The Chicago American Giants were a
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
-based
Negro league baseball team. From 1910 until the mid-1930s, the American Giants were the most dominant team in black baseball. Owned and managed from 1911 to 1926 by
player-manager
A player-coach (also playing coach, captain-coach, or player-manager) is a member of a sports team who simultaneously holds both playing and coaching duties. A player-coach may be a head coach or an assistant coach. They may make changes to the s ...
Andrew "Rube" Foster, they were charter members of Foster's
Negro National League. The American Giants won five pennants in that league, along with another pennant in the 1932
Negro Southern League and a second-half championship in Gus Greenlee's Negro National League in 1934.
Founding
In 1910, Foster, captain of the
Chicago Leland Giants, wrestled legal control of the name "Leland Giants" away from the team's owner,
Frank Leland. That season, featuring Hall of Fame shortstop
John Henry Lloyd
John Henry Lloyd (April 25, 1884 – March 19, 1964), nicknamed "Pop" and "El Cuchara", was an American baseball shortstop and manager in the Negro leagues. During his 27-year career, he played for many teams and had a .343 batting average. Lloy ...
, outfielder
Pete Hill, second baseman
Grant Johnson, catcher
Bruce Petway, and pitcher
Frank Wickware, the Leland Giants reportedly won 123 games while losing only 6. In 1911, Foster renamed the club the "American Giants".
Franchise continuum
DateFormat = yyyy
ImageSize = width:800 height:100
PlotArea = left:20 right:50 bottom:20 top:20
Colors =
id:majorGridColor value:rgb(0.9,0.9,0.9)
id:lineColor value:gray(0.6)
id:nl1 value:gray(0.9)
id:inactive value:gray(0.5)
id:gold value:rgb(0.99,0.72,0.15)
id:brown value:rgb(0.36,0.20,0.10)
id:vegasgold value:rgb(0.80,0.72,0.49)
id:green value:rgb(0, 0.51,0.28)
id:darkgreen value:rgb(0, 0.20,0 )
id:orange value:rgb(1 ,0.39,0 )
id:redorange value:rgb(1 ,0.20,0 )
id:red value:rgb(0.80,0.01,0.07)
id:red2 value:rgb(0.90,0.01,0.07)
id:darkred value:rgb(0.50,0 ,0 )
id:iceblue value:rgb(0.20,0.60,0.80)
id:lgray value:gray(0.1)
id:gray value:gray(0.3)
id:gray2 value:gray(0.5)
id:sand value:rgb(0.94,0.89,0.77)
id:navy value:rgb(0 ,0 ,0.30)
id:teal value:rgb(0 ,0.65,0.65)
id:teal2 value:rgb(0 ,0.45,0.45)
Period = from:1887 till:1952
TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal format:yyyy
ScaleMajor = start:1887 increment:5 gridcolor:majorGridColor
BarData =
bar:UNI # Chicago Unions
bar:AMG # Chicago American Giants
bar:COL # Chicago Columbia Giants
Define $Up = shift:(,1)
Define $Left = anchor:from align:right shift:(-1,)
Define $Right = anchor:till align:left shift:(2,)
Define $Right2 = anchor:till align:right shift:(-25,)
Define $Down = shift:(,-10)
Define $UpLeft = anchor:from align:right shift:(-1,1)
Define $UpLeft2 = anchor:from align:left shift:(-1,1)
Define $UpRight2 = anchor:till align:right shift:(-1,1)
Define $UpRight = anchor:till align:left shift:(2,1)
Define $DownRight = anchor:till align:left shift:(2,-10)
Define $DownLeft = anchor:from align:left shift:(2,-10)
Define $UpUpRight = anchor:till align:left shift:(2,10)
PlotData =
color:inactive
textcolor:black
width:20
fontsize:S
mark:(line,black)
anchor:middle # other options are anchor:from anchor:till
align:center # other options are align:left align:right
shift:(0,-5)
# Note on dates: A team's bar begins with the season that team played its first game, and ends with the season after that team played its last game. For example, the Cleveland Tate Stars played their first game in 1922 and played their last game in 1923. Therefore, their bar goes from 1922 to 1924.
bar:UNI from:1887 till:1901 color:skyblue text:"Chicago Unions" $Right2
bar:UNI from:1910 till:1921 color:gold text:"Chicago Giants" $Right2
bar:AMG from:1901 till:1910 color:yellow text:"Chicago Union Giants / Leland Giants (I)"
bar:COL from:1899 till:1901 color:skyblue text:"Chicago Columbia Giants" $Right2
bar:COL from:1910 till:1952 color:gold text:"Leland Giants (II) / Chicago American Giants" $Right2
Early dominance
Playing in spacious
Schorling Park (formerly the home field of the American League's
Chicago White Sox
The Chicago White Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago. The White Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central division. The team is owned by Jerry Reinsdorf, and ...
