Pittsburgh Crawfords
Est. 1931; in National Negro League; folded at end of 1938 season
The Pittsburgh Crawfords, popularly known as the Craws, were a professional Negro league baseball team based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The team was named after the Crawford Bath House, a recreation center in the Crawford neighborhood of Pittsburgh’s Hill District.[1] The Crawfords were owned by Gus Greenlee. During the mid-1930s, the Crawfords were one of the strongest Negro league teams ever assembled.
History
As Richard L. Gilmore recounts in a history of the team, the Crawfords began as an interracial team of local Hill District youth who played ball together in neighborhood sandlots. As the Hill District teams became more competitive and professionalized, lines of color were drawn. The teams became formalized initially through the efforts of Bill Harris (originally of Calhoun, Alabama) and Teenie Harris (no relation) who managed teams that emerged from local Hill schools. Bill played with a team, which he later managed, from McKelvey High School, while Teenie’s team formed from the Watt School. Twice the teams faced off resulting in a marginal win for Teenie’s team in both games, prompting the two managers to join forces creating a predominantly black team.[2] Greenlee bought the team in 1931. Stepping into an organizational vacuum, as the major African-American leagues of the 1920s, the Negro National League and the Eastern Colored League, had fallen apart by late that year, Greenlee signed many of the top African-American stars, most notably Satchel Paige. The next year, 1932, saw Greenlee hire Hall of Famer Oscar Charleston as playing manager, and add Hall of Famers Josh Gibson, Judy Johnson, and Cool Papa Bell, along with other notable players, such as William Bell, Rap Dixon, Sam Bankhead and Ted Radcliffe. Playing as an independent club, the Crawfords immediately established themselves as perhaps the best black team in the United States.
The Crawfords played in the new Greenlee Field, one of the few parks built and owned by a Negro league team.[3] Paige and Gibson often unwound at the Crawford Grill, one of black Pittsburgh’s favorite night spots, where the likes of Lena Horne and Bill “Bojangles” Robinson entertained.
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