SABR Digital Library: The Negro Leagues’ 1931 Homestead Grays: The Color of Greatness
Add a new baseball book to your collection from the SABR Digital Library:
The Negro Leagues’ 1931 Homestead Grays: The Color of Greatness
Edited by Thomas Kern and Bill Nowlin
Associate Editors: Adam Hopps, Len Levin, and Carl Riechers
ISBN (paperback): 978-1-960819-69-7, $34.95
ISBN (ebook): 978-1-960819-68-0, $9.99
8.5″ x 11″, 204 pages
The 1931 edition of the Homestead Grays might be the greatest collection of talent on one team in baseball history. They not only retained all-time greats like Oscar Charleston, Josh Gibson, and Smokey Joe Williams from the previous year, but brought in future Hall of Famers Jud Wilson to play third base and Willie Foster to augment the pitching staff. They even briefly added Satchel Paige late in the season. Their solid supporting cast included Tubby Scales, Vic Harris, Lefty Williams, Ted Page, and Ted “Double Duty” Radcliffe. This awesome collection of talent combined to post an overall record of 143-29-2 once all of their games against town teams, semipro squads, barnstorming squads, and organized Black professional teams are included.
The Negro Leagues’ 1931 Homestead Grays: The Color of Greatness is the ninth in a series of SABR books about the great teams which played in the Negro Leagues during the first half of the twentieth century. It contains contributions from 31 members of the Society for American Baseball Research. Included are biographies of all team members and team executives, a writeup on the Forbes Field ballpark in which they played home games, a complete season timeline, and a number of other looks at this outstanding baseball team.
Contributors include: Rich Bogovich, Vincent T. Ciaramella, Alan Cohen, Phil S. Dixon, Jeff Findley, Charlemagne (Charlie) Fouché, Joseph Gerard, Darren Gibson, Margaret M. “Peggy” Gripshover, Clem Hamilton, John V. Haynes II, Adam Hopps, Jay Hurd, William H. “Bill” Johnson, Thomas Kern, Sean Kolodziej, Bob LeMoine, Len Levin, Brian McKenna, John Miller, Bill Nowlin, Tim Odzer, Stephen V. Rice, Carl Riechers, Kelly Boyer Sagert, Brendan Schuster, Curt Smith, Jeb Stewart, Larry Tye, Darin Watson, Paul White, and Dave Wilkie.
SABR members, get this e-book for FREE!
- E-book: Click here to download the e-book version of The Negro Leagues’ 1931 Homestead Grays for FREE from the SABR Store. Available in PDF, MOBI, EPUB/Kindle formats.
- Paperback: Get a 50% discount on The Negro Leagues’ 1931 Homestead Grays paperback edition from the SABR Store ($19.95 includes shipping/tax; delivery via Amazon Kindle Direct can take up to 4-6 weeks.)
Buy the book
- E-book: Click here to download the e-book version of The Negro Leagues’ 1931 Homestead Grays for $9.99 from the SABR Store. Available in PDF, MOBI, and EPUB/Kindle formats.
- Paperback: Get the paperback edition of The Negro Leagues’ 1931 Homestead Grays from the SABR Store ($39.95 includes shipping/tax; delivery via Amazon Kindle Direct can take up to 4-6 weeks.)
About the SABR Digital Library
For more than 50 years, SABR and its members have led the way in publishing the best baseball historical and statistical research. Our publications program is shifting to take advantage of new methods of publishing. Not only will we continue to publish new books like Can He Play? A Look At Baseball Scouts and Their Profession (2011); Inventing Baseball: The 100 Greatest Games of the 19th Century (2013); Scandal on the South Side: The 1919 Chicago White Sox (2015); Jackie Robinson: Perspectives on 42 (2021), ¡Arriba! The Heroic Life of Roberto Clemente (2022); and Nichibei Yakyu: US Tours of Japan (2023); which showcase the best efforts of SABR’s members, chapters and committees, but new technology makes it possible for us to bring out-of-print titles like When Boston Still Had the Babe: The 1918 World Champion Red Sox (2018); Green Cathedrals (2020); and The Miracle Has Landed: The Amazin’ Story of How the 1969 Mets Shocked the World (2021) back again.
Visit SABR.org/ebooks to find all past titles and download your favorites. Books will be available in digital formats as well as paperbacks produced by “print on demand” (POD).
SABR members can download all Digital Library e-book editions for free and save 50% on purchase of the paperback editions. If you’re not a member, click here to join SABR.
Stay tuned throughout the year for new (and old!) titles that we’ll be adding to the SABR Digital Library. To learn more about SABR Publications, contact Publications Editor Cecilia Tan at ctan@sabr.org.
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Originally published: June 15, 2026. Last Updated: June 16, 2026.