franchise history
The Kansas City Monarchs were the longest-running professional black franchise in the history of the Negro Leagues, operating in for their entire history Kansas City, crowned by J. L. Wilkinson.
The team was a charter member of the Negro National League I (NNLI) which lasted from 1920 to 1930.
J. L. Wilkinson was the first white owner in the Negro Leagues at the time the team was established.
In 1930, the Kansas City Monarchs became the first professional baseball team of any race to use a portable lighting system.
The team transported these lights to enable night games, from game to game in trucks to play games at night, five years before any MLB team did. [2]
In total the Kansas City Monarchs won 10 league championships playing in the Negro National League I and Negro American League, tallying 24 seasons across the Negro Leagues, finishing in first place 14x or nearly half the time before Major League Baseball raided the Negro Leagues during full integration.
The Kansas City Monarchs were first recorded Negro League World Series champions in 1924.
The Monarchs had only one season in which they did not have a winning record, and the team produced more major league players than any other Negro League franchise in the history of black baseball. [4]
The franchise was not fully dissolved until 1965.
The Kansas City Monarchs were formed in 1920, primarily by two colliding forces.
Owner J. L. Wilkinson drew players in from all around the natioan to be featured on his All Nations barnstorming team.
The team had previously inactive during World War I, and the 25th Infantry Wreckers, an all-black Army baseball team, where the team recruited exclusively all of their talent to start.
Wilkinson put together a collection of talented players, including pitcher / outfielder Bullet Rogan, an eventual Hall of Fame player who established himself as one of the most popular stars of the newly formed Negro National League I (NNLI).
The team continued to add slugging stars in Dobie Moore, Heavy Johnson, George Carr, and Hurley McNair.
On the defensive side of the ball the Kansas City Monarchs had pitchers like Rube Currie and Cliff Bell.
This made them immediate contenders.
The better the Monarchs became the more bitter their rivals in black baseball became.
Rube Foster’s Chicago American Giants were a well known and competitive franchise, that became long time rivals to any team that reigned power in the Negro National League (NNLI).
After 3 seasons of failure trying to break the Giants' hold on the pennant, Wilkinson abruptly made the decision to fire manager Sam Crawford in the middle of the 1923 season, replacing him with veteran Cuban star José Méndez.
The move worked for Wilkinson, as Mendez would then lead the Monarchs to the league championship.
Winning the pennant again in 1924, the Monarchs went on to participate in the first Negro League World Series, defeating the Eastern Colored League (ECL) champion Hilldale Baseball club from Darby, Pennsylvania, in what was a ten-game series that ended 5-4-1.
In the series, Méndez had an ERA of 1.42 in the four games he pitched in, throwing ab complete game shutout in game one of the series he as the starting pitcher. [5]
Motivated by the Monarchs' runaway pennant victory, Negro National League president, and team player / manager, Rube Foster decided to change up the league schedule to a split-season format beginning in 1925.
The schedule of a split-season format now meant that the season was split into two halves.
This was done in order to try to maintain consistent attendance during the summer season.
The winner of the first half of the season would then go on to play the winner of the second half of the season.
The change had no change on the outcome of the season, as the Kansas City Monarchs would again win the league in 1925, losing the World Series to the Hilldale Baseball club when Rogan was injured just before the series began.
They were defeated in 6 games (5-1). [6]
Even though Méndez was still the manager at this point for the team, he also still managed to pitch consistently during the few years he managing the team.
Among the team's regulars during these years were the second baseman / shortstop Newt Allen, who in the 1924 series sported a .282 batting average with seven doubles.
At the time the team also featured Frank Duncan.
The Kansas City Monarchs starting third baseman, Newt Joseph, lead the team plying for the Monarchs for his entire career, hitting a combined .284 during that time.
In 1926, Monarchs manager Jose Méndez decided to return to Cuba, and Joe Bullet Rogan took over as player / manager.
He kept up the Monarchs tradition of fine pitching, and stellar defense. The team pitching staff over the next few years would come to feature some of the greatest players of the early Negro Leagues, including Chet Brewer, William Bell, and Andy Cooper.
During the 1926-1927 season, the Kansas City Monarchs made a trade for legendary Cuban prospect, outfielder Cristóbal Torriente.
This coincided with the loss of star shortstop Dobie Moore, whose career ended that year due to a severe off-the-field injury.
After winning the first-half pennant, the Monarchs dropped a best of 9 playoff series to the Chicago American Giants, with Rogan losing two games in the series-closing doubleheader to the young Bill Foster, an eventual MLB Hall of Fame player.
In 1928, the KC Monarchs narrowly missed the second-half title, but won both halves of the 1929 Negro National League (NNLI) title with the best overall single-season record ever recorded by an organized black professional baseball team with a record of 62-17.
