From about 1913 to 1934, the Baltimore Black Sox were an independent team, even though they played stints with the Eastern Colored League, American Negro League, National Negro League, and East-West League.

The Black Sox were a team that excelled during the waning days of baseball’s Deadball Era. During the Deadball Era, teams used a softer baseball, making home runs difficult to hit. The players relied more on singles, bunts, stolen bases, and skilled pitching to win the game. The team’s home field, Westport Park, brought relatively small ticket revenue. Because it was difficult to attract rival clubs from the Midwest’s Negro National League to the field, team owners George Rossiter and Charles Speden helped found the Eastern Colored League (ECL) in 1922. The ECL only had six teams, but ensured home games for the Black Sox. Although the Black Sox fielded excellent teams, they always came up short in their pursuit of a pennant. When the ECL collapsed during the 1928 season, the Black Sox joined the following year the American Negro League, a new league that had primarily the same configuration as the defunct league. That year the Black Sox captured the pennant with a record of 49-21.

The stock market crash and the onset of the Great Depression contributed to the end to the American Negro League. For the next two years the Black Sox operated as an independent team. In 1930, the Black Sox, along with the New York Lincoln Giants, became the first African-American teams to play in Yankee Stadium. The following year saw the great Satchel Paige pitch briefly for the Black Sox.

Joining the East-West League in 1932, Baltimore was in first place when the league folded before the before the season ended. The Black Sox spent their final two seasons in the resurrected Negro National League playing their home games in Bugle Field, located at Biddle Street and Edison Highway. With the Depression deepening, new owner Joe Cambria did not pay the players salaries, but gave them a percentage of the gate. This, in turn, drove the players to other teams that gave them better offers, thus leading to the team’s demise.

Bready, James. Baseball in Baltimore: the first 100 years. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998.