseball. He hired the architect Louis A. S. Bellinger to construct a lavish new ballpark in the Hill […]

Negro Leagues DB Update: 1931 Eastern Negro Leagues

New to the Seamheads Negro Leagues Database: the 1931 eastern black teams. Once again, there was no league on the east coast. As in the case of 1930, we are at this time including only games between these independent eastern clubs, so the Homestead Grays and the Cuban House of David, who played western NNL […]

Negro Leagues DB Update: 1930 Eastern Negro Leagues

We’ve added games between the 1930 eastern Negro league teams to the Seamheads Negro Leagues Database. It was an astonishing year in black baseball history, a year that saw the first Negro league games played at night, the first Negro league games played in Yankee Stadium, and the sudden emergence of one of the greatest […]

Negro Leagues DB Update: 1926 Eastern Colored League

The newest addition to the Negro Leagues DB, the 1926 Eastern Colored League (the Negro National League and World Series will arrive later), showcases the Atlantic City Bacharach Giants’ breakthrough season. After three years of playing .500 ball in the ECL, Dick Lundy (.355) and company rode the arms of Claude Grier (12-7, 3.21) and […]

Negro Leagues DB Update: 1936 Negro National League

This week we add the 1936 Negro National League to the Seamheads Negro Leagues Database. The season started with a major defection: the Chicago American Giants, founding members of the league back in 1933, and the oldest continuously existing professional club in black baseball (dating back to 1911), decided to go independent in 1936. Most […]

Negro Leagues DB Update: 1920/21 Cuban League

The latest addition to the Seamheads Negro Leagues DB covers the 1920/21 winter league season in Cuba. Heading the bill that off-season was none other than the biggest name in baseball at the time, one George Herman Ruth, fronting the New York Giants. The Babe was a little late, showing up only for the last […]

Negro Leagues DB Update: 1935 Negro National League

Check out the newest addition to the Negro Leagues DB: the 1935 Negro National League season. The defending champion Philadelphia Stars fell off quite a bit in 1935, partly because several of their key performers (Biz Mackey, Chaney White) were aging, but mostly because their ace, 1934’s 20-game winner Slim Jones, couldn’t stay away from […]

Negro Leagues DB Update: 1923-24 Cuban League

Possibly for the first time anywhere (and certainly for the first time in recent history) the Seamheads DB is presenting (nearly) complete statistics for both the 1923/24 Cuban League season as well as the 1924 Gran Premio that followed it. (We’re missing only a single box score.) The 1923/24 Santa Clara club is the most […]

Negro Leagues DB Update: 1927-28 Cuban League

Imagine a last-place team with no fewer than three future Hall of Famers on its roster, all in their prime.  That’s the story of the Cuba Baseball Club of the 1927/28 Cuban Winter League, which we’ve added to the DB.  Despite the efforts of Oscar Charleston (.350/.481/.567, a league-leading 32 walks in 34 games), Willie […]

Negro Leagues DB Update: 1934 Negro National League

The latest addition to the Negro Leagues DB includes the 1934 Negro National League plus four important independent clubs from that year.  The league enjoyed more stability this year.  Once again pursuing a split-season format, the NNL started the first half with six clubs: the Pittsburgh Crawfords, Chicago American Giants, and Nashville Elite Giants were […]

Negro Leagues DB Update: 1922-23 Cuban League

We’re making a small but important addition to the DB today—the 1922/23 Cuban winter league, plus a few additional games for 1916, 1919, and 1922. After a few seasons of turbulence in the Cuban game, the 1922/23 season marked a new beginning.  The league added two new teams, Santa Clara and Marianao, to the Habana-Almendares […]

Negro Leagues DB Update: 1928 NNL & ECL

Today we add the 1928 Negro leagues to the DB.  This was the year the Eastern Colored League fell apart, putting an end to the first edition of the Black World Series.  Meanwhile the Negro National League continued with a split-season format.  The St. Louis Stars won the first half going away; in the second […]

Negro Leagues DB Update: 1933

This week we’re making a slight break with chronological order and adding the 1933 Negro leagues to the DB. Many thanks to Scott Simkus, the creator of the Strat-O-Matic Negro leagues set, who did most of the heavy lifting on this. The year 1933 marked something of a fresh beginning for the Negro leagues, with […]

Negro Leagues DB Update: Florida Hotel League, Cuban League, 1899 & 1900 Negro Leagues

We’ve just added the following to the DB: the 1916/17 Cuban Winter League, the 1917 and 1918 Florida Hotel League, and a handful of games from the 1899 and 1900 seasons, as well as new games for 1904, 1905, 1906, 1907, 1908, and 1912. In 1899 the Cuban X Giants came west to play the […]

Negro Leagues DB Update: 1915/16 Cuban League & Florida Hotel League

This week we’ve added two leagues from the 1915/16 winter season—the Cuban League and the Florida Hotel League—along with the 1907 Southern Championship contested between the Birmingham Giants and San Antonio Black Bronchos. In Cuba, due to a labor dispute, the old Cuban National League was no more, replaced by a player-led league, the Cuban […]

