At the SABR Jerry Malloy Negro League Conference on August 8, 2025, in Louisville, Kentucky, a screening of the new film documentary “I Forgot to Tell You About: The Story of the Cleveland Buckeyes” was followed by a panel with (from left): moderator Leslie Heaphy, former major-league All-Star Kenny Lofton, filmmaker Evelyn Pollard-Gregory, and authors Wayne Pearsall and Vince Guerrieri.

The story of the 1945 Cleveland Buckeyes represents more than just a championship season. It embodies the resilience, determination, and indomitable spirit of Black America during one of our nation’s most challenging periods. As a filmmaker and native Clevelander, discovering this buried chapter of my city‘s history transformed my understanding of both baseball and the Black experience in midcentury America.

Unearthing Cleveland’s Hidden Baseball Legacy

When I grew up in Cleveland, the narrative of baseball centered almost exclusively on the Cleveland Indians (now Guardians). The city’s rich Negro Leagues history remained conspicuously absent from our collective memory. This glaring omission became apparent during my research into Cleveland’s African American heritage, undertaken initially to educate my own children about their roots. The discovery of the Cleveland Buckeyes’ extraordinary 1945 championship season emerged as a revelation – one that demanded to be shared with a broader audience.

The process of uncovering this history revealed not just a championship team, but a complex web of social relationships, economic structures, and community pride that defined Black Cleveland in the 1940s. Local newspapers of the era, particularly the Call and Post, provided invaluable insights into how the team’s success resonated throughout the city’s African American community.

The Buckeyes’ Journey: Triumph from Tragedy

The Cleveland Buckeyes’ story begins with profound loss. In 1942 a devastating automobile accident claimed the lives of two players and left four others seriously injured, threatening the team’s very existence. This tragedy occurred against the backdrop of World War II, when many Negro League teams struggled to survive due to players serving in the military and wartime travel restrictions.

The team’s resurrection from these setbacks makes their subsequent achievement even more remarkable. Operating on a shoestring budget, players drove their own vehicles to games, navigating the dangerous landscape of Jim Crow America. Each road trip required careful planning to find safe places to eat, sleep, and refuel – considerations their White counterparts never faced.

The team’s resilience manifested itself in creative solutions to these challenges. Players developed informal networks of safe houses and friendly businesses along their travel routes. Team members often stayed in private homes rather than hotels, creating lasting bonds with Black communities across the country. These connections helped sustain not just the team, but the entire Negro Leagues infrastructure during challenging times.

The Championship Season

The 1945 season marked the pinnacle of the Buckeyes’ resilience. The team dominated the Negro American League, finishing with an impressive regular-season record and winning both halves of the season. During the regular season, the Buckeyes showcased their exceptional talent through stellar pitching performances and clutch hitting. Their roster included several players who in a more just era might have become major-league stars.

Their World Series sweep of the Homestead Grays, featuring five future Hall of Famers, represented a triumph not just for Cleveland, but for the entire Black community during a pivotal moment in American history. The championship series itself was a master class in competitive baseball, with the Buckeyes demonstrating their skill and determination across several closely contested games.

Beyond Baseball: The Negro Leagues’ Cultural Impact

The Negro Leagues served as more than athletic entertainment – they were vital institutions within the Black community. Teams like the Buckeyes provided economic opportunities, created jobs, and established spaces where African Americans could gather with dignity during the Jim Crow era. League games became social events, drawing crowds that crossed racial boundaries and challenging prevailing segregation norms.

Local businesses thrived on game days, with restaurants, hotels, and transportation services all benefiting from the team’s presence. The Buckeyes’ success helped establish Cleveland as a major center for Black baseball, contributing to the city’s reputation as a relatively progressive Northern destination during the Great Migration.

The Integration Paradox

Jackie Robinson’s historic integration of major-league baseball in 1947 marked a crucial civil rights milestone. However, this progress came at a cost to Negro League institutions. As top talent moved to the National and American League teams, Negro League attendance declined, leading to the eventual dissolution of these once-thriving organizations. The Cleveland Buckeyes’ story exemplifies this bittersweet transition – their championship achievement fading from public memory as integration changed the baseball landscape.

The documentary explores this complex legacy, highlighting how the success of integration paradoxically contributed to the erosion of Black-owned businesses and institutions that had sustained communities through decades of segregation. This perspective adds nuance to the traditional narrative of baseball integration as an unalloyed triumph.

Documenting History: The Filmmaker’s Journey

Creating this documentary required extensive archival research, combining newspaper accounts, photographs, and oral histories. Interviews with surviving family members of Buckeyes players provided intimate perspectives on the personal sacrifices and triumphs these athletes experienced. The challenge lay in weaving together fragmented historical records to construct a compelling narrative that honors these forgotten heroes.

The research process revealed numerous previously unknown stories and connections. Through painstaking investigation of personal archives, church records, and community newsletters, I uncovered rich details about the players’ lives off the field and their connections to Cleveland’s Black community.

The Educational Imperative

As Director of the Black Film Institute at Simmons College of Kentucky, I recognize this project’s educational significance. The documentary serves multiple purposes: preserving vital history, celebrating African American achievement, and illuminating the complex relationship between racial progress and community institutions. By incorporating this story into curriculum materials, we can ensure that future generations understand the full scope of baseball’s role in American civil rights history.

Technical Challenges and Creative Solutions

Documenting historical events from an era with limited visual records presented unique challenges. The production team worked closely with historical societies and archives across the country to locate and restore rare footage and photographs. Advanced digital techniques helped bring black-and-white images to life, while careful sound design recreated the atmosphere of 1940s baseball games.

Community Impact and Contemporary Relevance

The documentary’s impact extends beyond historical preservation. By highlighting the Buckeyes’ triumph over adversity, we draw parallels to contemporary struggles for equality and recognition. The film demonstrates how sports can serve as both a mirror reflecting societal challenges and a catalyst for social change.

Local screenings have sparked important discussions about preserving Black history and recognizing the ongoing impact of historical inequities. The project has also inspired initiatives to commemorate the team’s achievements through historical markers and educational programs.

Legacy and Lessons

The Cleveland Buckeyes’ championship season offers valuable lessons about perseverance, community solidarity, and the importance of preserving marginalized histories. Their story reminds us that progress often comes at a cost, and that celebrating breakthrough achievements shouldn’t overshadow the vibrant institutions that sustained communities through difficult times.

The documentary serves as a catalyst for broader discussions about how we remember and honor Black achievement in American history. It challenges viewers to consider what other important stories might be waiting to be rediscovered and retold.

Conclusion

I Forgot to Tell You About … The Cleveland Buckeyes World Championship represents more than just a sports documentary. It’s a crucial piece of American history that illuminates the intersection of race, sports, and social justice. As communities nationwide grapple with questions of representation and historical memory, the Buckeyes’ story offers insights into both past struggles and present challenges.

The documentary serves as a testament to the power of resilience and community, while highlighting the ongoing need to preserve and celebrate overlooked achievements in African American history. Through this project, we ensure that the Cleveland Buckeyes’ remarkable journey from tragedy to triumph remains a source of inspiration for future generations.

To see the film, please visit agvfilms.com and the IMDB website at imdb.com/title/tt29623761.

EVELYN R. GREGORY is a dynamic director, screenwriter, and film production educator recently appointed as Director of the Black Film Institute at Simmons College of Kentucky. Her work spans collaborations with PBS American Portrait, State Educational Departments, and various organizations, focusing on telling diverse stories that connect generations through multiple media platforms. In her current role, she is creating compelling documentaries that illuminate the college’s rich history and its pivotal connections to civil rights and Black advancement, while nurturing the next generation of diverse voices in cinema.

Sports were in a precarious position as well. High-school, college, and minor-league teams suspended operations as men who would play or coach joined the service. Professional football teams merged, and although major-league baseball was deemed vital for morale in Franklin Roosevelt’s “green light letter,” a “work or fight” order – similar to the one that curtailed parts of two major-league seasons in World War I – was considered. Ultimately, the All-Star Game was canceled and travel was limited for the 1945 season.