No World Series was played for the 1929 season.
J.L. Wilkinson retained his ownership of the Kansas City Monarchs franchise from 1920 until he sold the team to Tom Baird in 1947 for an undisclosed amount.
Wilkinson was a marketing genius in his own right, and was the first person to use promotional days like "Ladies' Day" and "Kid's Day”, to try to attract more fans to the ball park.
This was revolutionary for its time and he became well known among the top businessmen and promoters in all of African-American baseball.
Around this time promoters in black baseball were desperately trying to attract more fan support for the All Nationals Club that continued to develop talent for Kansas City.
This helped the Kansas City Monarchs become a very stable and successful franchise.
Wilkinson's Kansas City Monarchs were the only team in the Negro Leagues to play against a comedic team even after there were regulations put in place so that other teams could avoid playing against the comedic team.
This comedic team wore grass skirts, war paint, and bright uniforms with a clown on the front.
The Monarchs won four pennant championships before they introduced night baseball in the 1930s.
The Kansas City Monarchs started playing night baseball to try to get more people to come to the games. the first night game was in early march, 1930 in Lawrence Kansas.
The Monarchs had portable light systems that could be transported on the team's bus to any game. The lights were powered by portable generators and attached to retractable poles.
This was the first team to regularly play baseball under artificial light, including the major league teams. Night baseball gave the Monarchs more time to play more games, which also allowed them to make more profits.
This increase in profits helped the Kansas City Monarchs continue to be one of the most stable franchises in the Negro Leagues. [8]
There were many different difficulties that African American baseball leagues faced.
Many of the teams were unstable, especially in the first few years after the league was created and were disbanded or replaced by other teams.
Another struggle for African American teams was the inconsistent number of games that teams would play.
For example, the American Giants played 62 games, winning 41, which gives the team a .661 winning percentage, but the Kansas City Monarchs played 81 games, winning 50, which gives the team a .617 winning percentage.
Even though the Kansas City Monarchs won more games, the team got second place, because the winning percentage was lower than the American Giants winning percentage. Poor newspaper coverage was another difficulty.
If newspapers wrote articles about African American baseball, then it was mainly focused on the local teams, but not the league as a whole.
When the Eastern League started in 1923, players started joining the Eastern league. Competition between the two leagues for players grew. [9]
When the color barrier was broken by Jackie Robinson and other players were being signed to major league teams, the African American teams that these players came from, were not compensated. [10]
However, the African American teams having less players allowed then to save some money, but the African American leagues were just as competitive as the major leagues.
The African American players weren't paid as well as white players. An average Negro League player was only paid close to $500 per month whereas the average white player in the major leagues would be paid about $1,000 per month.
Players on Latin American teams would be paid anywhere from $600 to $4,000 per month with other expenses paid for and provided for the player and his wife.
Jim Crow laws were in place that allowed the segregation of train cars and buses.
The Kansas City Monarchs would rent entire train cars or "touring cars" before traveling to an away game to avoid these Jim Crow segregation laws.
The Monarchs was a very well oriented team that would plan their travels well in advance.
The team would book hotels and restaurants and, over time, learn which restaurants and hotels wouldn't turn the team away for being black.
There were some exceptions to Jim Crow segregation laws at night.
Some restaurant owners would cook meals for the Kansas City Monarchs afterhours when the restaurant was closed.
The team was even allowed to eat in the front of the restaurant and use the front door. [11]
Following the death of the original league, the Monarchs spent several years as an independent team, mostly barnstorming through the Midwest, West, and western Canada.
They frequently toured with the House of David baseball team. Hall of Famers Hilton Smith, a pitcher, and Willard Brown, a slugging shortstop/outfielder with a consistent batting average of over .300, became Monarch mainstays during this time.
During the 1940s, Willard Brown became the go-to home run hitter for the Monarchs.
With Andy Cooper now at the helm, the Monarchs became charter members of the Negro American League (NAL) in 1937, winning the first league title.
Andy Cooper was responsible for leading the Monarchs to bring home the pennant in 1939 and 1940.
The Kansas City Monarchs then won the next two league championships and won winning the renewed Negro League World Series in 1942 in four straight games against the Homestead Grays.
At the start of this run the Monarchs acquired their most famous player, Hall of Fame pitcher Satchel Paige, who had since his rookie season in 1927 built a reputation as the best hurler in black baseball for the Birmingham Black Barons, Pittsburgh Crawfords, and several other teams. [12]
Suffering from an arm injury and generally thought to be done, Paige joined the Monarchs' B team in 1939; by 1940 he had recovered and been called up to the Monarchs' main squad, where he became their top drawing card.
Paige was the subject of a lot of stories, both true and folklore, and became a legend to people who don't even follow baseball.
