Uniform Redux: Indianapolis Clowns

It's been a while since I have posted one of these Negro League uniform redux concepts. Next up, the Inidanapolis Clowns.

From NegroLeagueBaseball.com:

Playing variously as the Indianapolis Clowns and Cincinnati Clowns, the club was the only clowning team to earn entrance into black baseball's "majors." From its beginnings as the Miami Giants and transition to the Ethiopian Clowns, the team built a national following as one of baseball's favorite entertainment attractions during the 1930s. Though the Clowns always played a credible brand of baseball, their Harlem Globetrotter-like clowning routines was the stuff that paid the bills and brought them national attention


In 1943 the club (then playing as the Cincinnati Clowns) toned down its clowning routines to become a member of the Negro American League, a league affiliation which it maintained through the end of the Negro Leagues' golden age in 1949 and beyond. Though the club routinely fielded a quality lineup, the Clowns failed to capture an NAL pennant during this period.


After the demise of the Negro National League and integration of organized baseball the Clowns gradually returned to their clowning routines as a measure of financial necessity. During the early 1950s the team had the distinction of signing a young Hank Aaron who would, of course, ultimately become baseball's all-time homerun king.