Things were even more tenuous in the Negro leagues. If major-league baseball had a green light, the Negro leagues, formed as a place for Black ballplayers to play for largely Black crowds, had an “amber light,” according to the Call and Post, the newspaper serving Cleveland’s Black community.1

In the league’s spring meetings, travel was cut 25 percent, and expansion was limited. But it still looked as though a good season was shaping up for Cleveland’s entry into the Negro American League, the Buckeyes.

The Buckeyes had started three years earlier, and originally were scheduled to split their time between Cleveland and Cincinnati. But the team made League Park its full-time home – unlike the Indians, who were splitting time between League Park and Municipal Stadium, which had lights installed for night baseball – in 1943.

Prior to the 1945 season, the Buckeyes lured Quincy Trouppe from the Mexican League to become the team’s player-manager. Trouppe, a catcher, drew favorable comparisons to Josh Gibson, regarded as the greatest player in the Negro leagues – and probably one of the greatest in any league. “He hits the ball hard and is a fine receiver, with a true fast-throwing arm and the ability to catch and throw with lightning like speed,” said Buckeyes general manager Wilbur Hayes.2

Pittsburgh Courier sports editor Wendell Smith called the Buckeyes the American League’s most balanced team and picked them to win the pennant, writing, “On paper, Cleveland has the best team in the Western circuit.”3

The season was scheduled to begin on May 6, divided into two halves. The first half would begin with the Buckeyes playing the two-time defending NAL champions, the Birmingham Black Barons, and end on the Fourth of July, with the Buckeyes playing the Monarchs in Kansas City. The Monarchs had won four straight Negro League championships ending in 1942, and were expected to contend again, with their newest player, a former UCLA football star named Jackie Robinson, and Satchel Paige, regarded as one of the best pitchers of his day.

As the Buckeyes made their way through spring training in Oklahoma and Texas, including a doubleheader split against the New York Cubans in New Orleans on April 8, Jethroe was called to try out for the Boston Red Sox.4 Could the Buckeyes lose their best player – but to the major leagues, which was all White under a “gentlemen’s agreement”? As it turned out, the tryout was just to keep some Boston officials happy and allow the Red Sox to continue to use Fenway Park for Sunday baseball. Jethroe was never even informed by the team that he didn’t make the cut.

The Buckeyes were ready to open the season against the Barons, who the Call and Post said were feeling cocky. But the Buckeyes were feeling optimistic too. “We put up a good fight and held our own,” Hayes said after splitting a six-game preseason series in Texas with the Cuban All-Stars. “Trouppe’s great catching is making all the difference with our pitching staff.”5

Eugene Bremer (sometimes spelled Bremmer) got the nod in the first game of the season-opening twin bill at Birmingham. Closing in on age 30, the 5-foot-9 pitcher had 13 years’ experience and three all-star appearances (he would add a fourth in 1945).

A native of New Orleans, Bremer started his pro career with his hometown Crescent Stars in 1932. Three years later, he latched on with the Shreveport Giants, followed by a stint with the Cincinnati Tigers, which found a home in the Negro American League when it was founded in 1937. A year later, Bremer ended up in Memphis, where he spent three years. He sat out 1941, but split 1942 between Memphis and the newly formed Ohio Buckeyes. By 1943, the Buckeyes made Cleveland their permanent home, and Bremer continued to pitch for them, as he was turned down from the service in World War II.6

Bremer threw a shutout to open the 1945 season, but the Buckeyes didn’t fare so well in the nightcap, losing 9-3 to split. Willie Jefferson, who played for the Buckeyes with his brother George, took the loss.

The Buckeyes then made their way north, playing a doubleheader the following Sunday, May 13, against the Chicago American Giants – in two different states. Cleveland beat Chicago 9-8 in a game in Dayton, Ohio, behind home runs by Jethroe and Avelino Cañizares, then crossed the state line to win the nightcap 14-2 in Indianapolis, sparked by a nine-run fifth inning. General manager Wilbur Hayes said the team drew 2,500 in Dayton and 5,000 in Indianapolis.7

Cleveland Call and Post, May 26, 1945

The Buckeyes then embarked on an arduous tour leading up to the May 27 home opener. They played a doubleheader against the Cincinnati-Indianapolis Clowns on May 20, met them again for an exhibition game at Red Bird Stadium (later known as Cooper Stadium) in Columbus two days later, and played the Fremont Green Sox at Swayne Field in Toledo two days after that.8 The Buckeyes split the Sunday twin bill with the Clowns to roll into Cleveland tied for first place with Memphis, at 4-2.

Meanwhile, rumors were circulating about Black players in the White major leagues. Washington Senators owner Clark Griffith was accusing Branch Rickey of setting himself up as “the guiding light behind a new colored U.S. League,” issuing an ultimatum to the Negro American and Negro National Leagues to join a new league or else. “Mr. Rickey is attempting to destroy two well organized leagues which have been in existence for some time and in which colored people of this country have faith and confidence,” Griffith said.9

Nearly 10,000 fans crammed into League Park at East 66th Street and Lexington Avenue on May 27 for the home opener for the Buckeyes, to play the Memphis Red Sox in a doubleheader. The two teams were tied atop the standings of the Negro American League.

Led by player-manager Larry Brown, the Red Sox, like their major-league namesakes of the same time, were always regarded as long on talent but short on results. (They were also one of the few Negro League teams to have their own ballpark, Martin Park.)

Almost immediately, Buckeye fans were given excitement. Cañizares hit an inside-the-park home run, and Parnell Woods stole home for another run as the Buckeyes won the first game 3-1. George Jefferson started for the Buckeyes in the first game, but he gave way to brother Willie. The Buckeyes were able to turn a pair of double plays, a testament to the improved fundamentals player-manager Trouppe had been pushing since spring training dawned. The Buckeyes exploded for five runs in the fifth inning of the second game to gain a 6-2 win and a sweep of the doubleheader.

Three days later, the teams met for a Decoration Day doubleheader on Wednesday, May 30.10 Again, the Buckeyes swept the Red Sox. The Buckeyes won the first game handily, 14-2, but were down two runs in the second game and down to their last out, when Avelino Cañizares laced a two-run single to tie the game. In the 10th, Woods tripled, and was singled home with the winning run by Archie Ware.

The Buckeyes had won four straight from the Red Sox, and were now sitting alone atop the standings, two games up in the loss column over the perpetual power Kansas City Monarchs.

As June dawned, Call and Post sports editor Bob Williams was completely sold on the Buckeyes. “They are quite a ball club, fortified in all departments,” he said.11

Williams gave most of that credit to owner Ernie Wright, who was more than willing to spend for a championship, and one of Wright’s key acquisitions, player-manager Quincy Trouppe. Williams’s column in the June 2 edition of the weekly newspaper exhorted fans to support the team. “Cleveland fans will help get that championship team by their support and attendance at the home games,” he wrote.12

The Clowns were scheduled to come to Cleveland the following weekend, but rain washed out the scheduled doubleheader on June 3. The Buckeyes then took to the road, with games in Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. They won three of four from the Clowns, losing to them in Buffalo on June 10, and six of eight from the Red Sox, who were quickly becoming the team’s punching bag. The Buckeyes also beat the Kansas City Monarchs 5-0 in Belleville, Illinois, on June 8, coming within one hit of a perfect game. The Buckeyes were up two games on the Monarchs in the loss column in the Negro American League when they returned to Cleveland for a doubleheader against the Chicago American Giants on June 17, “drunk with recent successes” with “blood in their collective eyes and a yen for bear,” according to the Call and Post.13 But the Buckeyes were only able to split the twin bill against the American Giants – and might not have even done that were it not for a controversial call.

The first game seemed interminable, locked in a tie going into the 13th inning. Cañizares walloped a double to lead off the home half of the inning. Ducky Davenport hit a comebacker to the pitcher, Gready McKinnis, who tried unsuccessfully to take Cañizares out at third. Davenport was safe at first, and the winning run was 90 feet away from home. An intentional walk loaded the bases, and Parnell Woods was up to bat.

With the infield pulled in, Woods hit a chopper to short. The shortstop threw home. It was a bang-bang play, and catcher Tommie Dukes missed the tag on Cañizares. Umpire Harry Walker called the runner safe, winning the game for the Buckeyes. Walker was immediately besieged by Chicago players and manager Candy Jim Taylor, who had come to Chicago after leading the Homestead Grays to back-to-back Negro World Series. Police had to separate the umpire from the American Giants.

