A Ball State University historian of the Negro Leagues discovered photos of one of its best teams' ballpark.
English professor Geri Strecker wasn't sure if any photos of Greenlee Field, home to the Pittsburgh Crawfords, existed before she found them at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
Mainstream media didn't cover Negro Leagues during the early 1900s and cameras were rare in black communities, she said in a press release. Visual records of the ballpark are scarce, except for sketches from fans and players.
"For the first time in 70 years, we can see the home of some of baseball's most famous black players, including Hall of Famers Satchel Paige, Cool Papa Bell and Josh Gibson," she said in the release. "Not having these photos is similar to not having pictures of Yankee Stadium when Babe Ruth and Lou Gehring played. It is an important part of baseball history."
Strecker published "The Rise and Fall of Greenlee Field: Biography of a Ballpark" late last year. Her work has been called groundbreaking and innovative by Larry Lester, a founder of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City.
She is continuing her search for photos of the league's ballparks. Now she is focusing her efforts along with the Society for American Baseball Research on finding pictures of Indianapolis' Washington Park, Federal Park and Northwestern Park.
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