Negro Leagues DB Update: 1902-1906 Negro Leagues

The newest update to the Negro Leagues DB adds no fewer than five deadball seasons—1902 through 1906—plus a number of additional games for later seasons, and lots of new and corrected biographical information. We loosely use the term “season” here, as the farther back you go in history, the fewer and fewer games African American […]

Negro Leagues DB Update: 1924 ECL & NNL

This week we’ve added the 1924 Negro leagues, both the Negro National League and Eastern Colored League.  This year marked the end of the war between the leagues and saw the champions meet in the first Colored World Series, one of the classic postseason series of all time. The ECL expanded to eight teams, adding […]

Negro Leagues DB Update: 1913-14 AND 1914-15 Cuban National League

The addition of the 1913/14 and 1914/15 Cuban National (Winter) Leagues now gives us a complete run of the Cuban Winter Leagues from 1902/03 thru 1914/15. This was a time period when many of the top Negro League players played in Cuba during the winter. During this same time, several Cuban teams would play against […]

Negro Leagues DB Update: 1907 National Association of Colored Professional Clubs of the United States and Cuba

Contrary to popular belief, blackball teams playing in a ‘real’ league did not begin in 1920.  In 1886, there was an attempt to start a 10 team “Southern Colored Base Ballist” league.  In 1887, the National Colored Baseball League managed to play 13 league games before folding.  The 1906 “ILIP League” (International League of Independent […]

Negro Leagues DB Update: 1923 Eastern Colored League

In 1923, after three seasons of Negro National League baseball in the Midwest, the big northeastern African American clubs finally got their act together, forming the Eastern Colored League. This week we’re proud to add to the DB that first season of the ECL, compiled by Patrick Rock. In the NNL’s first season, the club […]

Negro Leagues DB Update: 1908 & 1909 Negro Leagues

The 1908 season saw the emergence of a national scene in black professional baseball.  Two important eastern teams, the Philadelphia Giants and the Cuban Giants of New York, made trips to the Midwest, their most notable opponent being Rube Foster‘s new powerhouse, the Chicago Leland Giants.  The Cuban Stars of Havana spent significant time in […]

Negro Leagues DB Update: 1910 & 1911 Negro Leagues

This week we’ve added the 1910 and 1911 Negro leagues to the DB.  This gives us the pleasure of presenting statistics for one of black baseball’s great teams, the Chicago Leland Giants of 1910.  Led by Pete Hill and John Henry Lloyd, both in their prime, a 37-year-old Grant Johnson, and the brilliant pitching of […]

Negro Leagues DB Update: 1912 & 1913 Negro Leagues

We’ve posted two more Negro league seasons, 1912 and 1913.  The number of games between the best black professionals gets a little sparser with each year you go backward.  It’s not that they were playing fewer games overall, it’s just that their opponents were much more likely to be white semipro or amateur teams. Important […]

Negro Leagues DB Update: 1914 & 1915 Negro Leagues

New to the DB this week are the 1914 and 1915 Negro leagues.  The 1914 season in particular marks a turning point in black baseball history, as Charles Isham Taylor, former manager of the Birmingham Giants and West Baden Sprudels, arrived in Indianapolis to take over the A.B.C.s, bringing along with him his three ballplaying […]

Negro Leagues DB Update: Cuban Summer League

The historical Cuban League everyone knows about was played in the fall and winter months, and so is often referred to as the Cuban Winter League.  Almost nobody remembers that, in the first decade of the 20th century at least, there was a Cuban Summer League, too, the Premio de Verano, or Summer Championship.  The […]

Negro Leagues Database Update: 1923 Negro National League

We’re pleased to announce the addition of the 1923 Negro National League, compiled by Patrick Rock, to the Negro Leagues Database.  Patrick’s work was the first statistical compilation of a Negro league season to reach the levels of thoroughness and completeness that we’re aspiring to here, and has been a key inspiration for my own […]

Negro Leagues Database Update: American Series in Cuba, 1904-1915

In the 1900s and 1910s, with Cuba newly independent from Spain but under heavy U.S. influence (and sometimes occupation), a baseball exchange formed between the two countries.  In the summers teams of the best Cuban players toured the U.S. as the “All-Cubans” or the “Cuban Stars”; in the fall American teams traveled to Havana to […]

Negro Leagues Database: Update

Over the weekend we made our first significant update to the Database, with some new biographical information for a number of players and RBI added for the Cuban leagues.  Plus we’ve specified players who are in the Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame, players who played in MLB, and players who played in the U.S. minor […]

Seamheads.com Launches Negro Leagues Database Powered by The Baseball Gauge

Welcome to the Seamheads.com Negro Leagues Database, powered by The Baseball Gauge. We are creating the first comprehensive statistical encyclopedia of the great black baseball teams and leagues that operated behind the color line in the days of Jim Crow segregation.  The database also collects a vast amount of biographical information about these players, much […]

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