Two Black Giants teams Play ball


One hundred years ago today … Two Black baseball teams, the Bacharach Giants and the Chicago American Giants, played a doubleheader at Dyckman Oval, whose home plate was just at the intersection of Academy and Nagle in Inwood.


[Please see NY1920s director Jonathan Goldman’s Atlas Obscura.article about Dyckman Oval and this very day, October 2nd, 1921.]

1924 aerial view of Dyckman Ovall. Planning and Land Use Map. NYC.gov

1924 aerial view of Dyckman Ovall. Planning and Land Use Map. NYC.gov

The Bacharachs, technically based in Atlantic City, were led by player-manager Dick Redding, now in the official Baseball Hall of Fame. The American Giants, hailing from Chicago, were owned by Rube Foster, Negro Leagues pioneer.

New York Age, 8 October 1921, p. 6. Newspapers.com

New York Age, 8 October 1921, p. 6. Newspapers.com

These two teams had squared off almost exactly a year earlier, as we wrote in our October 9, 1920 post





– Jonathan Goldman, October 2, 2021




TAGS: baseball, sports, stadiums, Black history, African American athlete, business, segregation