Walker later said that Dukes missed the tag, and his foot was off home plate, so Cañizares was safe at home.

The second game started without incident, and the American Giants beat the Buckeyes 6-1. The two teams met for another doubleheader the following weekend – after games in Dayton, Indianapolis, Muncie, Indiana, and Toledo – as the end of the first half of the season drew near.

The Buckeyes chased Lefty McKinnis from the mound in the fourth inning, and then four innings later, battered Sug Cornelius. The Buckeyes batted around in the eighth inning, scoring eight runs on the way to a 17-2 win that saw every Buckeye player get a hit and score a run. George Jefferson got the win on the mound for Cleveland. There was still offense to come in the second game, a 10-1 win for the Buckeyes. Sam Jethroe went 7-for-9 at the plate in the doubleheader, 3-for-5 in the first game, and 4-for-4 in the nightcap, including an inside-the-park home run.

As June drew to a close, the Buckeyes were 27-9, with a three-game lead over the second-place Birmingham Black Barons and 11 games up on the Kansas City Monarchs. Jethroe was leading the league in hits, total bases, triples (with Trouppe), and home runs. Buckeyes teammates Archie Ware and Parnell Woods led the league in RBIs and stolen bases respectively.

The next stop was Ruppert Stadium in Kansas City, where the Buckeyes played the Monarchs – four games in as many days – a doubleheader on July 1, and another twin bill on Independence Day. The Buckeyes swept the first doubleheader, coming from behind in both games, and won the holiday doubleheader as well.

Cleveland Call and Post, July 7, 1945

The Buckeyes then swept the Cubans in a July 8 exhibition doubleheader, including a win over Luis Tiant Sr., and returned home as first-half champions, with a record of 31-9.

The Buckeyes beat the Atlanta Black Crackers, 9-1 in an exhibition July 12,14 before opening the second half, like the first half, against the Birmingham Black Barons. They first played a doubleheader in Louisville on July 15, and then the next day returned to Cleveland, not to League Park on the city’s east side, but 60 blocks west to Municipal Stadium, on the lakefront in downtown Cleveland, which had more than double the seating capacity – and lights. It was the first home night game of the season for the Buckeyes, who had a significant lead on the Barons, in part because the Barons played a fuller exhibition schedule on the East Coast.

The game was to benefit the Future Outlook League, an organization founded a decade earlier to get jobs for African Americans.15 Combating the prejudice of the era with tactics like rent strikes and boycotts (one slogan was “Don’t buy where you can’t work”), the league was able to find work for many African Americans.16 American entry into World War II led to increased employment opportunities for everyone, including African Americans, and the league was starting to refocus as the war drew to an end.

The game was part of a $150,000 fundraising campaign for a recreation center (ultimately, never built as the league’s power continued to dissipate into the 1950s), and a crowd of more than 15,000 was anticipated – including, rumor had it, major-league scouts who were evaluating the Negro League talent, which the Buckeyes and Barons had in abundance.

For the Buckeyes, not only did George Jefferson have a record of 7-1 pitching, but he was batting .433, 31 points ahead of Ed Steele, the Birmingham outfielder in second place. Jefferson’s teammate with the Buckeyes, Sam Jethroe, was hitting .394, and led the league with 31 runs, 56 hits, and 84 total bases. Parnell Woods led the league with 30 RBIs. Overall, the Buckeyes led the league with a .313 batting average, 213 runs scored, and 8 home runs. Defensively, they had a .965 fielding percentage, nine points over Kansas City, in second place. And as good as the Buckeyes were, they were getting better. They added Duro Davis from the Indianapolis Clowns.

The game was expected not just to be an event, but a pitched battle between two of the best teams in the Negro Leagues. And it was a battle – just not the kind that was envisioned.

In the bottom of the third, umpire James Thompson called the Buckeyes’ Avelino Cañizares safe in a bang-bang play at first. Words were exchanged, and Thompson found himself in a confrontation with several Barons players. Home-plate umpire Harry Walker threw out the Barons’ Lorenzo Davis, nicknamed Piper for his hometown in Alabama. Piper Davis, a foot taller and about 60 pounds heavier than Thompson, sucker-punched the umpire, who “fell over backwards like an obedient ten-pin, without even buckling in the knees.”17

The crowd turned instantly. Fans were enraged, and “had the shameful incident occurred at League Park, where the fans are closer to the playing field, serious consequences might have developed.”18 Davis left under a police escort and Thompson swore out a complaint for assault and battery.19 The Buckeyes won 6-2, almost as an afterthought.

After a game against the Barons the next day in Columbus, the Buckeyes’ next opponent was the Clowns, the team that was trying to supplant the Buckeyes in Cincinnati. The Clowns began as an independent barnstorming team, the Ethiopian Clowns. They then split their time between Cincinnati and Indianapolis (ultimately making Indianapolis their full-time home starting in 1946). And after the debacle in the night game the previous week at Municipal Stadium between the Buckeyes and the Birmingham Black Barons, the Clowns lost to the Buckeyes in a game in St. Marys, Ohio, on July 21, and then played a doubleheader at League Park the following day.

It would be their first trip to Cleveland that season, and the Buckeyes took both games. The game was also notable for an appearance by James Thompson, who had been sucker-punched by the Barons’ Piper Davis a week earlier. Davis, in addition to facing a criminal charge of assault and battery, had been suspended by Barons owner Abe Saperstein (who also owned the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team – which Davis played for as well).

Up next for the Buckeyes, on July 24, was probably the most famous Negro League team of all time: the Kansas City Monarchs. The big draw – and he would definitely take the mound against the Buckeyes – was ace pitcher Leroy “Satchel” Paige. Satch, who would find himself in front of Cleveland baseball fans again just three years later in an Indians uniform, was an ageless wonder who could seemingly pitch every day. He was already nearly 20 years into a career that saw him pitch across the Western Hemisphere, in the Negro Leagues (including, briefly in Cleveland for the 1931 Cleveland Cubs), on barnstorming tours, and in Central and South America (occasionally, as he’d tell it, at the point of a gun).20

The Monarchs were a dynasty in the Negro Leagues in the early 1940s, thanks in no small part to Paige. But they also featured a fierce competitor and all-around athlete named Jack Roosevelt Robinson. Jackie Robinson was an Army veteran and lettered in four sports at UCLA. He had never played professional baseball and was coaching (and occasionally playing) college basketball at Samuel Houston College in Austin, Texas, when the Monarchs came calling.

And Robinson stepped into the batter’s box against Eugene Bremer in the top of the ninth at League Park, with the Monarchs down 3-0. He hit a long fly ball more than 400 feet down the left-field line, and it cleared the fence – just inches outside the foul line, under the watchful eye of third-base umpire James Thompson, making his return to umpiring after his knockout at the hands of Piper Davis a little more than a week earlier at Municipal Stadium. Robinson then stepped back into the batter’s box and hit another drive, not as long, but long enough down the right-field line to end the shutout with a solo home run.

John Scott then hit a comebacker to Bremer for the first out. Lee Moody singled to right, and then advanced to second on a groundout by pinch-hitter Hilton Smith. Chester Gray came in to pinch-run and scored on a double by Jack Matchett. It was now a one-run game with the tying run at second and two outs. Pinch-hitter Jim LaMarque flied out to end the game.

Cleveland Call and Post, July 28, 1945

The pennant was within reach for the Buckeyes, but first came the year’s biggest showcase: the East-West Game, the Negro League all-star game.

The East-West All-Star Game started in the same year as the major-league-baseball All-Star Game, 1933. In fact, both were played at Comiskey Park in their first year.

The major league All-Star Game was originally conceived as a one-off by Chicago Tribune sports editor Arch Ward to coincide with the Century of Progress World’s Fair of 1933, but became an annual tradition, for decades providing the only opportunity outside of exhibitions and the World Series where players from the National and American Leagues would meet.

The East-West Game was divided not by leagues but by geographic regions, with Pittsburgh serving as the westernmost point to be considered part of the “East.” The game was created to be a moneymaker for owners of Negro League teams, who were subject not just to the Depression, but to the prejudices of the day – which could also take a toll on their pocketbooks.

By 1945, the game had become an event unto itself, even regularly outdrawing the mainstream All-Star Game – a trend that would continue by default that year, as wartime travel restrictions eliminated the All-Star Game, replacing it with a series of exhibitions.