For example, he was known to have known the outfielders to sit on the ground behind him while he struck out the hitter and there was someone on base that could possibly tie the game up.
Paige also warmed up before pitching in a game by throwing across a gum wrapper as home plate.
Paige led another superb Monarchs' staff that included fellow Hall of Famer Hilton Smith, the veteran Chet Brewer, Booker McDaniels, Jim LaMarque, and several others.
They won one last NAL pennant in 1946, but lost a seven-game World Series to the Newark Eagles; in this series, they lost four games and won three. [13]
In 1945, Jackie Robinson hit .387 as the Monarchs' shortstop. He became the first Monarch to make the jump to white baseball, signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1946.
He broke the minor league color line in 1946 with the Montreal Royals, and integrated the major leagues with the Dodgers in 1947.
As baseball gradually desegregated in the late 1940s and 1950s, the Monarchs developed a niche as the foremost developer of black talent for the major leagues.
The team sent more players to the majors than any other Negro league franchise, including Robinson, Paige, Ernie Banks, Elston Howard, Hank Thompson, and Willard Brown.
Newt Allen succeeded Cooper as manager in 1941, and was followed by Frank Duncan in 1942. Duncan stayed at the helm through the 1947 season winning two league titles and one world title.
After Duncan stepped down, longtime first baseman Buck O'Neil took over.
Then Monarchs lost the league title to the Birmingham Black Barons in 1948 which prevented them from appearing in the last Negro World Series. 1948 was also the year that Wilkinson sold the Monarchs to Tom Baird who owned the team through their minor league days in the 1950s. [3]
The Monarchs won the league's western division first-half pennant in 1949, but declined to participate in a playoff with the Chicago American Giants, as their roster was depleted by player sales to major league clubs.
They won the NAL West Division title in 1950 but did not meet the eastern champion Indianapolis Clowns that year. They won a half-season pennant in 1951 but lost a playoff.
O'Neil won his only two league titles in 1953 and 1955, with a last-place finish sandwiched between in 1954 as the Negro American League of the 1950s declined in quality and shrank in size, while in the process grooming a number of eventual major league players.
The Monarchs played their home games in the minor league Kansas City Blues' Association Park from 1920 to 1923, and moved to the Blues' new park, Muehlebach Field, in mid-1923.
They mostly barnstormed in the early-to-mid-1930s, but used Muehlebach (later known as Ruppert Stadium or Blues Stadium at different times) from 1937 until 1955.
After a single season of scheduling games with the major league Kansas City Athletics as prime tenants of the renamed Municipal Stadium.
Tom Baird sold eight players to major league clubs and four more players to minor league teams, [14] released his manager, Buck O'Neil, who then signed on as a scout for the Chicago Cubs, [13] and then sold the franchise to baseball entrepreneur Ted Rasberry.
Ted moved the teams home to Grand Rapids, Michigan, though retaining the name "Kansas City Monarchs". [15]
From 1956 on, the Monarchs were a full-time barnstorming team.
The Negro American League ceased operations in 1962, and the Monarchs finally disbanded after the 1965 season.
In Grand Rapids, the Monarchs Played at Valley Field, located at 700 Valley Ave NW, 49584. [16]
The Kansas City Monarchs played minor league teams Denver of the Western League and the Kansas City Blues of the American Association in 1922 in two post-regular season series.
The Monarchs beat Denver 3 games to 2 and also beat the Blues 5 games to 1. The first Negro World Series occurred in 1924 and it was the Kansas City Monarchs against Hilldale.
The Monarchs won 5 games in the NAL World Series and Hilldale won 4 games. José Méndez pitched the last game of the 1924 World Series against his doctor's orders.
The Monarchs and Hilldale both returned to the NAL World Series the next year with Hilldale winning 5 games and the Monarchs winning 1 game.
The 1942 NNL World Series the Monarchs won 4 games and the Homestead Grays won 0 games.
The Newark Eagles won 4 games and the Monarchs won 3 games in the 1946 Negro World Series.
The Kansas City Monarchs were often asked to speak at club gatherings, because they were considered to role models and leaders for other young men.
The players on the Kansas City Monarchs understood that they had, and important role and they set a high standard for the Negro Leagues.
The successful teams gathered many excited spectators around the country.
There were 15,000 people in the crowd to watch the Monarchs play against the American Giants and 11,000 people watched the Monarchs play against the Dayton Marcos in 1920.
Another Monarchs game in 1943 drew a crowd of 315,000 people. When the Monarchs had the opportunity to play against the major league team St. Louis Cardinals, there were 15,000 spectators in attendance. [17]
The Kansas City Monarchs were one of a few Negro league teams that informally employed a farm team.
The Monroe Monarchs played from the late 1920s to 1935, mostly as a minor league team loosely associated with Kansas City. [18]