Baseball in Nashville

Negro Leagues baseball celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2020 to connect the founding of the Negro National League (NNL) in 1920 in Kansas City. Rube Foster and other Black baseball team owners gathered to organize and carry out a vision of professional baseball that was often considered but never put into order.

That meeting took place on February 13, and eight franchises joined together: the Chicago American Giants, the Chicago Giants, the Cuban Stars Dayton Marcos, the Detroit Stars, the Indianapolis ABCs, the Kansas City Monarchs, and the St. Louis Giants.

The new enterprise experienced ups and downs, affected by lost revenues due to the Great Depression, inconsistency in franchise owners’ financial stability, and competition for players from a new league formed in 1923, the Eastern Colored League. The NNL collapsed in 1931.

One month after the NNL formed in 1920, Nashville’s Tom Wilson, owner of the Nashville Standard Giants, gathered southern Black baseball team owners in Atlanta to form the Negro Southern League (NSL). The new enterprise teams included the Montgomery Grey Sox, Atlanta Black Crackers, New Orleans Caulfield Ads, Knoxville Giants, Birmingham Black Barons, Nashville White Sox, Pensacola Giants, and Jacksonville Stars.

The NSL became the more financially stable league through 1936, although when the NNL reorganized in 1932, it was considered a minor league. The Nashville Elite Giants joined the new NNL, and when a new league, the Negro American League formed in 1937, the Birmingham Black Barons and Memphis Red Sox joined up, which led to the demise of the NSL. But not before a new Nashville team entered the NSL, the Black Vols.

When Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, the complete demise of Negro Leagues baseball was on the horizon. A new Negro Southern League had formed in 1945. It included the Nashville Black Vols under a new owner, Dr. R. B. Jackson, the Cubs beginning in 1946, and Stars (probably a combination of the Cubs and Stars), but by 1951, it, too, was consigned to oblivion.

The impact of Negro Leagues baseball in cities throught the United States was set in motion by the brave confidence of team owners, players, and fans. Nashville’s proud Black baseball history continues through this day with memories of Turkey Stearnes, Bruce Petway, Henry Kimbro, Butch McCord, Jim Zapp, Sidney Bunch, Jr., among others, leading the way.

Tom Wilson shares equally with Rube Foster in creating a lasting legacy for Negro Leagues baseball and its impact on baseball history in the United States!

Early Negro Southern League standings:

Year	Pennant Winner
1920	Montgomery Grey Sox
1921	Nashville Elite Giants
1922	Nashville Elite Giants
1923	Birmingham Black Barons
1924	No Schedule Played
1925	No Schedule Played
1926	Birmingham Black Barons
1927	Chattanooga Black Lookouts
1928	No Schedule Played
1929	Nashville Elite Giants
1930	No Schedule Played
1931	Nashville Elite Giants
1932	Cole’s American Giants
1933	Memphis Red Sox
1933	New Orleans Crescent Stars
1934	Incomplete
1935	Claybrook Tigers
1936	Birmingham Black Barons

Sources

Center for Negro League Baseball Research.

Heaphy, Leslie A. (2015). The Negro Leagues, 1869–1960. McFarland.

Holway, John (2001). The Complete Book of Baseball’s Negro Leagues: The Other Half of Baseball History. Fern Park, Florida: Hastings House Publishers.

Mills, P. (2003). “Negro League Baseball Dot Com – Historical Timeline Of Negro League Baseball”.

Negro Southern League Museum Research Center. Center for Negro League Baseball Research.

Plott, William J. (2015). The Negro Southern League, A Baseball History, 1920-1951, McFarland.

Baseball is in full swing once again – finally – with the Major League season having begun a month ago, and Minor League teams starting up this week. For ages, Opening Day has been celebrated with parades through cities and around ballparks, holidays declared by mayors, and promotions galore to kick off the first game on the schedule.

Sulphur Dell

I have never attended Opening Day at a Major League stadium, but I was at Sulphur Dell for the Nashville Vols’ first game of 1963 on April 22, when Nashville returned to organized baseball after a one-year absence with a loss to Macon, 15-4. The team’s first home game of the new season drew 7,987 Vols fans to see Nashville’s newest entry in the South Atlantic League.

For a 12-year-old whose love of baseball was gaining steam, it was an unforgettable event.

Herschel Greer Stadium

It was exciting 15 years later when I attended the very first home game of the Nashville Sounds in 1978. On April 26 they played at Herschel Greer Stadium, a 12–4 victory over the Savannah Braves. The sellout crowd totaled 8,156 fans.

Nashville’s extended hiatus from professional baseball had finally ended.

First Tennessee (now Horizon) Park

Opening Day in 2015 was special, too, when four former Nashville Vols attended the first home game of the season at Music City’s new ballpark, First Tennessee Park. Roy Pardue, Bobby Durnbaugh, Larry Taylor, and Buddy Gilbert gathered together for photos and stories of special memories in days gone by.

There were 10,455 fans on hand to greet them. More fans could have attended, but with no room for them, unlike in 1932 when management at Sulphur Dell allowed seating along the outfield hills. The Opening Day crowd that day totaled an amazing 14,502.

Morgan Park

In comparison, the very first Opening Day I attended drew a much smaller crowd. It took place 70 years ago today on Sunday, May 6, 1951, at Morgan Park, only a few blocks from where the Sounds play now.

My Baby Book

How do I know?

My mother, Dorothy Worth (yes, her middle name was for a baseball) Waddell Nipper, kept a baby book on me for many years. Remember those? I recently found mine in a box of things tucked away to keep family records, papers, photographs, and legal documents.

She entered all the necessary information in her beautiful cursive handwriting style: length (19 ¾”), weight (8 lbs. 4 oz.), and first word (“Daddy”). A myriad of other evidence proves my normal existence. Birthday parties, visits with relatives, elementary and high school days, I hold these as treasures both in my memories, but also to see them written.

One is especially important to me: the date of my first baseball game.

It was Opening Day for the amateur City League, and dad, Virgil Nipper, played for Cook’s Beer, the sponsor of the team. His team lost to Nabrico, 8-7, on a double by a former pro, George Archie.