While the White All-Star Game had become a moveable feast, traveling to different cities, the East-West Game stayed on the South Side of Chicago, and became a social event for African Americans, with celebrities like Louis Armstrong, Lena Horne, and Joe Louis in attendance. In fact, historian Larry Lester has written that the East-West Game was the biggest event in African American culture except for a fight by the Brown Bomber, Joe Louis.21

In 1945, four Cleveland Buckeye players were selected for the game: catcher-manager Quincy Trouppe, first baseman Archie Ware, pitcher Eugene Bremer, and outfielder Buddy Armour as a reserve. The East-West Game was more democratic than the All-Star Game. Although fans selected the lineups for the first two midsummer classics, for the following 11 years, teams were selected by the managers. The East-West Game lineup was voted on by fans, not at ballparks, but through African American newspapers like the Pittsburgh Courier and the Chicago Defender.

But two of the biggest Negro League stars were not at the game. Josh Gibson had been suspended by his team, the Homestead Grays, for violations of team rules. Satchel Paige refused to play because of a dispute with ownership over how much he’d get paid (as the most popular player in the Negro Leagues, Paige had the kind of leverage that eluded many players; in fact, it was only the year previous that players started receiving a stipend of $200 for playing in the game).22

The 1945 East-West Game, on July 29, was the poorest attended since 1939 – still drawing more than 31,000 fans – thanks in part to scalpers who were asking particularly outlandish prices. The West struck first in the second. The Memphis Red Sox’ Neal Robinson legged out an infield hit. The Indianapolis Clowns’ Alex Radcliffe hit a screamer to right field, ostensibly within reach of Wild Bill Wright of the Baltimore Elite Giants. But Wright didn’t have his sunglasses, and lost the ball in the sun, letting Robinson take third. Robinson and Radcliffe both scored on Ware’s hit into center field. Ware was then caught trying to steal second by Baltimore catcher Roy Campanella.

Trouppe was walked – the first of three free passes for the day – so pitcher Tom Glover could face pitcher Verdell Mathis of Memphis. He singled to left and Trouppe took third. Glover was then relieved by Bill Ricks of Philadelphia, who faced the Monarchs’ Jesse Williams. Williams hit a long drive to right, and Wright – still without his shades – lost what turned into a triple to score Mathis and Trouppe. The West added four more runs in the third for what turned out to be an insurmountable lead. The East put up five runs in the top of the ninth, but their comeback came up short in a 9-6 win for the West, their third triumph in a row.

Ware ended up with two hits and three RBIs. Trouppe got a hit in his only official at-bat. While Trouppe, Ware, Bremer, and Armour were in Chicago, the rest of the Buckeyes were playing the New York Cubans at the Polo Grounds on July 29, dropping both ends of a doubleheader.

There was little more than a month left in the regular season after the East-West All-Star Game, and the Buckeyes, already winners of the first half of the season, had designs on taking the second half as well – and a date in the Negro World Series.

The Buckeyes didn’t have the star power of some other teams – the Homestead Grays had Josh Gibson, regarded as the best power hitter in the Negro leagues (and possibly all of baseball), and the Monarchs had Satchel Paige and Jackie Robinson – but they played well together and had more than their fair share of talent. The entire lineup was hitting over .300, led by Sam Jethroe, who had raised his batting average to a robust .409 and led the league with 16 stolen bases and eight triples. Buddy Armour was fourth in the league with a .360 average, and Archie Ware led the league with 36 RBIs.23

The Buckeyes then went to Detroit, making their first appearance at Briggs Stadium, with an August 5 doubleheader against the Chicago American Giants. The Buckeyes cruised to a win in the first game, 7-3, behind the solid pitching of George Jefferson, and were leading 3-2 after five innings of the second game when Detroit Tigers groundskeeper Neil Conway insisted that the game be called due to inclement weather. Conway was rushed by Chicago players and sought police protection. The next day, he protested to stadium management. “The question of whether to continue the use of the stadium to Negro ball clubs is now being studied,” wrote the Chicago Defender.24

In exhibition on August 7 in South Bend, the Buckeyes clobbered the Hoosier Beers 13-0 on 21 hits.25

Controversy continued to follow the Buckeyes, who won an exhibition game by forfeit on August 8 in Harrisburg against the Elite Giants. Phelbert Lawson was brought on in relief for the Buckeyes in the bottom of the ninth in a game tied, 5-5. Lawson was accused of doctoring the ball, and Henry Kimbro refused to step into the batter’s box unless a new ball was put in play, despite being ordered to do so by umpire Sonny Arp. Kimbro was called out, and further protestations led to Arp’s awarding the game to the Buckeyes by forfeit.

The Buckeyes went to Newark to play an exhibition twin bill against the Eagles on August 12. In the first game, they faced a pitcher who within a few years became part of a major-league organization. Don Newcombe would be signed by the Dodgers the following year and was with the parent club in 1949. Newcombe shut out the Buckeyes in a 4-0 win.

And it appeared that the Buckeyes were going to be swept in the doubleheader, down 3-2 in the top of the seventh, when Cañizares – who’d booted a key grounder in the first game – smashed a triple to center field. He came around to score when Ware – who also allowed an unearned run in the first game with an error – singled, and the game was tied.

In the top of the ninth, Buddy Armour walked and took second on a sacrifice by Earl Ashby. Up stepped Cañizares, who lifted a single into left field, driving in what turned out to be the game-winning run.

The next stop was Birmingham, where the Buckeyes played a doubleheader against the Barons on August 19, beating them once and tying them in the nightcap.

The Buckeyes played the Barons throughout the South, as well as a weeklong series against the Red Sox, with five games in Memphis before returning to Cleveland for a four-game set with the Red Sox, including a twilight-night doubleheader at Municipal Stadium on August 30, to benefit the Future Outlook League. A huge crowd was expected, to celebrate the Buckeyes as well as the end of World War II – and the accompanying lifting of wartime travel restrictions.

The Buckeyes won the first game handily, 7-2, as George Jefferson got his 11th win of the year. Quincy Trouppe homered for the Buckeyes. George’s brother Willie Jefferson pitched the second game, and Buddy Armour hit a home run to tie the game at 4-4. The game ended in a tie, called on account of darkness.

The second half of the season ended with a doubleheader at League Park on September 2 against the Chicago American Giants. Team general manager Wilbur Hayes was honored with a new car to replace the Chevrolet he had used to travel with the team – racking up more than 250,000 miles. The gift took on added significance since cars were hard to come by. (There were no new cars made for the 1943-45 model years, as auto companies had switched to wartime production.) The Buckeyes then swept Chicago and appeared to win the second-half crown as well to serve as the undisputed league champions, with a total record of 72-30, including a regular-season record of 53-15.26

Cleveland Call and Post, September 8, 1945

The Buckeyes would meet the Homestead Grays in the Negro World Series.

The Grays were a dynasty, the two-time defending World Series champs and winners of the last nine Negro National League pennants. The 1945 team had no fewer than five future Hall of Famers: Cool Papa Bell, Ray Brown, Josh Gibson, Buck Leonard, and Jud Wilson. But Cleveland Call and Post sports editor Bob Williams – who would serve as one of three commissioners for the World Series, with legendary Pittsburgh Courier sports editor Wendell Smith and Afro-American Newspapers sports editor Art Carter – liked the Buckeyes’ chances.

“They have made every team in the league look like a bunch of amateurs this season,” he wrote. “And if they fail to cop the title it will be the greatest upset imaginable.”27

Playing baseball in the Negro Leagues was a nomadic existence. It wasn’t uncommon for a team to play on multiple home fields in the same season. The Buckeyes started as a team dividing its time between Cleveland and Cincinnati. The Clowns divided their schedule between Cincinnati and Indianapolis, and the Homestead Grays – started in their eponymous city outside of Pittsburgh – played most of their home games at Griffith Stadium in Washington.

It also entailed numerous exhibitions (although in the days before a strong players’ union, the same thing occurred in the White major leagues as well). So it wasn’t too out of the ordinary to see the Buckeyes take on the Chattanooga Choo Choos in an exhibition on September 9, four days before they were slated to take on the Grays in the Negro World Series.

