The Homestead Grays

The photographs on this page, brought to life.

Grays players named by the collection as Josh Gibson, Ted Radcliffe and Eudie Napier. Robert H. McNeill. Library of Congress.

Between 1937 and 1948 the Homestead Grays finished first in ten seasons out of twelve. Most people have never heard of them. The team started in 1912 in Homestead, Pennsylvania, crossed the Monongahela into Pittsburgh, and from 1940 kept a second home in Washington, playing at Griffith Stadium — the Senators' own park. In Pittsburgh they used Forbes Field, where the Pirates played, and Greenlee Field. Across fifteen years of the Negro National League they had exactly one losing season. They won the Negro World Series in 1943, 1944 and 1948, and their league record came to six hundred and twenty-nine wins against three hundred and seventy-seven losses. Josh Gibson caught for them from 1937. Buck Leonard played first base. Cool Papa Bell, Jud Wilson and Vic Harris wore the uniform. When the Negro National League collapsed in 1948 the Grays dropped into a minor association, then went out barnstorming on their own, and disbanded in May 1951. Thirty-eight seasons of baseball leaves a great many people behind — players, families, people who were in the stands. If your family watched them or played them, add it below. Compiled by MyHistoryStone from published reference sources, August 2026. Corrections welcome.