Eastern Shore Dodgers

Maryland Historical Society

Maryland's Eastern Shore has a long tradition of baseball, although it is not as storied as other parts of the nation. Yet despite this lack of notoriety, several great players came from the Shore, including modern day star Harold Baines of Crisfield, Hall of Famer Jimmie Foxx from Sudlersville and Negro League stars Howard "Toots" Ferrell from Chestertown and William "Judy" Johnson of Snow Hill. Johnson's flawless fielding at third base and consistent batting average over .300 for the Philadelphia Hilldales and the Pittsburgh Crawfords in the Negro Leagues resulted in his becoming the first African American to be inducted into baseball's Hall of Fame in 1975.

As a foundation to these individual accomplishments, the Eastern Shore promoted minor league baseball from the 1920s to the 1940s with its Eastern Shore League, although none of those stars save for Jimmie Foxx apparently played in the league. During the 1920s the league was composed of six teams: the Cambridge Canners, 1922-28, the Crisfield Crabbers, 1922-28, the Dover Senators, 1923-24 and 1926, the Easton Farmers, 1924-28, the Pocomoke City Salamanders, 1922 and 1923, and the Salisbury Indians, 1922 to 1928. Little information is available but for a few inconsequential scores from local newspapers.

After World War II several other towns joined the league, and the teams' affiliations were much more closely tied to parent major league franchises. The Eastern Shore League represented D League baseball in which young, raw talent was slowly chiseled into maturing professionals. The composition of the league included the Cambridge Dodgers, the Dover Phillies, the Easton Yankees, the Federalsburg A's, the Milford Red Sox, the Rehoboth Beach Pirates, the Salisbury Cardinals and the Seaford Eagles. By 1950 the Eastern Shore League was disbanded, and with it went the cracker box stadiums, the team bus rides up and down the Shore and a major source of entertainment for the eastern half of Maryland.

Mowbray, William W. The Eastern Shore Baseball League. Centreville, Md.: Tidewater Publishers, 1989.