The Buckeyes beat the Choo Choos 14-5 in a perfect tune-up before more than 5,000 fans at League Park, which hadn’t hosted a World Series game since the Indians beat the Brooklyn Robins in the 1920 fall classic. But while the Buckeyes hosted the first game of the World Series, it wasn’t at League Park. It was under the lights at Municipal Stadium.

It was a long trip for the Buckeyes, who were likened to a team of scrubs just three years earlier. Call and Post sports editor Bob Williams said that Indians owner Alva Bradley, general manager Roger Peckinpaugh, and manager Lou Boudreau attended a game “and went away laughing because of the sloppy, untrained players who cavorted like second-rate sandlotters across the diamond.”28

Willie Jefferson got the nod for the Buckeyes in the series opener on September 13, while Leroy “Lefty” Welmaker started for the Grays. The pitchers traded goose eggs for the first 6½ innings, but in the bottom of the seventh, Quincy Trouppe tripled to deep center, and after Buddy Armour struck out swinging, Johnnie Cowan hit a fly ball to left field that was deep enough to score Trouppe. The Buckeyes were on the board.

In the next inning, Archie Ware hit a screaming line-drive single to left field and advanced to second when Parnell Woods walked. Willie Grace hit a high fly ball to right field, which dropped in for a hit, giving Jefferson an insurance run – which he would need.

In the top of the ninth, Dave Hoskins singled to center with one out, took second on a walk to Buck Leonard and scored on Josh’s Gibson single. Jefferson got Sammy Bankhead to ground into a double play to end the game and give the Buckeyes their first World Series winning game ever.

The second game of the Negro World Series was played three days later, allowing the Buckeyes time to play an exhibition game in Dayton, Ohio, against the Kittyhawks, a team from Wright Field, home to a US Army Air Corps base. The Buckeyes blanked the Kittyhawks, 7-0, handing them their second defeat of the year. (The only other loss was to the Great Lakes Naval Training Station, a team populated with ringers from the White major leagues.)

Eugene Bremer got the nod to start for the Buckeyes, against the Grays’ Johnny Wright. The Grays scratched across a run in the fourth and another in the fifth, but the Buckeyes tied the game in the bottom of the seventh when Willie Grace hit a home run over the towering right-field fence at League Park. Buddy Armour then doubled to right field and scored when Bremer’s grounder to second was booted by Jelly Jackson.

In the bottom of the ninth of the tie game, Trouppe doubled to right and took third on a passed ball by Gibson (who by then was suffering from frequent headaches brought on by the brain tumor that would kill him within 18 months). Wright walked the next two batters to pitch to Bremer, who stroked the game-winning hit to right field.

The Buckeyes had a two-games-to-none lead in the World Series. The Grays won an exhibition in Dayton on September 14. Then the World Series headed to Forbes Field in Pittsburgh for Game Three.

“The 1945 World Series program should turn out to be a corker,” Williams wrote in the Call and Post before the road trip started.29

Cleveland Call and Post, September 15, 1945

The Buckeyes had taken that commanding lead with them into Pittsburgh, but the talent of the Grays, who fielded five future Hall of Famers, made no lead insurmountable. They had won the previous eight Negro National League pennants and two Negro League World Series. They hadn’t been shut out in four years.

That changed with Game Three of the 1945 Negro World Series, on September 18, 1945. Rain forced the cancellation of the game in Pittsburgh at Forbes Field, so the teams traveled on to Washington. Griffith Stadium – the other “home field” for the Grays – was to host Game Four, but instead, it hosted Game Three. In fact, the field didn’t get much of a breather, hosting the Washington Senators and Detroit Tigers that day and the Buckeyes and Grays that night.

Before the game Buckeyes general manager Hayes got a telegram from Harold Burton, the former mayor of Cleveland, then serving as a Republican in the US Senate. (One of his former colleagues, Harry Truman, had just become president, and a day after Game Three, Truman would nominate Burton to the US Supreme Court as a bipartisan gesture. Burton was approved by voice vote – and would be one of the behind-the-scenes forces in 1954 for Brown vs. Board of Education, the Supreme Court decision striking down school segregation.)

George Jefferson got the nod for the Buckeyes, and he was firing bullets, giving up just three hits in his 17th win of the season. He was also the beneficiary of sparkling defense behind him. Second baseman Johnny Cowan did the baseball equivalent of standing on his head, with five fine fielding plays – including one throw from his knees in the third, and a leaping snare of a liner by Buck Leonard. A.B. “Happy” Chandler, the US senator from Kentucky recently appointed baseball commissioner, was said to have remarked to George Preston Marshall, “That was the best play I’ve ever seen in my life.” (Chandler’s presence at the game isn’t surprising. Marshall’s, on the other hand, was; the longtime owner of the NFL’s Washington Redskins might have been the biggest racist in sports.30) Jefferson was staked to a 3-0 lead in the third inning. Willie Grace sacrificed home the first run of the game, and a bases-loaded single by Buddy Armour scored two more runs. The Buckeyes tacked on an insurance run in the ninth and won 4-0. They were one win away from toppling the Grays from atop the Negro Leagues.

Game Four was at Shibe Park in Philadelphia on September 20. The Buckeyes got on the board in the top of the first thanks to a bases-loaded error by Jelly Jackson that scored two runs. It was all starting pitcher Frank Carswell would need.

Carswell picked up right where George Jefferson led off, piling up goose eggs. He got into a little jam in the third inning, hitting Jud Wilson with a pitch. Sam Bankhead erased the runner with a double play, but Ray Brown walked and then took third on a single by Jerry Benjamin. Carswell walked Cool Papa Bell to load the bases, then Dave Hoskins hit a chopper to second, forcing Bell out to end the inning.

The Buckeyes tacked on a run in the fourth on a fly ball by Johnnie Cowan, and two more in the seventh on a two-run single by Sam Jethroe. By then, the outcome of the game wasn’t in doubt.

The Buckeyes won the game, 5-0, their second straight shutout of the Grays, to sweep the World Series. “A betting man with a mad crazy hunch could have gotten rich, literally rich off that series,” wrote Bob Williams in the Call and Post. “Nobody with a grain of reason power would have conceded that Buckeyes four straight victories over the Grays.”

Having followed the team all year, Williams knew they were special. But even he had no idea what they were capable of. “These fellows were great, and we hadn’t really known them at all!”31

The Buckeyes’ Negro League championship was a big deal – to the Black community. Although the team was covered regularly by the Call and Post, it received little notice in the mainstream press. But it wasn’t long before Black baseball players were the toast of Cleveland – although not with the Buckeyes.

Integration was at hand. In its October 29 edition – while the paper was still running sports features on the Buckeyes’ championship – the front page of the Call and Post proclaimed that Jackie Robinson had been signed by the Dodgers organization, and would play the following year for Montreal.

Meanwhile, Bill Veeck, son of the former Cubs executive, had gotten into baseball himself, buying the minor-league Milwaukee Brewers in 1942. After service in the war – where he’d lost part of a leg – he bought the Cleveland Indians in 1946.

In July 1947 Veeck signed Larry Doby, who had played against the Buckeyes with the Newark Eagles. By that time, the National League had already been integrated, by Jackie Robinson – another former Buckeye opponent, with the Kansas City Monarchs. After playing in Montreal in 1946, Robinson made his major-league debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947.

Also by 1947, the Buckeyes were alone as tenants of League Park. Veeck realized that he was leaving money on the table with every game played at East 66th and Lexington, and made Municipal Stadium the Indians’ full-time home. League Park was also home to an NFL team, the Cleveland Rams, but they decamped for Los Angeles after their 1945 season – which also ended in a championship. The new football team in town, the Browns of the All-America Football Conference, practiced at League Park, but used Municipal Stadium for games.

After a lackluster 1946 season in which they finished third in the NAL, the Buckeyes won the pennant in 1947 but lost the World Series to the New York Cubans. By then, the writing was on the wall for them and for Negro League teams. The last Negro World Series was the following year, a win by the Homestead Grays. That same year, the Indians won the World Series – aided in large part by contributions from Black players Doby and Satchel Paige, whose signing was decried in some corners as a publicity stunt. (Paige went 6-1 for a team that was tied on the last day of the regular season, so every victory counted.)

