The Cleveland Buckeyes, Triumph and Tragedy

During its eight-year tenure, the Negro American League Cleveland Buckeyes exhibited star players and claimed a Negro League World Series title and a Negro American League pennant. The team made history as it fielded the first white player in the Negro Leagues and saw two players killed and five people (four players and the general manager) injured in a tragic automobile accident. From its inception, the team was competitive and staffed with talented players, yet struggled to attract fans and media attention. The Buckeyes faced a great challenge to compete with the Cleveland Indians once that team became the first in the American League to integrate with the addition of Larry Doby in 1947. In an attempt to salvage the team, owner Ernest Wright and business manager Wilbur Hayes moved the Buckeyes to Louisville, Kentucky, with the hope of gaining better attendance there. When that plan failed, the team returned to Cleveland in 1950 and folded for good before the end of summer.

The Buckeye story begins at the end of the 1941 season. Even though a number of black professional teams had called Cleveland home before this point, the Buckeyes were the first major circuit team that sustained itself over a number of years in the city. In 1941 Wright, a native of Erie, Pennsylvania, purchased the semipro Cleveland White Sox, as well as a half-interest in the St. Louis Stars. His plan included a merger of six Stars players with the White Sox, while Hayes would oversee the business operations of the team. While Wright and Hayes initially had ambitious plans to build the new team its own stadium, it would play in League Park on Cleveland’s east side throughout its existence.1 By the end of 1941, team officials decided to name the team the Cleveland and Cincinnati Buckeyes for the 1942 season, with plans to share time in other Ohio cities, among them Youngstown, Columbus, Springfield, and Dayton.2 By the 1943 season, Cincinnati had dropped from the title.

The Cleveland Call and Post hoped that the Buckeyes would draw 10,000 to 15,000 fans during their first season in 1942, with people coming to see budding stars such as pitchers Eugene Bremmer and Willie Jefferson, catcher “Buster” Brown, third baseman Parnell Woods, outfielder Sam Jethroe, and first baseman Archie Ware. However, the paper claimed that the team struggled to draw more than 1,000 fans to most home games.3 Despite the perception that fans were not interested in them, the Buckeyes still managed to claim one of the best first-half records in the Negro American League in 1942. Some Call and Post writers encouraged the Cleveland Indians to offer a tryout for three Buckeyes-Parnell Woods, Eugene Bremmer, and Sam Jethroe-by the summer of 1942. Indians owner Alva Bradley scouted the players at the East-West All-Star game held in Cleveland that summer. When all three players performed poorly during the game, Bradley passed on signing them to integrate the Indians.4 The 1942 season came to a tragic end for the Buckeyes when one of the three vehicles team members were traveling in was involved in an accident at three in the morning on Route 20 outside Geneva, Ohio. Catcher Ulysses “Buster” Brown and pitcher Raymond “Smokey” Owens were killed instantly, pitchers Eugene Bremmer and Herman Watts were critically injured, and general manager Wilbur Hayes and pitcher Alonzo Boone were mildly injured. The team still managed to complete its last several weeks of games following the tragedy.5

Despite their difficult first year, there were positive events in store for the Buckeyes by 1945. At the peak of its popularity, the team managed to conquer the powerhouse Negro National League Homestead Grays in that year’s Negro League World Series. The two teams were scheduled to face off against each other at League Park and the much larger Municipal Stadium in Cleveland, as well as in New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C.6 At the end of the 1945 season, there was a temporary fear that the Buckeyes did not qualify for that year’s World Series, even though the Buckeyes had won more games than any other team through the first and second halves of the season.

Teams were required to play at least thirty games per half in order to qualify for the championship series. League officials initially believed that Cleveland did not play in enough games to qualify for the World Series, although additional Buckeye games were discovered at the last minute. Without the discovery of these games, the Buckeyes would have been forced into a four-game playoff with Chicago, even though Chicago had won fewer games than the Cleveland squad.7 The Buckeyes went on to dominate the Grays in a four-game sweep. The team made it back to the Negro League World Series in 1947 as the American League champions, yet lost to New York Cubans four games to one. Sandwiched between these championship years, the Buckeyes became the only Negro League team to have a white player, Eddie Klep, a left-handed pitcher. An offseason pickup to solidify the bullpen, Klep never performed well and was let go early in the 1946 season.

The 1948 Cleveland Indians won the World Series with Larry Doby and Negro League mainstay Satchel Paige. It became more and more difficult for the Buckeyes to compete with the popular Indians, who already had those two noteworthy African American players, with several more waiting in the minors. By the end of the 1948 season, the Buckeyes announced a move to Louisville, Kentucky. In July 1949 the team returned to Cleveland for a benefit game for the Karamu House community theater, which drew 5,541 fans for a double-header with the Indianapolis Clowns and raised $5,000 for the theater. Wilbur Hayes admitted to the Call and Post that he had likely made a mistake by moving to Louisville, since the Buckeyes did not fare much better in that city.8 By 1949, Hayes and Ernest Wright faced legal action for failing to pay bills and wages, including the salary of star pitcher Eugene Bremmer.9

In 1950 former Buckeyes outfielder Sam Jethroe, now with the Boston Braves, became the oldest Rookie of the Year, a triumph for the player who had been overlooked by the Indians in 1942 and the Boston Red Sox in 1945. The Buckeyes struggled to remain solvent without many of their star players and increasing competition for African American talent at all levels of the game. During the 1950 season, the Call and Post estimated that only about 1,200 people on average attended Buckeyes games, a total that writers believed did not cover the team’s stadium rental fees.10 The poor attendance, coupled with existing financial difficulties and a losing record, caused the team to fold by the end of summer in 1950.

The Buckeyes’ time in Cleveland included extreme highs and extreme lows. The team had phenomenal seasons on the field, particularly in 1945, when the Buckeyes defeated the heavily favored Homestead Grays in the Negro League World Series. At other points during their tenure in the city, the Buckeyes faced poor attendance and financial troubles, especially after the Indians integrated in 1947, in addition to that tragic automobile accident. Despite these ups and downs, the Buckeyes left their mark on Negro League baseball and the city of Cleveland. 

 

 

NOTES

1. Al Sweeney, “Hayes-Wright Purchase Interest in St. Louis Stars; Game Sun.,” Call and Post, July 5, 1941.

2. “Cleveland Nine to Be Named Buckeyes by Local Owners,” Call and Post, November 29, 1941.

3. John Fuster, “Slugging Josh Gibson and Famous Homestead Club to Play Bucks Here on July 19,”Call and Post, July 11, 1942.

4. “Trio Is Not Good Enough for Big League Is Edict After Army-Navy Game Here,” Call and Post, September 12, 1942.

5. “Ace Battery, Owens-Brown Killed Instantly as Truck Rams Auto on Highway 20,” Call and Post, September 12, 1942.

6. “5-Game Schedule,” Call and Post, September 15, 1945.

7. Bob Williams, “Sports Rambler,” Call and Post, September 15, 1945.

8. “Hayes Tells What ‘appened [sic] to Cleveland Buckeyes,” Call and Post, July 23, 1949.

9. “Indians May Be Losing, But Buckeyes’ Bosses Facing Court Room Squeeze Play,” Call and Post, August 13, 1949;”Eugene Bremmer, Vet Buckeye Hurler, Has a Beef About Some Wages Due,” Call and Post, August 27, 1949; “Bucks’ Manager Says Bremmer Did Not State Facts,” Call and Post, September 17, 1949.

10. John Fuster, “Let’s Junk Negro Baseball Leagues,” Call and Post, July 8, 1950.