From the desk: 100th ANNIVERSARY OF THE NEGRO NATIONAL LEAGUE
NEGRO LEAGUES BASEBALL AT EBBETS FIELD
PART II of III: THE BROOKLYN BROWN DODGERS
Ebbets Field stages major league baseball games for forty-five-years but only hosts brief interludes with African-American leagues and teams.
Its last dalliance comes in the United States Negro Baseball League established in 1945 by baseball impresario Gus Greenlee intending to compete against the Negro National League II and Negro American League. Although not the team of acclaim, Gus Greenlee resurrects the Pittsburgh Crawfords for league play. Upon learning of Greelee's endeavor, Brooklyn Dodgers executive Branch Rickey joins the circuit in May with a full pledge of support. In a press conference, he offers access to Ebbets Field and twenty-two other ballparks under organizational control. Rickey negotiates a deal with Joseph W. Hall to transfer his reincarnated Hilldale club to Brooklyn, where they are to be rebranded as the Brown Dodgers. Branch Rickey's next move is hiring Negro Leagues great Oscar Charleston to manage the team. However, Rickey's interest in the league is a ruse through which he seeks to more expeditiously and efficiently facilitate baseball's desegregation. In truth, Charleston is tasked with clandestinely scouting African-American players for Branch Rickey.
By October 1945, Rickey finds his man. Once assured his selection is not under binding contract with the Kansas City Monarchs, Branch Rickey signs Jackie Robinson and assigns him to the Dodgers minor league affiliate at Montreal.
On the day Robinson is signed in 1945, here's what Rickey had to say about the Negro Leagues, according to author William C. Rhoden in his book Forty Million Dollar Slaves: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Black Athlete: "There is no Negro League as such as far as I'm concerned. [They] are not leagues and have no right to expect organized baseball to respect them." - excerpt from Aaron Leibowitz, The Cauldron.com
It's during this time Oscar Charleston urges Branch Rickey to sign ten-year Negro Leagues catcher Roy Campanella. Jackie Robinson nor Campanella ever play an inning in the United States League. Meanwhile, Branch Rickey's interest in the circuit ends post haste. The Brown Dodgers are reorganized under George Armstrong with help from Gus Greenlee. However, the fledgling league folds after the 1946 season.
Insofar as the baseball games themselves, the Brown Dodgers are said to play middling baseball and typically drew crowds of around 2,000 for double-headers, according to covehurst.net. In 1946, the Brown Dodgers reportedly played 27 games, finishing with an 8-19 record.
Albeit a fleeting endeavor, the United States Negro Baseball League nevertheless marks the third and final time Ebbets Field is significantly associated with Negro League baseball.
Part I: The Brooklyn Eagles
In 1935 the Brooklyn Eagles became the only Negro National League II member club to play a full regular season at Ebbets Field. Before the 1936 season, team owners Abe and Effa Manley relocate the Eagles to Newark.
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