By 1949, the Buckeyes had moved their home base to Louisville, limped through that season, and moved back to Cleveland for the 1950 season but then disbanded.

Although the White major leagues suddenly found themselves stocked with Negro leagues talent, only two of the players from the 1945 Buckeyes made it to the major leagues. Sam Jethroe was named National League Rookie of the Year in 1950 for the Boston Braves. (He remains the oldest player ever to win the honor, at 33.) Quincy Trouppe played for one year for the Indians as well. The title of his autobiography? Twenty Years Too Soon.

VINCE GUERRIERI is a journalist and author in the Cleveland area. He’s the secretary-treasurer of the Jack Graney SABR Chapter and has contributed to the SABR BioProject, the SABR Games Project, and several SABR anthologies. Additionally, he’s written about baseball history for a variety of publications, including Ohio Magazine, Cleveland Magazine, Smithsonian, and Defector. He can be reached at vaguerrieri@gmail.com, or found on Twitter @vinceguerrieri.

Notes

1 “Negro American League Season Begins May 6,” Cleveland Call and Post, March 17, 1945: 6B.

2 “Buckeyes Split Two with Cubans, Good Spring Games,” Cleveland Call and Post, April 14, 1945: 19.

3 Wendell Smith, “The Sports Beat,” Pittsburgh Courier, May 5, 1945: 16.

4 Jackie Robinson was also invited. Further reading: https://sabr.org/journal/article/jackie-robinson-in-1945-from-boston-tryout-to-a-negro-leagues-star/.

5 “Bucks Play Cubans, ‘Rounding Out Nicely,’” Cleveland Call and Post, April 21, 1945: 18.

6 James A. Riley, The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1994), 104. The book doesn’t specify why Bremer was rejected for military service, but notes that he suffered a concussion and skull fracture in a 1942 car wreck near Geneva, Ohio, in which two of his teammates were killed.

7 “Bucks Set to Play in Cleveland May 27,” Cleveland Call and Post, May 19, 1945: 6B.

8 These Green Sox appear to have been a local semipro team. Prior to US involvement in World War II, the Green Sox were a team in the Class-D Ohio State League. Managers included Luke Sewell and Slim Caldwell.

9 Art Flynn, “Griff Says B.R. Would Be Czar of Negro Loops,” The Sporting News, May 24, 1945: 2.

10 Decoration Day, the forerunner to Memorial Day, was annually commemorated on that date; it wasn’t until the 1968 passage of the Uniform Monday Holiday Act that it took its place as the last Monday in May.

11 Bob Williams, “Sports Rambler,” Cleveland Call and Post, June 2, 1945: 6B.

12 “Sports Rambler,” June 2, 1945.

13 Bob Williams, “Buckeyes Leading League; Play Chicago American Giants Here Sunday,” Cleveland Call and Post, June 16, 1945: 6B.

14 Joel W. Smith, “Cleveland Buckeyes Top Black Crax, 9-1,” Atlanta Daily World, July 13, 1945: 5.

15 “Future Outlook League Night Game to Feature League-Leading Bucks,” Cleveland Call and Post, July 7, 1945: 7B.

16 https://case.edu/ech/articles/f/future-outlook-league.

17 Bob Williams, “Attack on Umpire Mars Ball Classic,” Cleveland Call and Post, July 21, 1945: 1A.

18 “Attack on Umpire Mars Ball Classic.”

19 Davis ended up being fined $250 by the league, and was on the hook for an additional $230 in court costs and medical bills.

20 https://nlbm.mlblogs.com/ciudad-trujillo-the-best-baseball-team-youve-never-heard-of-e548db6b98f9.

21 Larry Lester, Black Baseball’s National Showcase: The East-West All-Star Game, 1933-1953 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001), 1.

22 Black Baseball’s National Showcase, 269.

23 “Jethroe Retains Am. League Batting Lead,” Atlanta Daily World, August 16, 1945: 3.

24 “Bucks Defeat Chicago Twice; Calling of Second Creates Trouble,” Chicago Defender (national edition), August 11, 1945: 7.

25 Bob Overaker, “Beers Lose; Host to Memphis Thursday,” South Bend Tribune, August 8, 1945: 16.

26 Like many teams in the Negro Leagues, the Buckeyes played many games that didn’t count in the standings.

27 Bob Williams, “Sports Rambler,” Cleveland Call and Post, September 8, 1945: 6B.

28 “Sports Rambler,” September 8, 1945.

29 Bob Williams, “Sports Rambler,” Cleveland Call and Post, September 22, 1945: 6B.

30 Marshall famously owned the last team in the NFL to integrate, doing so reluctantly to play at the new D.C. Stadium, and when he died in 1969, his will established a charity, the Redskin Foundation, specifying that it “shall never use, contribute or apply any money or property for any purpose which supports or employs the principle of racial integration in any form.” 

31 Bob Williams, “Sports Rambler,” Cleveland Call and Post, September 29, 1945: 6B.

Cleveland in 1945 was a proud, bustling, self-confident industrial city. Part of the Great Lakes region, which also included Buffalo, Detroit, Toledo, Chicago, and Milwaukee, Cleveland was home to iron and steel, electrical, automotive, machine tools, paint, clothing, and many other types of manufacturing, Cleveland factories had very successfully converted to wartime production. By 1943, tanks and airplanes rather than consumer goods were pouring out of Cleveland factories. Many plants worked around the clock and by 1944 women, often referred to as Rosie the Riveter, moved up the employment ladder to fill industrial jobs that opened for them. Neither Nazi Germany nor Imperial Japan had understood how well the United States would fulfill its role as the “Arsenal of Democracy,” as FDR put it.

Most Cleveland industrial workers resided in ethnic neighborhoods like Collinwood, the South Side (today known as Tremont), and Broadway-Fleet in close proximity to their workplaces. These neighborhoods housed the immigrants who had poured into Cleveland from Eastern and Southern Europe between the 1890s and 1924 (the date of a major federal immigration restriction law). Most belonged to Catholic or Orthodox churches and had strong ties to their parish. The women shopped at neighborhood stores and the men drank at neighborhood saloons. Many neighborhoods were badly polluted and run-down because little new housing had been built since the beginning of the Great Depression in 1929.

The residential patterns of African Americans were quite different. During the first Great Migration (1916 to 1918), African Americans had not been able to find housing outside of the Central-Woodland area. The racist housing practices enforced by landlords continued during the 1920s when migration from the Deep South, and especially from Alabama, resumed. And the pattern remained in place between 1941 and 1945 when hundreds of thousands of migrants once again came north seeking a better life. Even if some jobs opened up for them, the new arrivals could not find housing outside of the expanding and densely populated “ghetto” as African American areas of cities had come to be called. Though the new federally sponsored public housing offered an upgrade, it too was segregated.

The rigid segregation actually enhanced African Americans’ efforts to establish a separate institutional life. The church was the most important institution. More established African Americans worshipped at large institutional churches like Antioch Baptist Church and Cory United Methodist Church; the poorer, most recent migrants often attended storefront churches. African Americans also owned barber shops which provided places to socialize and exchange news, and residents often purchased insurance from community residents. Most stores in the ghetto remained White-owned through a Cleveland organization known as the Future Outlook League, headed by John O. Holly, had some success in gaining employment for Blacks with “Don’t shop where you can’t work” campaigns. Big-time racketeers benefited the most from “policy,” as the numbers game was known, but many of the numbers runners were local residents. Wartime earnings meant that many workers had money in their pockets for the first time. The House of Wills served as a community center as well as a funeral home. East 55th Street, where the House of Wills was located, served as a community hub and the center of what became known as the “Black downtown.” Local jazz clubs and juke joints were often packed on weekends. When established in 1942, the Cleveland Buckeyes provided a point of community pride. All of the community events received extensive publicity in the Call and Post, edited by William O. Walker, one of a number of African American newspapers that flourished in the 1940s.

The neighborhood entertainment venues were important because many of Cleveland’s hotels and restaurants would not serve African Americans. As evidence of the racist practices at this time, the popular Euclid Beach Park would admit African Americans only on certain days (the park became the target of militant protests in 1946).

