Negro Leagues Baseball Collection: Players

Not all made the headlines, but the players of the Negro Leagues, whether they rose to fame or disappeared into the seams of a team photo, played with a brilliance that could never be fully measured in stats or newspaper ink.

This collection remembers them not in isolation, but in relation: to each other, to the cities they played in, to the fields they ran across, and to the communities that cheered for them. It traces not just icons like Willie Mays, who began his career with the Birmingham Black Barons before becoming a legend, but also players like William Greason, whose pitching carried him from war to the World Series and later into the pulpit. It follows catchers like Artie Wilson, who held the game together from behind the plate and  it leaves space for the unnamed, for the men whose photographs survive but whose names have been lost. Their legacies still hum in the background of every photograph, banquet, and half-remembered story. 

The players depicted in this collection didn’t all play in top tier stadiums. Some played on borrowed fields or in barnstorming tours. Others wore their jerseys until they were threadbare, then put them away and returned to jobs that didn’t make the papers. All of them were part of something larger than the game. They built networks, businesses, and communities, giving those that watched something to root for even during difficult times. 

This is not a roll call of individuals. It is a chorus. A record of the many who played not only for the win, but for the future.