Negro League Schedules

[joefromchicago]

This is a thread for posting historical Negro League schedules. I encourage anyone to post their schedule files here, although, like in the historical minor league thread, I ask that you follow the same format when you post (see the second post in this thread for an example of the format).

Major League Baseball decided that the following Negro Leagues will count as "major" for statistical purposes:

Negro National League (I) (1920-31)
Eastern Colored League (1923-28)
American Negro League (1929)
East-West League (1932)
Negro Southern League (1932)
Negro National League (II) (1933-48)
Negro American League (1937-48)

But the history of the Negro Leagues stretches back to the nineteenth century, and there were leagues that were considered "minor" as well as leagues that were planned but never got off the ground. They all have a place here.

A few words about the schedules. Very early on, most of the leagues adopted a split-season format, which saw the winner of the first half face the winner of the second half in a post-season series for the pennant. The first half usually ended around July 4 while the second half would end some time in September after Labor Day. The official split dates will be noted, but be aware that OOTP, at present, doesn't handle split schedules very well (see this post for further details).

As for the leagues' schedule-making process, that also was usually split in two. The first-half schedule would be published before the season opener - sometimes only a few days before. The second-half schedule would be published - if at all - around the time the first half ended. That was in contrast to the white leagues, both major and minor, which, after 1876, always released their schedules for the entire year during the pre-season. There were a few reasons for this difference. The Negro Leagues, for instance, often didn't know what venues were available in advance. More importantly, the leagues couldn't anticipate which teams would survive into the second half, so a schedule released in April would often be made irrelevant by events two or three months later. Waiting until June or July to craft the second-half schedule, therefore, saved a lot of wasted effort.

That's not to say that the Negro Leagues followed their own published schedules. DeHart Hubbard, sportswriter for the Cleveland Call and Post, echoed a common complaint when he wrote in 1943:

The Negro National League and Negro American League, as now constituted and organized can in no true sense of the word or stretch of the imagination be construed as real "leagues." Close scrutiny reveals them at best as loosely organized associations or booking agencies comprised of teams each going its own merry way, booking the best games it can regardless of "schedules" and totally oblivious to anything except making money for itself.... Our team owners do not respect their leagues, their players, other owners, their rules and regulations, or anything, except the chance to play before a "big gate." They are unwilling to post sizable forfeit fees to insure conformance with league rules and schedules. They deliberately break rules. They ignore scheduled games if there is a chance to make two dollars extra at some other park.

The problems that Hubbard pointed out in 1943 were endemic to Negro League baseball throughout its history. It might have been less common when the leagues had a firm hand at the tiller, such as in the early 1920s when Rube Foster was in charge, but teams were always liable to skip a league game to play a white semi-pro club if it meant earning more money - and it usually did. As such, an official schedule for any of the Negro Leagues should be viewed, at best, as aspirational.

Another problem for the OOTP schedule maker is that second-half schedules are hard or impossible to find. In my hours of searching, I've found plenty of first-half schedules but relatively few second-half ones. And that is, perhaps, understandable. Given the tenuous financial state of the leagues and the way that teams appeared and disappeared at random, it's possible that some leagues, if they survived past July 4, just never released second-half schedules and let the teams - whichever ones still existed - make their own arrangements to play other league teams and decide among themselves who won the second half.

The obvious solution, then, is to make "as-played" schedules, right? Well, believe it or not, that's even more difficult. Negro League teams were notorious for not reporting game results to the black press or submitting official scoresheets to the league offices. If you take a look at Seamheads or Baseball Reference, they don't post the game-by-game results for any of the Negro League seasons - and if they don't have them, nobody does. It's true that there are researchers who are working hard right now to compile that information, but until they publish their results "as-played" schedules will be even harder to create than "as-published" ones.

Most of the schedules posted here, therefore, should be understood as approximations of seasons that the Negro Leagues wanted to play, rather than accurate recreations of the schedules of the games that were actually played. Nevertheless, for the OOTP gamer who wants to get as close as possible to playing out historical Negro League seasons, these schedules are a "good enough" solution until something better comes along.

[joefromchicago]

1927 NEGRO NATIONAL LEAGUE

Teams:
Birmingham Black Barons
Chicago American Giants
Cleveland Hornets
Cuban All-Stars
Detroit Stars
Kansas City Monarchs
Memphis Red Sox
St. Louis Stars

Schedule Characteristics:
SCHEDULE type="ILN_BGY_G123_T8_C_" inter_league="0" balanced_games="1" games_per_team="123" start_month="4" start_day="23" start_day_of_week="7"

Season starts on April 23 and ends on September 15. Teams play from 57 to 123 games and play each opponent from 4 to 30 times. Weekday and Saturday games start at 3:00. Sunday and holiday double-headers start at noon and 3:00. No Sunday games in Birmingham. The Cuban All-Stars are a travelling team and have no home games. Split-season format with the first half ending on July 6.

