Category: REMOVING THE COLOR LINE

Removing the Color Line: The Greatest Teams of Baseball’s Golden Era
15 Major League greats. 15 Negro League greats. One 144-game season.
Instead of rebuilding one historical season, this time I wanted to bring together some of the greatest teams of baseball’s Golden Era. I selected 15 Major League clubs and 15 Negro League clubs from 1916 through 1948 and placed them together in one league.
The season will consist of a 144-game schedule with plenty of interleague contests. After all, the idea behind this experiment is to see how the great Negro League clubs would do against some of the best teams in Major League history.
The league will play in the 1935 baseball era, which falls near the middle of the years represented by these clubs.
Meet the Dynasties
This is a collection of the best individual team-seasons rather than one representative from each franchise. As a result, the great dynasties of the era are well represented.
On the Major League side, the New York Yankees, Philadelphia Athletics and St. Louis Cardinals dominate the selections.
On the Negro League side, the Homestead Grays, Kansas City Monarchs and Chicago American Giants are the most frequently represented dynasties.
There are also several clubs outside those dominant dynasties: Cincinnati, Detroit and Boston on the Major League side; Hilldale, Pittsburgh, Newark and Birmingham on the Negro League side.
With the league assembled and the schedule set, it was time to find out what would happen when these great teams finally met on the same field.