Jesse Owens, Chester Himes, and Langston Hughes had all graduated from Cleveland high schools. Owens had embarrassed Adolf Hitler by winning four Gold Medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games. Hines authored a number of cutting-edge novels and Hughes became one of the nation’s best-known poets and playwrights. Many of Hughes’ plays were performed by the nationally known Gilpin Players at Karamu House, a settlement house that also provided workshop space for a number of talented African American artists and printmakers.

Despite the extent of the segregation, Cleveland had not had a race riot comparable to East St. Louis, Illinois, in 1917, Chicago and many other cities in 1919, Harlem in 1935, and Detroit and New York in 1943. And there had not been the “hate strikes” (protesting the hiring of African American men and women) that occurred in Detroit and Philadelphia in 1943 and 1944.

The Cleveland Cultural Gardens (though lacking an African American garden) symbolized the city’s pride in multiculturalism as did the Anisfeld-Wolf book awards, given annually to books promoting ethnic and racial understanding. The Cleveland City Club hosted speakers representing a number of different perspectives. Not surprisingly, Cleveland in 1945 became one of the first American cities to establish a human relations council.

Thus, it seems appropriate that the Cleveland Buckeyes won the 1945 Negro World Series as the industrial powerhouse on Lake Erie reached its peak population of 900,000. Having celebrated the defeats of Germany and Japan, local residents now celebrated achievements on the playing field.

DAVID J. GOLDBERG received his BA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his PhD from Columbia University. He is the author of A Tale of Three Cities: Labor Organization and Protest in Paterson, Passaic and Lawrence (Rutgers University Press, 1989) and Discontented America – The United States in the 1920s (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999). He has also written numerous articles related to labor and immigration history. He is currently a professor emeritus at Cleveland State University and is working on a new book dealing with Boston, baseball, and American life in the mid-1950s. He teaches upper-division courses on US history in the twentieth century, US foreign policy, and the history of immigration.

Sources

Drake, St. Clair, and Horace R. Cayton, Black Metropolis: A Study of Life in a Northern City, (New York: Harper and Row, 1945, 1962).

Duneier, Duneier, Ghetto, Invention of a Place: The History of an Idea (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2016).

Hammock, David C., Diane L. Grabowski, and John J. Grabowski, Identity, Conflict and Cooperation, Central Europeans in Cleveland, 1850-1930 (Cleveland: The Western Reserve Historical Society (2002).

Kennedy, David, Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999).

Phillips, Kimberly L., AlabamaNorth: African American Migrants Community and Working Class Activism, 1915-1945 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999).

Van Tassel, David D.,  and John G. Grabowski, Encyclopedia of Cleveland History (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1996).

Williams, Regennia N., Cleveland, Ohio (Chicago: Arcadia Press, 2002).

Notes

1 The organization became later known as the Congress of Industrial Organizations, and affiliated with the American Federation of Labor.

The Cleveland Buckeyes had their share of decent, even very good players. They were not a juggernaut like the Homestead Grays or Kansas City Monarchs, teams that annually reloaded to maintain their excellence. But they were good, and in that brief time – the mid-1940s – they won two Negro American League pennants and a World Series crown in 1945.

Buckeyes in the East-West All-Star Games

One measure of excellence was the number of Buckeyes who played in the East-West All-Star Game. Research identifies 12 who played, including seven starters. Four Buckeyes appeared in more than one All-Star Game: Eugene Bremer, Sam Jethroe, Quincy Trouppe, and Archie Ware. Sam Jethroe, arguably the greatest Buckeye ever, led the way with four appearances.1

Only appearances as Buckeyes are listed; (*) = Starter

Buckeyes in the Mexican League

The Mexican League, founded in 1925, was a viable competitive setting for Negro League ballplayers, motivated by the additional cash and more equitable treatment by Mexican baseball officials and fans alike. According to John Virtue, “Under Mexican League regulations, the [Mexican] teams could have imported any players, but they chose to recruit African Americans.”2

Player movement to Mexico increased in the 1940s, thanks to businessman Jorge Pasquel investing money to raise the profile of the Mexican League by attracting both White and Black baseball players from north of the border. Researcher Bill Young noted, “[I]n 1946, 22 major leaguers [American and National Leaguers] – 11 of whom were under contract to either the New York Giants or the Brooklyn Dodgers – bolted to Mexico in search of greener (baseball) fields.”3

In the 1940s, each of the six to eight teams in the league played between 75 and 100 scheduled games per season, beginning early in the calendar year and overlapping with league seasons in the United States. Five Buckeyes took advantage of the league with some making their presence south of the border a fixture. By the early 1950s, movement to the Mexican Leagues by American players diminished, although nowadays the Mexican League has again become a magnet for ballplayers unable to compete at a major-league level.

Buckeyes in the American and National Leagues

Finally, there are the seven Buckeyes who made it to the American or National League as part of the slow trickle of Black ballplayers welcomed to those circuits. Five of the players, led by Sam Jethroe, who debuted with the Boston Braves on April 18, 1950, and was named Rookie of the Year that season, originated with the team. Information is not currently available regarding any players who might have made it to the previously White minor leagues, whether affiliated with an American or National League team or not. Sam Jones, who did not play on the Buckeyes’ 1945 World Series champion team, had the longest tenure in the American or National League – 12 years.4

(*) = Began career with Buckeyes

THOMAS KERN was born and raised in Southwest Pennsylvania. Listening to the mellifluous voices of Bob Prince and Jim Woods in his youth, how could one not become a lifelong Pirates fan? He now lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, and sees the Pirates, Nationals, and Orioles as often as possible. He is a SABR member dating back to 1984. With a love and appreciation for Negro League Baseball in addition to the Pirates, he has written SABR bios for the 1979 Pirates and Clemente books and has completed bios for Leon Day, John Henry Lloyd, Willie Foster, Judy Johnson, Turkey Stearnes, Hilton Smith, Louis Santop, Andy Cooper, Double Duty Radcliffe, and others.

Sources

The author wishes to acknowledge the important contribution of Merl Kleinknecht in assembling these charts. Mr. Kleinknecht originally joined SABR in 1971, was a founding member of SABR’s Negro Leagues Research Committee, and served two terms as committee chair in the 1970s.

Notes

1 In 1942, 1946, 1947, and 1948, two Negro League All-Star Games were played.

2 John Virtue, South of the Color Barrier: How Jorge Pasquel and the Mexican League Pushed Baseball Toward Racial Integration (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2008): 61.

3 Bill Young, “From Mexico to Quebec: Baseball’s Forgotten Giants,’ The National Pastime: Baseball in the Big Apple (Phoenix: SABR, 2017). 

4 Joseph L. Reichler, ed., The Baseball Encyclopedia: The Complete and Official Record of Major League Baseball, 9th Edition (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1993).

Until the emergence of the Buckeyes in 1942, no Negro League team formed in Cleveland survived more than a year. The timely combination of business manager Wilbur Hayes’ business acumen and owner Ernie Wright’s financial backing offered more than sufficient traction for the team to gain a foothold in the Forest City and establish its presence throughout the 1940s, even in the face of the challenges of the World War II years. The team would also gain some prominence with a couple of Negro American League pennants and its 1945 Negro League World Series triumph. However, things changed for the Buckeyes, as they did for all Negro League teams, after Jackie Robinson broke the White major-league color barrier in 1947 and the slow trickle of Black ballplayers into the American and National Leagues began. By 1949 Hayes, having bought out Wright, sought to mitigate the team’s financial losses by moving it to Louisville. This effort failed, and the team moved back to Cleveland, only to still fail as fans shifted their allegiance to American and National League teams (and their minor-league affiliates), where the more promising Black ballplayers were now situated.

The high-water mark for the Buckeyes was undoubtedly 1945, when they won the Negro American League title and then, against all odds, defeated the perennial Negro National League champion Homestead Grays four games to none in the Negro League World Series.

This book provides a detailed account of the Buckeyes with essays about the players and the team officials who led the team to its World Series triumph. A complete season timeline, the story of League Park and Cleveland Stadium, where the Buckeyes played, the cultural context of the time, and articles about some standout games are also included. Biographies range from those for Wright and Hayes to Cleveland’s standout players – Sam Jethroe, Archie Ware, Willie Grace, and Eugene Bremer – as well as player-manager Quincy Trouppe and the many position and role players the team employed. All offer an in-depth window into the makeup of the team and the journey each of these players was on, not only in 1945, but through their entire careers.

