The West Coast Negro Baseball Association (WCNBA) was one of the several

Negro baseball leagues 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 #Significant Neg ...

created during the time organized baseball was segregated. The WCNBA was organized as a minor league in 1946 by Abe Saperstein and

Jesse Owens James Cleveland "Jesse" Owens (September 12, 1913 – March 31, 1980) was an American track and field athlete who made history at the Athletics at the 1936 Summer Olympics, 1936 Olympic Games by becoming the first person to win four gold meda ...

as a means to provide the west coast with a platform for

African-American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. ...

players. The league lasted about three months.

League history

During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

in the mid-1940s, the African American population grew as wartime jobs demanded workers to relocate to the shipyards and military institutions along the California, Oregon and Washington coasts. After the war ended in 1945, Eddie Harris and David P. Portlock began the process of organizing a Negro league in the area using the current minor league

Pacific Coast League The Pacific Coast League (PCL) is a Minor League Baseball league that operates in the Western United States. Along with the International League, it is one of two leagues playing at the Triple-A (baseball), Triple-A level, which is one grade bel ...

(PCL) stadiums while those teams were on the road. They reached out to Abe Saperstein to assist. Saperstein already owned a barnstorming team called the Cincinnati Crescents, which he moved to Seattle and renamed them the Seattle Steelheads. He knew

, the track and field athlete and four-time Olympic gold medalist, and asked him to join. Owens formed the Portland Rosebuds in Oregon. Saperstein was elected league president, Owens vice-president and Portlock secretary. A 110-game season was planned. However, the league survived for only about three months. Most teams played under 30 games and the league folded due to "poor attendance, a lack of financing, and difficulty in accessing ballparks." Seattle and Oakland continued the season playing local teams across the midwest.

League franchises

The league was to be made up of six teams in cities with PCL stadiums. Originally, a team was slated to play in

Fresno Fresno (; ) is a city in the San Joaquin Valley of California, United States. It is the county seat of Fresno County, California, Fresno County and the largest city in the greater Central Valley (California), Central Valley region. It covers a ...

, a non-PCL city. They moved their base of operations to San Diego, but did initially play at least one game in Fresno. Oakland far outpaced the rest of the league in the shortened season, with Seattle and San Francisco finishing above .500. San Diego, Portland and Los Angeles rounded out the standings.

External links

Baseball-Reference (Minors)

References

{{Negro League teams, Minorleague Negro baseball leagues Defunct baseball leagues in the United States African-American sports history Sports leagues established in 1946 African-American history of Oregon African-American history of California African-American history of Washington (state) Baseball leagues in California Baseball leagues in Washington (state) Baseball leagues in Oregon Defunct minor baseball leagues in the United States