The Tennessee Rats was a small club of Black

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...

players formed in

Holden, Missouri Holden is a city in western Johnson County, Missouri, United States. The population was 2,252 at the 2010 census. History Holden was laid out in 1857. It was named for Major Nathaniel Holden, a local politician who was instrumental in bringing ...

running from approximately 1910"Baseball News" Valentine Democrat, Valentine, Nebraska, Thursday, April 28, 1910, Page 4, Column 4
/ref> to 1926."LEADING BASEBALL CLUBS" Indianapolis Freeman, Indianapolis, IN, April 1, 1911, Page 7, Column 5
/ref>

History

Run by W.A. Brown, the Tennessee Rats was almost purely a

traveling team In professional team sports, a traveling team (also called a road team) is a member of a professional league that never competes in a home arena or stadium. This differs from a barnstorming team as a barnstorming team competes in exhibition games ...

, and toured much of

Iowa Iowa ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the upper Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west; Wisconsin to the northeast, Ill ...

and other surrounding states, playing baseball and in the early years, producing a

minstrel show The minstrel show, also called minstrelsy, was an American form of theater developed in the early 19th century. The shows were performed by mostly white actors wearing blackface makeup for the purpose of portraying racial stereotypes of Afr ...

to add to the box office take after the baseball games. Many researchers do not consider the Tennessee Rats a "formal"

Negro league The Negro leagues were United States professional baseball leagues comprising teams of African Americans. The term may be used broadly to include professional black teams outside the leagues and it may be used narrowly for the seven relativel ...

team. However, like other barnstorming teams of the time, they had considerable impact on the

desegregation Racial integration, or simply integration, includes desegregation (the process of ending systematic racial segregation), leveling barriers to association, creating equal opportunity regardless of race, and the development of a culture that draws ...

of baseball. Today, the Tennessee Rats are rarely mentioned in Black baseball history, and stats and rosters are hard to find.

Notable players

* John Donaldson"A GOOD GAME" Bayard News Gazette, Bayard, Iowa, June 1, 1911
/ref> *

Jack Marshall Sir John Ross Marshall New Zealand Army Orders 1952/405 (5 March 1912 – 30 August 1988) was a New Zealand politician of the National Party. He entered Parliament in 1946 and was first promoted to Cabinet in 1951. After spending twelve years ...

"Brown's Tennessee Rats..." Kansas City Sun, Kansas City, Missouri, Saturday, June 30, 1917, Page 8, Column 3
/ref>

References

External links

Negro league baseball teams Sports in Missouri Defunct baseball teams in Missouri Johnson County, Missouri Baseball teams disestablished in 1926 Baseball teams established in 1910 {{Negro-league-baseball-team-stub