Grays (Legends)

The Homestead Grays were a professional baseball team that played in the Negro Leagues in the United States. The team was formed in 1912 by Cumberland Posey, and would remain in continuous operation for 38 seasons. The team was based in Homestead, The Grays grew out of an earlier industrial team. In 1900, a group of African-American players had joined together to form the Germantown (PA) Blue Ribbons, an industrial league team. For ten years, the Blue Ribbons fielded a team every season and played some of the best sandlot teams in the area. In 1910, the managers of the team retired. The players reorganized the team and named themselves the Murdock Grays. In 1912, they became the Homestead Grays, the name they retained for the remainder of the franchise’s history.
The Grays did join the Negro American League in 1929, but that league lasted only one season. The team operated independently again until 1932, when Posey organized the ill-fated East-West League; that league also collapsed before completing its first and only season.
Posey entered his Grays in the Negro National League in 1935. With the near-collapse of the Pittsburgh Crawfords, Josh Gibson returned to the Grays in 1937, combining with slugger Buck Leonard to power the Grays to nine consecutive (and a total of ten) Negro National League Championships and three Negro League World Series titles. Vic Harris managed the Grays during their years in league play, between 1935 and 1948, and piloted Homestead to eight pennants. He guided his team to six consecutive pennants from 1937 through 1942; in 1945 and 1948, and led the 1948 team to the Negro League World Series championship. The 1943 and 1944 NLWS titles came under Candy Jim Taylor.
Following the collapse of the Negro National League after the 1948 season, the Grays struggled to continue as an independent club, and ultimately disbanded at the close of the 1950 season.
From the late 1930s through the 1940s, the Grays played their home games at Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field, home of the Pittsburgh Pirates. However, during this same period the club adopted the Washington, D.C. area as its "home away from home" and scheduled many of its "home" games at Washington’s Griffith Stadium, the home park of the Washington Senators.
Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh.
Baseball Hall of Famers
• Cool Papa Bell, OF, 1932, 1943-46
• Ray Brown, P, 1937-45
• Oscar Charleston, OF, 1930-31
• Martín Dihigo, P, 1928
• Bill Foster, P, 1931
• Josh Gibson, C, 1930-31, 1937-46
• Judy Johnson, 3B, 1930, 1937
• Buck Leonard, 1B, 1934-50
• Cum Posey, Founder-Owner, 1912-46
• Willie Wells, SS, 1932
• Smokey Joe Williams, P, 1925-32
• Jud Wilson, 3B, 1929-31, 1941-46

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