Washington DC Baseball

[GeoPoto]

In the 1930s and 40s, Griffith Stadium was home not only to the Senators, but to the Homestead Grays of the Negro National League. Clark Griffith therefore had occasion to reflect prophetically on the future of blacks in baseball. The Grays, who played some home games at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh and the rest in Washington, had a catcher who was on his way to winning the home-run and batting titles of Negro baseball in 1938 (and he would win the home-run title again in 1939). His name was Josh Gibson, and Griffith knew darn well that Gibson was hitting more home runs into the distant left-field seats than the entire white American League combined.

In March of this year, Griffith told the Washington Tribune that the time was not far off when black Americans would be playing in the big leagues. He wasn't sure, however, that the time had arrived yet. He did talk about the subject often, but never did anything about it. In 1944, he was polled by sportswriter Wendell Smith of the Pittsburgh Courier, a black newspaper, who wanted to know what Griffith thought of Commissioner Landis's statement that the major leagues were not actively excluding blacks.