Baseball’s First Colored World Series

In 1924, after the Hilldale Giants captured the league crown in the new Eastern Colored League and the Kansas City Monarchs won out in the four-year-old Negro National League, the two teams met in a best-of-nine series for the world championship. But a 13-inning tie in Game 4 and alternating wins throughout would force a tenth and deciding game, making it the longest World Series—black or white—in the modern era.
This heavily illustrated volume provides a comprehensive account of the first championship series played between teams from two all-black professional leagues. It provides commentary, records, and full statistics for each club’s regular season performance, along with biographical profiles of the players. Coverage also includes position-by-position comparisons of the Series combatants; a breakdown of the attendance, gate receipts, and team shares; game-by-game summaries; comments from the players; and complete statistics—including pitcher-batter matchups—for both teams.

Noted Negro League historian Larry Lester is the author of eight books and contributor to more then 175 books, theses, and articles on black sports history. He is a Negro Leagues Baseball Museum co-founder and has long served as chairman of the SABR Negro Leagues Committee. Since 1998, he has organized the annual Jerry Malloy Negro League Conference, the only scholarly gathering devoted to the history of black baseball. Lester was a 2016 recipient of SABR’s Henry Chadwick Award, honoring baseball’s greatest researchers, and a year later received the Bob Davids Award, SABR’s highest honor. He lives in Kansas City, Missouri.

Larry Lester
Format: softcover (7 x 10)
Pages: 261
Bibliographic Info: 82 photos, appendices, index
Copyright Date: 2014 [2006]
pISBN: 978-0-7864-9557-3
eISBN: 978-0-7864-8736-3
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments      vii

Preface      1

1. The Makings of the First Colored World Series      7

2. The Race for the 1924 World Series Championship      35

3. Scouting Reports      47

4. The Ten Games      104

5. The Series in Summary      182

6. Greenbacks      188

Appendices:

1: Program for the First Colored World Series      193

2: Series Batting Order      217

3: Game by Game Log      218

4: Home and Away Splits, by Player and by Pitcher      223

5: Player Performance Against League Competition, by Team      230

6: Batter versus Pitcher Match-Ups During the World Series      241

Index      245

“significant”—Sports Collectors Digest; “a well-documented look at the 1924 series. Larry Lester has provided a fascinating and well-researched look into the first Negro League World Series, filling a gap that has existed until now in the literature”—Journal of Sport History; “a wonderful resource”—Black Ball: A Negro Leagues Journal; “heavily illustrated with detailed play-by-plays, box scores and statistics”—The SABR Bulletin.