franchise history
The Chicago American Giants were a Chicago based professional baseball team playing in the Negro National League I (NNLI).
From 1910 until the mid-1930s, the Chicago American Giants franchise was one of the most dominant teams in black baseball.
Owned operated from 1911 to 1926 by player-manager Andrew Rube Foster, they were founding members of the Negro National League I, a new professional black baseball league organized and over seen by Foster himself.
During this time the American Giants won 5 pennants in that league, along with another pennant in the 1932 Negro Southern League, and later in franchises history, claim the second-half championship in Gus Greenlee’s newly established Negro National League II (NNLII) in 1934.
The history of the franchise dates back to the Chicago Unions, who merged with the Chicago Columbia Giants in 1901, creating the Chicago Union Giants.
The team later changed its name to the Chicago Leland Giants.
The Leland Giants had been experiencing trouble as a franchise around the mid 1910s, and split into two teams for the 1910 season.
This created the Chicago American Giants and the new Leland Giant of Chicago, who later changed their name back to the Chicago American Giants.
In 1910, Rube Foster, was the driving force behind these major structural changes, as team captain and starting ace of the Chicago Leland Giants, he wrestled legal control of the name Leland Giants away from the team's owner, Frank Leland.
That season, the American / Leland Giants, featured all-star talented shortstop John Henry Lloyd, outfielder Pete Hill, second baseman Grant Johnson, catcher Bruce Petway, and starting pitcher, Frank Wickware.
Foster and his new ball club the Leland Giants were reported to have won 123-6 games that season. A tall tale, or possibly not, considering the lack of professional competition.
In 1911, Foster renamed the club the Chicago American Giants.
Playing in the spacious confines of Schorling Park, the former home field of Bill Veeck's Chicago White Sox, Rube Foster's new club relied heavily on its ability to play defense and dominate with unmatched pitching ability.
Foster also liked to occasionally take advantage of the team's above average speed.
Rube Foster played his own version of inside baseball both on and off the filed.
As starting pitcher and ace for the franchise, he would go on to become a huge success being playing / manger for the team he owned in the nascent Negro National League I (NNLI).
The Chicago American Giants would go on to win championships in the NNLI in 1920, 1921, and 1922.
When the Kansas City Monarchs supplanted the Chicago American Giants as the league’s most dominant team beginning in 1923, Foster tried hard behind the scenes to rebuild his but by 1926 his health had began to rapidly deteroriate, both physically and mental started to rapidly become an issue.
Accordingly, Foster’s protégé Dave Malarcher, who took over on-field management of the team following Foster’s illness.
Malarcher followed Foster's along rhe same lines as Foster as far as management style, emphasizing pitching and defense, leading the newly rebuilt Chicago American Giants back to the upper echelon of the Negro Leagues, winning pennants in 1926 and 1927.
In both seasons the Chicago American Giants defeat the Bacharach Giants of Atlantic City for the title of champions of the Eastern Colored League, in the Negro League World Series.
With the collapse of the Negro National League (NNLI) in 1931, and in 1932 the team won the Negro Southern League (NSL) pennant known now as the Cole's American Giants.
The Negro Southern League (NSL) had operated as a minor league system for the Negro Leagues at large, but were the only league to survive the entire 1932 season.
This made the 1932 season the only year in which the NSL would be recognized as such.
The season in 1933, the franchise joined the newly reinvented Negro National League (NNLI), the Negro National League II (NNLII).
They would go on to lose the pennant to Gus Greenlee's well funded and well protected, Pittsburgh Crawfords in what would turn out to be a controversial decision on a call he made as league president.
The 1933 season saw Cole’s American Giants get evicted from their home field after by the end of May; as the park owners preferred to use the land as a dog racing track for the remaining summer months.
This forced the American Giants to play the majority of their home games in Indianapolis to balance the rest of that season. [2]
In 1934, the Cole’s American Giants won the Negro National League II (NNLII)’s second-half title, then falling hard to the Philadelphia Stars in a 7 game series for the championship.
In 1937, after playing for most of the season as an independent club, the American Giants became a charter member of yet another circuit, this time with the Negro American League (NAL).
Ted Radcliffe was appointed manager of the Giants in 1950.
Team owner, Dr. J.B. Martin, was concerned at the time about black players joining the major leagues, so to get ahead of this problem he instructed Radcliffe to sign and prefer to sign only white players.
Radcliffe then got to work, recruiting at least five young majorly talented white players (Lou Chirban, Lou Clarizio, Al Dubetts, Frank Dyall, and Stanley Miarka) to the club.
At this time, sports entrepreneur Abe Saperstein owned the American Giants in 1952, its last season featured in the Negro American League (NAL).
Its players were ultimately dissolved between the four surviving teams of the Negro American League (NAL) for the remainder of the 1953 season.
After dropping out of the NAL, the American Giants became an unaffiliated ball club and turned to barnstorming, playing games mostly in the Midwest.
The team disbanded after the 1956 season, but was then was revived a year later in 1958, barnstorming throughout the South part of the United States until 1961.
For the franchises history, the American Giants first played at South Side Park (III) from 1920–1940, and Perry Stadium in Indianapolis for the 1933, when South Side Park was briefly re-purposed.
The team finally and officially began sharing Comiskey Park (I) with the White Sox from 1941 to 1950, and began creating their schedule around the playing schedule of the White Sox.
With the American Giants finding a consistent home field at Comiskey when the White Sox were on the road, they were better able to forcast details such as payroll and gate receipt projections. [3]
The Chicago White Sox have honored the Chicago 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 Leagues weekend celebration held in Detroit.
Both the Detroit Tigers and Chicago White Sox organizations also wear replica jerseys of the Detroit Stars and the Chicago American Giants at the annual Negro League Tribute Game. [4]