This schedule is drawn from two sources - the Indianapolis Recorder (first half) and the Chicago Defender (second half) - that used different formats for the schedules. The Recorder noted which dates were double-headers, while the Defender didn't. I assumed that the league maintained the same basic format in both halves, with most series running Saturday through Wednesday with double-headers on Sundays and holidays. The Cleveland Hornets dropped out of the league in early July and so were not included in the second-half schedule. The home-and-away breakdowns are as follows:

NNL 1927
     A  H  T
BIR 76 38 114
CHI 32 84 116
CLE 34 23  57
CUB 87  0  87
DET 43 80 123
KC  50 59 109
MEM 60 52 112
STL 36 82 118

1927 NNL (modified)

I went ahead and made an alternate schedule that adds Cleveland games to the second half. This modified schedule has the following characteristics:

Schedule Characteristics:

SCHEDULE type="ILN_BGY_G130_T8_C_" inter_league="0" balanced_games="1" games_per_team="130" start_month="4" start_day="23" start_day_of_week="7"

The home-and-away breakdowns are as follows:

NNL 1927 + Cleveland
     A  H  T
BIR 80 42 122
CHI 39 84 123
CLE 63 53 116
CUB 93  0  93
DET 43 80 123
KC  56 66 122
MEM 67 58 125
STL 36 94 130

NNL 1927.lsdl
NNL 1927 (+Cleveland).lsdl

[joefromchicago]

1925 EASTERN COLORED LEAGUE

Teams:

Bacharach (Atlantic City, NJ) Giants
Baltimore Black Sox
Brooklyn Royal Giants
Cuban Stars (East) (Jersey City, NJ)
Harrisburg (PA) Giants
Hilldale (Darby, PA) Club
Lincoln (New York City) Giants
Wilmington (DE) Potomacs

Schedule Characteristics:
SCHEDULE type="ILN_BGY_G63_T8_C_" inter_league="0" balanced_games="1" games_per_team="63" start_month="4" start_day="25" start_day_of_week="7"

Season starts on April 25 and ends on September 27. Teams play from 36 to 63 games and play each opponent from 4 to 14 times. Weekday and Saturday games start at 3:00. Sunday and holiday double-headers start at noon and 3:00. The Cuban Stars and Brooklyn Royal Giants have a handful of home games but are, in effect, travelling teams.

The ECL was unusual in that it published full-season schedules at the beginning of each season. The schedules that I found are not in good shape, but I think I figured it out. Wilmington is scheduled to be in two places on August 31 - I changed one of those games to August 21. The home-and-away breakdowns are as follows:

     A  H  T
BAC 29 18 47
BAL 23 40 63
BRK 28  8 36
CUB 35  2 37
HAR 20 34 54
HIL 24 36 60
LIN 22 32 54
WIL 23 34 57

ECL 1925.lsdl

[joefromchicago]

1887 NATIONAL COLORED BASE BALL LEAGUE

Teams:
Baltimore Lord Baltimores
Boston Resolutes
Louisville Falls City
New York Gorhams
Philadelphia Pythians
Pittsburgh Keystones

Schedule Characteristics:
SCHEDULE type="ILN_BGY_G20_T6_C_" inter_league="0" balanced_games="1" games_per_team="20" start_month="5" start_day="6" start_day_of_week="6"

Season starts on May 6 and ends on August 31. Teams play 20 games and play each opponent 4 times. Weekday and Saturday games start at 3:00. No Sunday games.

The NCBBL (alternately called the "National Colored League" or the "League of Colored Baseball Clubs") was perhaps the first attempt to form a nationwide league for black baseball. Washington and Cincinnati were originally slated to host teams but failed to post the required bond, so this ended up being a six-team league. The teams played only a handful of games before the league collapsed due to lack of money. One unique thing about this league is that The Sporting Life published its schedule. White publications almost never published schedules for the Negro Leagues or covered their games.


NCBL 1887.lsdl

[No Pepper]

Joe, thanks for starting this thread and providing a few starting schedules.

I still have the photocopied clippings you sent me and have worked on a number of them to convert to ootp format over the years. Alas, I have not shared them due to "life" and "procrastination". Hopefully your post clarifies things for me a bit and provides that push or pull!

If you do not know already, retrosheet.org is compiling a database of seasons and game-level data that should be helpful towards your stated goal. It appears they have a good cover of 1939 to 1949. I have started converting 1945, 1946 and 1948 seasons. Their coverage includes game dates, day/night info, exhibitions, park info, all-star and playoff schedules. As I mentioned in another thread, OOTP schedule files can code for exhibitions and "neutral" or "alternate" home parks. I've set up a spreadsheet that sort of makes conversion a bit easier than by hand. If I get time, I'd like to add to your list.

[joefromchicago]

NP, I eagerly look forward to anything that you can contribute to this thread. Negro League schedules are incredibly frustrating to track down and put together, so any help would be greatly appreciated