The New York Black Yankees

In September 1933, within their first Hinchliffe season, the

New York Black Yankees played the Philadelphia Stars in the Colored Championship of the Nation. They lost the championship, but not their momentum, opening the following season with an eight-game winning streak! The streak-ending ninth game with the Pittsburgh Crawfords came on July 28, 1934, a face-off that saw Hall-of-Famers Josh Gibson, Judy Johnson, James "Cool Papa" Bell, and Oscar Charleston all play in regular-season battle.

Rain disappointingly ended the game after 7 1/2 innings, but not before Crawfords' star Gibson and Yankee Bob Clark had both hit powerful home runs, Gibson's contributing to his League championship home-run record for that year.

On July 13, 1935, Elmer McDuffy pitched an 8-0 no-hitter at Hinchliffe Stadium against the House of David. According to the Paterson Evening News, it was "the first time such a feat had ever been turned in by by the Negro club in this territory."

Paterson's favorite son, Hall-of-Famer Larry Doby, was to be picked up by the Cleveland Indians in 1947 and break the American League color barrier. But what hometown fan can resist imagining that for the five years he was an Eagle, maybe--just maybe--he faced off at least once against the Black Yankees at Hinchliffe?

The New York Cubans

The New York Cubans called Hinchliffe Stadium home in their second season in the Negro National League (1936). The team featured Cubans star Martin Dihigo (HOF 1977), a resourceful ballplayer who played all nine positions at various points in his career. Dihigo was a whirlwind. He began as a second baseman, but found his true talents on the pitching mound. Paterson rooters came out June 6, 1936, to marvel at his prowess as the Cubans faced their league rivals, the Newark Eagles, with two future Hall-of-Famers in the lineup: third baseman Ray Dandridge (HOF 1987) and shortstop Willie Wells (HOF 1997). The right-handed Dihigo struck out six Newark batters in the course of the game, and then proved he was a threat with the bat too by hitting a solo home run en route to a 12-5 victory for the Cubans!

Larry Doby

Maybe it's easy to imagine what the sight of such brilliant black players in his hometown field meant to a kid from South Carolina who'd recently made Paterson his home--Eastside highschooler Larry Doby. Maybe it was nothing short of the decision to make baseball his life.

Doby, an all-around athlete at Eastside, had led his teammates to the Paterson baseball title in '41 and '42, all at Hinchliffe Stadium. And it was here in 1942 that he and his lifelong friend Monte Irvin were scouted for the Newark Eagles in what he himself recounted at his Hall-of-Fame induction in 1998 as one of the most memorable moments of his life.

Thus was launched a legendary Hall-of-Fame career. Doby became only the second black player to play professional major league baseball in the U.S., and the first to play for the American League. He joined the Cleveland Indians on July 5, 1947, just eleven weeks after Jackie Robinson entered the National League. One writer has even described him as "star material early in his Negro League days., an All-Star second baseman whose baseball credentials might have been better than Robinson's."

Doby had to be tough to survive the prejudice he endured in the majors. His teammate Al Rosen describes him as handling it "as well as anybody could handle it. .. It was very difficult for him. There's no doubt about that." Over his 13-year career, Doby was a seven-time All-Star, with a lifetime average of .283 with 253 homers and 970 RBIs. He helped lead the Indians to their last World Series title in 1948, starting in center field and hitting a home run in Game 4. He was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in 1998.

December 13th: Happy Birthday, Larry Doby!