A resurrection of owner Alex Pompez's Cuban Stars from earlier years, the Cubans played in the Negro National League from 1935 to 1950 except for two seasons (1937-1938). Playing their home games in the Polo Grounds, they fielded a strong ballclub in 1935, winning the second half title, but lost the league championship playoffs to the powerful Pittsburgh Crawfords, 4 games to 3.
After a losing season in 1936, the Cubans did not field a team for two seasons, but rejoined the Negro National League in 1939, and two years later again captured the second half title, but lost to the Homestead Grays in the league championship playoffs, 3 games to 1. Finally, in 1947, the Cubans copped a pennant, and then captured the championship by defeating the Negro American League's Cleveland Buckeyes in the ensuing World Series. After the Negro National League folded following the 1948 season, the Cubans joined the Eastern Division of the Negro American League.
Gaylord Perry once referred to Killebrew as "Ma Bell" because he hit for long distance.
And no one at the time lingered so long in the batter's box to admire his power-ball handiwork. Though the behavior seemed contrary to his modest personality, Killebrew is widely regarded to have been the first player to delay his home run trot in order to monitor, and perhaps admire, his launches. Reggie Jackson, Dave Parker, Rickey Henderson and Barry Bonds took it to new levels, but they were mimicking Killer.
He hit the longest measured home runs at Metropolitan Stadium and Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, and in 1962 was the first to clear the left-field roof at Tiger Stadium in Detroit.
The longest running franchise in Negro League history is the Monarchs from Kansas City, Missouri. They were charter members of the Negro National League in 1920.
Winners of more than a dozen league championships, the Monarch name became the Negro League's answer to the New York Yankees. They won their first World Series title in 1924, defeating the Hilldale Giants, from Philadelphia, in a thrilling ten-game series. Some of black baseball's best players wore the Monarch uniform; Cool Papa Bell, Turkey Stearnes, Newt Allen, Jesse Williams, Bonnie Serrell, Wilber Rogan, and a fellow they called Skip, Buck O'Neil.
The Monarchs sent the most players into Major League Baseball after the color barrier was broken. Some players from this elite group were Jackie Robinson, Satchel Paige, Ernie Banks, Elston Howard, Hank Thompson and Willard "Home Run" Brown. The Monarchs were black baseball's glamour franchise.
One of the truly legendary teams of black baseball the American Giants club was formed in 1911 by Andrew "Rube" Foster. After establishing the American Giants as the premier independent team in the West throughout the 1910s, Foster organized the first viable professional black league, the Negro National League, in 1920 with his American Giants as the cornerstone franchise.
During the 1920s the American Giants won five Negro National League pennants and two Negro World Series championships. After Foster's death and the collapse of the original Negro National League, the club played the 1932 season in the Negro Southern League and defeated the Nashville Elite Giants in a playoff for that league's pennant.
Playing as Cole's American Giants the team entered the newly reformed Negro National League in 1933 and took that league's inaugural season honors. In 1937 the club, then under the ownership of Memphis baseball kingpin J.B. Martin, joined other western clubs in the newly formed Negro American League. The team would remain in the NAL through the 1950s, a decade after the collapse of the Negro National League and the end of Negro League baseball's golden era.
From 1920 through 1940 the American Giants played their home games at Shorling Park, a park which dated back to the 1880s and had served as White Sox Park throughout the 1910s. Throughout the 1950s the American Giants called Comiskey Park home.
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