In addition to the players with biographies published in this book, a handful of players were identified in The Negro Leagues Book (1994), edited by Dick Clark and Larry Lester, as well as in James A. Riley’s extensive work, The Biographical Encyclopedia of The Negro Baseball Leagues, or on Seamheads, as having appeared at some point with the Buckeyes in 1945. There are few if any details on most of these players; the transient nature of players led to their ephemeral appearances on the roster or even just the occasional bench warming at best in any given year. As in prior books about the great Negro League teams, we note it is inevitable that we find players who cannot be identified or about whom we can find no evidence of their participation in the year on which the book is focused.

The following individuals have been omitted from this book for such reasons. That said, while they do not merit stand-alone essays, and their appearance in a 1945 Buckeyes game is in fact uncertain, we honor them by this listing and hope that a future researcher might unearth more details about their lives and baseball careers.

• [First Name?] Breese. No reference to a Breese appears in Riley’s or Lester and Clark’s books. However, Seamheads and Retrosheet show a “Breese” (first name and any other particulars unknown) having appeared as a pinch-hitter in a Buckeyes box score in 1945. Breese went 0-for-1. Retrosheet has him in a June 20, 1945, game against the Chicago American Giants played in Muncie, Indiana, a game won by Chicago 5-4.
• Rayford Finch. Finch shows up in Retrosheet as having pitched in four exhibition games, all in April. Riley notes his play for the Louisville Buckeyes in 1949 and the Cleveland Buckeyes in 1950 as well as appearances in the ManDak League with Elmwood in 1950 and 1951 and then Winnipeg in 1952. Riley also noted that Finch’s “last season in organized baseball was with Danville in the Mississippi-Ohio Valley League in 1953, when he managed only a 1-2 ledger.” He was born on July 12, 1924, in Glascock County, Georgia, and died on May 20, 1956, at the age of 31, place of death unknown.1
• Jefferson Guiwn (or Guinn). Guiwn may have appeared for the Buckeyes in 1945, as suggested by Clark and Lester, but neither Seamheads nor Retrosheet has a record of him in their database. Both Riley and Clark and Lester show him playing as a catcher in the 1943-1944 seasons, as a wartime reserve.2 There is no information about his origins, birth, or death.
• Nap Gulley. A left-handed pitcher and outfielder, Gulley played throughout most of the 1940s. He was born on August 29, 1924, in Huttig, Arkansas. Riley wrote, “This lefthanded hurler had a good fastball, but his ‘out pitch’ was an overhand drop-curveball.”3 Seamheads does not show him as having played for the Buckeyes in 1945, but Clark and Lester and also Riley do.4 Retrosheet identifies four games in which Gulley appeared, from mid-April to mid-May. Gulley started an April 13 game against the New York Cubans in Fort Worth, Texas, giving up six runs in four innings. He appeared in three subsequent games, all against the Chicago American Giants. Seamheads captures his play in 1943 for the Buckeyes and then time with the Newark Eagles in 1947. He died on August 21, 1999, in Skokie, Illinois, at the age of 74.
• Lovell Harden. Lovell “Big Pitch” Harden was a right-handed pitcher born in Lauderdale, Mississippi, on December 17, 1917. Seamheads captures his limited play in 1944 and 1945 for a total of four games over both years. However, Retrosheet identifies 17 games in 1945 in which Harden appeared – eight exhibition games and nine regular-season games in which he either started or relieved. His only other season in the Negro Leagues was 1944, when he pitched in 18 games for the Buckeyes. He died in Erie, Pennsylvania, on November 15, 1996.
• Phelbert Lawson. Right-handed pitcher Lawson shows up in Seamheads as having started one game and thrown two-thirds of an inning for Cleveland in 1945. He was relieved by Satchel Davis, who finished the game on August 1, 1945, against the Baltimore Elite Giants in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The game ended in a 5-5 tie. He walked two, struck out one, and gave up two runs, both earned, with a home run. The math was not kind; it led to a 27.00 ERA. Lawson was born in Washington, Virginia, on October 22, 1919, and died in Canton, Ohio, on January 5, 2001. His one-game appearance for the Buckeyes is his only recorded time in the Negro Leagues.
• Willie McCarey. There is no record of McCarey in Seamheads for 1945, but he is captured in 1944 as having pitched in three games, one for the Buckeyes in which he picked up a win in relief despite giving up three runs in four innings. He also appeared in two games for the Cincinnati-Indianapolis Clowns. There is also no record of his birth or death. Riley wrote, “A wartime player, he appeared briefly with the Cleveland Buckeyes, but his playing time was severely restricted.”5
• George (or Al) Minor. Minor had a good stint with the Buckeyes, first appearing with them in 1944 through 1948. Although Riley states that he played in 1945, Seamheads’ depiction of his time with the team includes only 1944, 1946, 1947, and 1948. Box scores yet to be uncovered may find a 1945 connection. His career stats, primarily as a center fielder, show a batting average of .317 and an OPS of .773. Riley notes that Minor “stayed with the [Buckeyes] franchise when the ballclub relocated in Louisville in 1949, his last year in the Negro Leagues.”6
• Jesse S. Williams. Jesse Sheron Williams was born in Meridian, Mississippi, on February 5, 1923, and came up through the ranks, primarily as a catcher. He also played shortstop and in the outfield. According to Riley, Williams “was signed off the Dayton, Ohio, sandlots in 1944 by the Cleveland Buckeyes. After being traded to the Chicago American Giants, he was released and signed again by the Buckeyes as a utility man for the next three years.”7 A switch-hitter, he appeared in five games, as referenced by Seamheads, and batted a paltry .133. However, Retrosheet identified 13 games in which Williams played, eight regular-season games (against Kansas City, Birmingham, Memphis, and Chicago) and five exhibitions. Williams died in Chicago on January 31, 1996.
• Jesse F. Williams. Not to be confused with Jesse Sheron Williams, Jesse F. also played for the Buckeyes, but records so far identify only his play (as a catcher) in 1944 and 1947 for certain. He may well have fit Riley’s description as a “wartime reserve.” He could have filled in when needed for the Buckeyes in 1945, but so far no records have been found. No other information on him is currently available.

Research has uncovered a very unusual item from 1945 – a 12-page booklet on that year’s Cleveland Buckeyes team. We have reprinted six of those pages here, featuring team members and management. The remainder of the booklet is comprised of advertisements for local businesses. The booklet can be seen in its entirety as part of the Cleveland Public Library Digital Gallery, housed at the library’s Sports Research Center, located in the main branch downtown.8

This book and those in the series that have preceded it have been made possible by over two dozen SABR members who have collaboratively and diligently researched and written each article. A difficult task in compiling a book like this continues to be the collection of photos of as many as possible of those portrayed in it. Some of the more obscure players pose challenges and we are grateful for the efforts of those who have been able to help in finding visual representations.

We express our thanks to the tireless efforts of our fact-checker, Carl Riechers, and copy editor, Len Levin. They have served in these capacities in earlier books in the series and are consummate professionals at what they do. And just to let everyone know, another book in this series is already in the works – the 1931 Homestead Grays, considered one of the greatest Negro League teams ever. We hope you enjoy yet another window on Black Baseball’s past – the 1945 Cleveland Buckeyes.

THOMAS KERN was born and raised in Southwest Pennsylvania. Listening to the mellifluous voices of Bob Prince and Jim Woods in his youth, how could one not become a lifelong Pirates fan? He now lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, and sees the Pirates, Nationals, and Orioles as often as possible. He is a SABR member dating back to 1984. With a love and appreciation for Negro League Baseball in addition to the Pirates, he has written SABR bios for the 1979 Pirates and Clemente books and has completed bios for Leon Day, John Henry Lloyd, Willie Foster, Judy Johnson, Turkey Stearnes, Hilton Smith, Louis Santop, Andy Cooper, Double Duty Radcliffe, and others.

Notes

1 James A. Riley, Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc., 1994), 283.

2 Riley 342; Dick Clark and Larry Lester, eds., The Negro Leagues Book (Cleveland: Society for American Baseball Research, 1994), 137.

3 Riley, 343.

4 Riley, 342.

5 Riley, 527.

6 Riley, 554.

7 Riley, 852.

8 The full booklet may be viewed online at: https://cplorg.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p4014coll27/id/182/rec/5