), Foster's club relied on fielding, pitching, speed, and "
inside baseball" to succeed in the young
Negro National League (NNL), winning championships in 1920, 1921, and 1922. When the
Kansas City Monarchs supplanted the American Giants as the dominant team beginning in 1923, Foster tried rebuilding but by 1926 his health (physical and mental) was failing. Accordingly, his protégé
Dave Malarcher took over on-field management of the team. Malarcher followed Foster's pattern, emphasizing pitching and defense, and led the American Giants back to the top-tier of the Negro leagues, winning pennants in 1926 and 1927. Both seasons also saw the American Giants defeat the
Bacharach Giants
The Bacharach Giants were a Negro league baseball team that played in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Founding
The club was founded when two African-American politicians moved the Duval Giants of Jacksonville, Florida, to Atlantic City in 1916 an ...
of Atlantic City, champions of the Eastern Colored League, in the
Negro League World Series.
Cole's American Giants
The NNL collapsed in 1931, and in 1932 the team won the
Negro Southern League pennant as Cole's American Giants. The next season the American Giants joined the new
Negro National League, losing the pennant to the
Pittsburgh Crawfords in a controversial decision by league president Gus Greenlee (owner of the Crawfords). The 1933 season saw the Giants get kicked off of their home field after the end of May; the park owners preferred to use the land as a dog racing track for the remaining summer months. This forced the Giants to play the majority of their home games in
Indianapolis for the balance of that season. In 1934, the American Giants won the NNL's second-half title, then fell to the
Philadelphia Stars in a seven-game playoff for the championship. In 1937, after a year spent playing as an independent club, the American Giants became a charter member of yet another circuit, the
Negro American League.
Decline and demise
Ted "Double Duty" Radcliffe was appointed manager in 1950. The team's owner,
Dr. J.B. Martin, was concerned about black players joining
major league teams so he instructed Radcliffe to sign white players. Radcliffe recruited at least five young white players (
Lou Chirban,
Lou Clarizio,
Al Dubetts,
Frank Dyall, and
Stanley Miarka). Sports entrepreneur
Abe Saperstein owned the American Giants in 1952, its last season in the Negro American League. Its players were dispersed to the four remaining NAL teams for the 1953 season. After dropping out of the Negro American League, the American Giants became unaffiliated and turned to barnstorming, playing games in the Midwest. The team disbanded after the 1956 season, then was revived in 1958, playing throughout the South until 1961.
Home fields
The American Giants first played at
South Side Park (III) (1920–1940) and
Perry Stadium (Indianapolis) (1933), when South Side Park was briefly re-purposed mid-season in 1933. Finally, they shared
Comiskey Park (I) (1941–1950), playing when the White Sox were on the road.
MLB throwback jerseys
The
Chicago White Sox
The Chicago White Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago. The White Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central division. The team is owned by Jerry Reinsdorf, and ...
have honored the American Giants by wearing replica uniforms during regular-season baseball games on several occasions, including July 1, 2007 (at Kansas City), July 26, 2008 (at home vs. Detroit), and July 16, 2011, during the 9th Annual Negro League weekend at Detroit, where the home team also worn the jerseys of the
Detroit Stars
The Detroit Stars were an American baseball team in the Negro leagues and played at historic Mack Park. The Stars had winning seasons every year but two, but were never able to secure any championships. Among their best players was Baseball Hall of ...
during the 17th annual Negro League Tribute Game.
Notable players
Hall of Famers
Eleven alumni have been inducted into the
National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum
The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is a history museum and hall of fame in Cooperstown, New York, operated by private interests. It serves as the central point of the history of baseball in the United States and displays basebal ...
.
Other star players
*
Lyman Bostock Sr.
*
Quincy Trouppe
*
Joe Lillard
*
Art Pennington
*
Jim Pendleton
James Edward Pendleton (January 7, 1924 — March 20, 1996) was an American professional baseball player, an outfielder in Major League Baseball (MLB) between 1953 and 1962. He played for the Milwaukee Braves, Pittsburgh Pirates, Cincinnati Reds ...
See also
*
:Chicago American Giants players
References
External links
Franchise history at Seamheads.comNegro Leagues Baseball MuseumNegro Leagues Traveling Exhibits
{{Authority control
Negro league baseball teams
History of Chicago
American Giants
Defunct baseball teams in Illinois
Baseball teams disestablished in 1956
Baseball teams established in 1910