BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY : THE HOMESTEAD GRAYS WERE A PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL TEAM THAT PLAYED IN THE NEGRO LEAGUES IN THE UNITED STATES :

                             BLACK             SOCIAL            HISTORY                                                                                                                                                                                                          Homestead Grays (also known as Washington Grays or Washington Homestead Grays) were a professional baseball team that played in the Negro leagues in the United States. The team was formed in 1912 by Cumberland Posey, and would remain in continuous operation for 38 seasons. The team was originally based in Homestead, Pennsylvania, adjacent toPittsburgh. By the 1920s with increasing popularity in the Pittsburgh region, the team retained the name "Homestead" but crossed the Monongahela River to play all home games in Pittsburgh, at the Pittsburgh Pirates' home Forbes Field and thePittsburgh Crawfords' home Greenlee Field. From 1940 until 1942, the Grays played half of their home games in Washington, D.C., while remaining in Pittsburgh for all other home stands.^[1] As attendance at their games in the nation's capital grew, by 1943 the Grays were playing more than two-thirds of their home games in Washington.^[2]

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Franchise history

The Grays grew out of an earlier industrial team. In 1900, a group of African-American players had joined together to form the Germantown (PA) Blue Ribbons, an industrial league team. For ten years, the Blue Ribbons fielded a team every season and played some of the best sandlot teams in the area. In 1910, the managers of the team retired. The players reorganized the team and named themselves the Murdock Grays. In 1912, they became the Homestead Grays, the name they retained for the remainder of the franchise's history.

American Negro League

The Grays did join the American Negro League in 1929, but that league lasted only one season. The team operated independently again until 1932, when Posey organized the ill-fated East-West League; that league also collapsed before completing its first and only season.

Negro National League[edit]

Posey entered his Grays in the Negro National League in 1935. With the near-collapse of the Pittsburgh Crawfords, Josh Gibson returned to the Grays in 1937, combining with slugger Buck Leonard to power the Grays to nine consecutive (and a total of ten) Negro National League Championships and three Negro League World Series titles. Vic Harrismanaged the Grays during their years in league play, between 1935 and 1948, and piloted Homestead to eight pennants. He guided his team to six consecutive pennants from 1937 through 1942; in 1945 and 1948, and led the 1948 team to the Negro League World Series championship. The 1943 and 1944 NLWS titles came under Candy Jim Taylor.

Art Rooney

Pittsburgh Steelers and Pittsburgh Penguins founder and owner Art Rooney related in an 1981 interview that he "from time to time" had "helped financially support the Negro League team, the Homestead Grays, and . . . was a better baseball fan than football fan."^[3]

Post-Negro league play

Following the collapse of the Negro National League after the 1948 season, the Grays struggled to continue as an independent club, and ultimately disbanded at the close of the1950 season.^{[citation needed]}

Home fields

From the late 1930s through the 1940s, the Grays played their home games at Pittsburgh's Forbes Field, home of the Pittsburgh Pirates. However, during this same period the club adopted the Washington, D.C. area as its "home away from home" and scheduled many of its "home" games at Washington's Griffith Stadium, the home park of the then-Washington Senators. During these games, they were alternatively known as the Washington Grays or Washington Homestead Grays.