An potentially astonishing integrated baseball find... tell me what you think!

[AstroJake09]

Originally Posted by jingram058

Jake, I must say very nicely researched and written. You certainly put a serious level of effort into this, and it shows. Very, very interesting. I hope the mystery team can somehow turn out to be the Memphis Red Sox, as I was born and raised there. A lot of history in Memphis, some good, some not so good. Some downright awful. But the Red Sox are of the good. My dad and grandpa went to Martin's Stadium often to see the Red Sox play. My dad said it was always fun to see games there, even though he and grandpa were white, none of that stuff mattered, it was just all about the baseball.

Thanks so much for your kind message. I really tried to cover al my bases here so to speak and put something together that is both factual and has supporting evidence. I've reached out to the Bismarck Heritage Center as well as Tom Dunkel, the author of the book Color Blind which is the full story of the 1935 team and their inception as a team. This is a pretty big find for me. Hopefully I can find a photo of each of the all black teams so that I can make a positive identification and help to tell their equally important story as well. That's pretty amazing that both your Grandpa and Dad were able to watch the Red Sox in person. I'm sure that for many of those players it mean't the world to not only simply have the opportunity to play ball but to look up in the stands and see fans and supporters of every color cheering them on.

[JollyElm]

How 'popular' was that venue in general? Because that is quite a sizable crowd, which points to it being a significant game, and certainly works in your favor.

[AstroJake09]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

How 'popular' was that venue in general? Because that is quite a sizable crowd, which points to it being a significant game, and certainly works in your favor.

Not sure how popular it was but I do know that 1935 was the inaugural year of that stadium as well as the inaugural year of the tourament but I agree and definitley was thinking that as well as it looks to be an extremely large crowd. I also read newspaper accounts of games that describe many, if not all of Bismarck's games during the tournement as night games.