The All-Star Baseball Champs You've Never Heard Of
The 1934 Chatham Coloured All-Star Champions. Photo Credit: The Chatham Daily News
Long before Jackie Robinson integrated American professional baseball, there was a championship team of Black Canadian baseball All-Stars fighting for their right just to play the game they loved.
In 1934, the Chatham Coloured All-Stars made baseball history — they were the only all-black, small-town Ontario baseball team to become OBAA champions, and they did it just one year after joining the league.
National Geographic Contributing Writer and award-winning travel journalist Heather Greenwood Davis takes us to Chatham, Ontario to learn about this incredible team’s run for the championship. Along the way, Heather shows us the importance of shining a light on Canada’s shockingly little-known Black history, its widely whitewashed role in North American civil rights history and the fight that continues to get these trailblazing men the recognition they have so long deserved.
From the New York Times, December 12, 2020:
Baseball Rights a Wrong by Adding Negro Leagues to Official Records
More than 3,400 players from seven leagues that operated from 1920 to 1948 will now be considered major leaguers in a move that will shake up the record books… (read more)
Some Useful Links
Chatham Kent Black Historical Society and Black Mecca Museum
A Sporting Chance: Achievements of African-Canadian Athletes — By Bill Humber
Breaking the Colour Barrier Project, from the University of Windsor
The Negro League Baseball Museum
Chatham All-Stars Etsy page (comic book and cards
LISTEN NOW: Jay Kipps Band (thanks for the amazing theme song!)