Talk:List of major Negro league baseball teams

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Merge with Negro League teams[edit]

The merge seems like a good idea. It's funny--even though both pages were on my watchlist, I wasn't aware that there were duplicative lists. Clearly, though, only one list is needed. BRMo 00:21, 25 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Others[edit]

Why are many teams grouped as "Others" rather than by state?

It seems hopeless to use grouping by state for the Negro Leagues Museum sanctioned list exclusively, if that is what the preface means.

Some teams may have no home base and some may have multiple bases but those with "city names" should probably be grouped by state even if that named-for city was not the home base. --P64 (talk) 04:02, 17 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

my rewording today: "Negro Leagues" for the highest level of play
Is that the point? The list seems much too long to comprise only the highest level of play. --P64 (talk) 03:00, 12 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It does contain many more teams than what comprised the highest level. Even if we count every team that at one time in its existence played at that level, we're still including many that did not.
There were a few pre-1920 teams that never played in a league but could still be considered top-level, but I believe that only teams that played in the recognized Negro leagues between 1920 and 1950 should be considered for that.
The Chicago Brown Bombers (which played in a minor Negro league in the 1940s) and practically every team that played on the west coast are good examples of teams that should not be on this list if we're talking of the highest level of play in the Negro Leagues. -- Couillaud (talk) 04:28, 12 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
So the lead no longer explains the list --and my recent revision is cosmetic, beside that point.
Visiting "Leagues & Teams" at the museum, see External links, it appears to me that this page may have originated as a copy or nearly so.
What should it be? (What is the function of any list? In 2006 I might have said, it helps editors keep track of which important or desired articles have not been written, but many projects have since then replaced red links with stubs.) Maybe it needs chronological sectioning like the list of players[by Couillaud], at least a pre-Leagues section. On the other hand, the "navbox" provides that. Is it adequate? If so, the question may be how to help some readers find the navbox at the right time. If some wikipedestrian wonders which were the strongest or most important black baseball teams around 1900-1904, what can they do at wikipedia? What should they be able to do?
P.S. What was the strongest club in the US, at its peak 1920 to 1949, which never played in a league? --P64 (talk) 18:11, 12 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps this should be only a list of Negro League teams by state, and the real list, organized by period, should be a different one. The big question to me is what criteria we use to judge "top-level", or even whether to consider any criteria at all (other than being Negro teams during the time of segregation).
We have fifty states with teams in more than half but tiny numbers of teams based in many states. The function of a by-state listing is far, far from the function of a notable teams list. It seems reasonable to me that a list "by state" should go the other way and be comprehensive. Primarily it is project for SABR or for the Museum, not for Wikipedia. --P64 (talk) 23:50, 12 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As for your P.S., I can't tell if you're soliciting opinions or asking a trivia question. Are we including short-term all-star teams like a couple the U.S. Navy created in WW2, or the ones that Paige/Feller/Dean set up for post-season barnstorming, or are we considering only multi-season teams that never played in any league like the House of David? -- Couillaud (talk) 19:37, 12 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

List vs navbox[edit]

P.S. What was the strongest club in the US, at its peak 1920 to 1949, which never played in a league?

In asking that question this morning (above), my intention was serious but the question may be rhetorical. I wonder, how would a list of major teams differ in content from Template:Negro League teams minus the last of its ninth subsections? The first seven cover league members. The eighth covers "Independent teams (pre-1920)"; on average they may be more famous than the league teams. The ninth covers "Independent teams (post-1920)", who never joined a major league, and, wow, ...

The navbox minus the late Independents is a pretty good list of notable teams, eh? --P64 (talk) 23:45, 12 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The lead closes thus, "These and other teams for blacks are included on the template at the bottom of this page." I doubt that the template lists many others, perhaps vice versa. --P64 (talk) 23:53, 12 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]


As far as I can guess, the strongest post-1920 Negro team that never joined a league was Satchel Paige's Dominican Stars, who played briefly in 1937. After the end of the Dominican League season, they banded together as a barnstorming unit. They won the Denver Post Tournament that year and were probably as good as most teams in the two organized leagues. The caveat here is that they only played one partial season before their members returned to the organized leagues.
The Homestead Grays were probably the best independent team, remaining independent for more than a decade, but they eventually joined a league, and are eliminated from consideration. Chappie Johnson's team (which had a variety of names over its lifetime) was about the level of a middling minor league team; they could beat or at least play even with most semi-pro clubs, but they weren't as good as most league teams.
The Ethiopian Clowns put on wild makeup and costumes and clowned around like the Harlem Globetrotters did (they were organizationally related as well). They were despised and decried by Negro teams and media but still were popular (mostly with white crowds) and were actually a reasonably good team. However, they morphed into the Cincinnati Clowns and later into the Indianapolis Clowns, who played in the NAL and past.
In short, the only quality independent teams post-1920 either eventually joined an organized league, were very short term, or weren't actually good enough to be considered a top-level team. I think that last subsection (independent teams post-1920) could very well be left blank.
--Couillaud (talk) 20:27, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Page move[edit]

Being as the article on Negro league baseball is with a lower-case "l", among other reasons, this page should be moved to List of Negro league baseball teams with a lower-case "l". --64.85.220.224 (talk) 09:51, 31 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Since there were no objections after 7 days, I made the request at WP:RM. --64.85.214.168 (talk) 04:02, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Does this page's purpose need to be restated?[edit]

This is essentially the same issue as with the List of Negro League Players.

