Harrisburg’s Negro League Legacy Remembered

Willie Fordham gave me an outline entitled: Harrisburg’s Negro League Legacy Remembered. I am not sure who originally composed the outline but it contains a lot of interesting facts. Here it is:

'Harrisburg’s Negro League Legacy Remembered'

1867 – T. Morris Chester’s Monrovian Club sponsors and amateur baseball team which loses on October 22nd by a score of 59-27 to the Pythian Club of Philadelphia. Two months later the National Association of Base-Ball Players officially bans the Pythain Club from the organization and thus begins an 80-year period of segregated baseball.

1883 – Harrisburg’s Jack Frye becomes the 2nd African-American to play in organized baseball when he debuts with the Reading Actives.

1887 – Both Jack Frye and Harrisburg’s Clarence Williams play on the Black baseball’s first professional team, the Cuban Giants.

1890 – African-American entrepreneur Colonel William c. Strothers founds the Harrisburg Giants.

1890 – The greatest Black player of the 19th century, Frank Grant, plays second base for the Harrisburg Ponies, which today are known as the Harrisburg Senators.

1903 – Hall of Famer Rube Foster pitches the Cuban X-Giants to the colored World Title by beating the Philadelphia Giants 12-3 in Game Six of the World Series at Island Park on September 18th.

1903 – Harrisburg’s Clarence Williams catchers Danny McClellan as he pitches the first Perfect Game in the history of Black baseball versus York’s Penn Park team.

1906 – The great Spottswood Poles, known as the ‘Black Ty’, begins his professional career with the Harrisburg Colored Giants.

1916 – Steelton’s own Rap Dixon begins playing for the Keystone Giants, later joining the big boys on the Harrisburg Giants in 1922.

1927 – Rap Dixon, on leave from the Giants, tours Japan with an All-Star team. Dixon’s hitting prowess is so pronounced (and noticed) that Emperor Hirohito presents him with a trophy.

1932 – Colonel William C. Strothers dies and an era ends but the tradition continues.

1952 – Hank Aaron is signed to his first professional contract by Indianapolis Clowns General Manager Bunny Downs who played second base for the Harrisburg Giants in 1925.

1952 – Poles, Dixon, Charleston, Downs, Fats Jenkins and John Beckwith; all former Harrisburg Giants were named to the All-Time Negro League team by a panel of experts assembled by the Pittsburgh Courier.

1953 – Playing under a name steeped in tradition, Rich Felton’s Harrisburg Giants led by Captain and league Most Valuable Player, Tom Hailey, capture the Eastern Negro league title. The team featured Hailey, Willie Fordham, Russ Royster, Bobby Pae, Jim Weedon, Ken Freeland, Zeke Jones, Eddie Nork, Syke Burnette, G.G. Burton, Bruno DiMartile, Peter Dickey, Vince Hoch, Reid Poles, Danny Werner, Ellwood Harrell, Ben Banks, Thea Dillon, Minner Williams and other greats.

1998 – Mayor Reed, the City of Harrisburg, the Harrisburg Senators and the Harrisburg Negro League Commemorative Committee led by Calobe Jackson, Jr. begin an annual tradition of honoring Harrisburg’s great Black Baseball past each year at a special Harrisburg Senators game.