According to the intro on this page, it "follows the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum of Kansas City, Missouri, in using the term 'Negro leagues' for the highest level of play for black baseball during racial segregation in the United States." Most teams recently added to this list are not of the "highest level of play" as stated, and are not even included in the Negro Leagues Museum's list.

So, what do we do? As opposed to the conundrum of trying to determine "best players", a list of top teams is less difficult, as there IS a list of organized leagues from 1920 (the organization of the first NNL) to 1950 (the consensus date of the end of top-tier Negro leagues play), and a general consensus by Negro Leagues historians, authors, and researchers about which independent and pre-league teams were top-tier.

I do not recommend culling the list, but I would think that we could identify and note those top-tier teams within the list, so that readers understand that the Portland Rosebuds and Seattle Steelheads did not play at the same level as the Homestead Grays or Kansas City Monarchs. I also think that we could have a second list of teams, divided by era rather than state.

At the very least, we need to restate the purpose of this page, as it has teams of varying levels of play, not just the "highest". -- Couillaud 15:28, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Uh oh, not again. If the title is "list of teams", then I thought it was just a list of the teams, but I have only been adding teams that are verified to have played in one of the major Negro leagues. I'm not too keen on having all of the traveling/semi-pro teams unless they have a reference, just as you suggest. I was thinking of doing tables like with the list of players, but only for the league teams (they're easy to group). As it is, this page is hard to decipher the good from the bad. Maybe for now just add the league affiliation and dates of existence after each team? And tweak the lede paragraph, too, I guess. --64.85.214.118 (talk) 16:19, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
And how do you want to handle relocations? Do you want to count the Nashville/Cleveland/Columbus/Washington/Baltimore Elite Giants as one entry, or five? I have been trying to incorporate these into this page, the template, and the team pages, but some have different entries for each relocation, and some have redirects back to one page for a team. I realize there are different situations of which method to use, but I am seeing great inconsistency, especially considering some of the pages were created in 2005, 2007 and then forgotten for years. This, too, needs to be made consistent. --64.85.214.118 (talk) 16:29, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Converting list to tables[edit]

Hello, I’ve started updating this page by converting the list to a table format and including conclusive data: a) years of existence, b) affiliations, c) any notes, and (most importantly) d) a reference from a reliable source. Hopefully this will better distinguish between a highly-notable major Negro league team and a lesser team. Possibly, this will enable future pages to be split-off: 1) List of major Negro league baseball teams, 2) List of minor Negro league baseball teams and 3) List of Cuban league baseball teams.

  • Here are some discrepancies I have encountered:
  1. Indianapolis Clowns/Ethiopian Clowns/Cincinnati Clowns - first year, dates of Miami Giants & Ethiopian Clowns
  2. Boston Royal Giants - first & last years, when were they based in Philly & when in Boston
  3. Dayton Marcos - exact first & final years
  4. Homestead Grays - first year, final year 50 or 59?, league info & dates, Wash/Hstd date & Wash only date
  5. Memphis Red Sox – 1933–36 NSL or independent?
  6. Houston Eagles - moved to New Orleans in 1951?
  7. Cuban Stars (West) - in Cincinnati in 20 & 21 or just 21?
  8. Cuban Stars (East) - last year 1929 or 33 or 34? were they reformed after '29 or is that a different team entirely?
  9. Tennessee Rats - should this team even be included??, not really a Negro league team?

Please help fill in the missing dates and references in the table; also, please correct the errors or oversights (regrettably I lack access to preferred sources). The idea behind this list having the basic info on it is to iron out most contradictions and gaps in the teams' histories and then the teams' articles can be updated accordingly. (Dynamic IP, will change when I log off.) Rgrds. --64.85.214.131 (talk) 04:21, 29 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Louisiana teams[edit]

The Louisiana section is rather cluttered and I am not 100% that all of these could be considered Negro league teams. The listed reference [1] states nothing more than "Other Louisiana metropolitan areas boasted numerous amateur, semi-pro, and touring teams, including New Orleans (Algiers Giants, Black Pelicans), Baton Rouge (Black Sox, Hardwood Sports, West Baton Rouge Cubs), Lake Charles (Lincoln Giants), Alexandria (Aces), and Houma (Delta Cubs)." Not sure this really meets the criteria, but I'll not have more time to research them until later. Thoughts? Rgrds. --64.85.216.217 (talk) 07:39, 2 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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New Orleans Eagles[edit]

How are the New Orleans Eagles not in the Louisiana table?Dogru144 (talk) 03:16, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

 Done Rgrds. --Bison X (talk) 06:04, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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