I found these articles thought y'all might enjoy a little history on the club... I like the jersey the guy in the back row on the right end is wearing... I think it says NATL Polish Home... I wonder what the jersey refers to???
1934 Colored Baseball Team: Chatham-Kent Sports Black History Month
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Ian Kennedy on February 8, 2013 in
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Chatham Colored All-Stars – Photo from the Chatham Sports Hall of Fame
They were champions, and trail blazers. The 1934 Chatham Colored All-Stars surprised everyone, and won the hearts of Chatham-Kent baseball fans as they became the first ever team from Chatham to win a Provincial baseball championship. Featuring stars including Chatham Sports Hall of Fame, and future Black History Month feature players Earl “Flat” Chase and Wilfred Harding.
Entering the competitive Chatham City League, the Chatham Colored All-Stars won their way to the 1934 Provincial ‘B’ Ontario Baseball Association title.
Their win however, wasn’t without adversity. In their final series, after defeating Sarnia, Welland, and Milton, the Colored All-Stars were up against a tough Penetang team, and other factors. After splitting the first two games, and with the game tied 2-2 in extra-innings of the deciding game, the umpire called the game due to darkness out of fear that the Colored All-Stars would win, even though it was light enough to play.
Eventually however, the Chatham Colored All-Stars defeated Penetang in the extra fourth and deciding game.
Not only were the Chatham Colored All-Stars the first Chatham team to win an OBA title, they were also the first ever team, comprised entirely of black athletes, to enter the OBA playoffs.
Earl “Flat” Chase: Chatham-Kent Sports Black History Month
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Ian Kennedy on February 16, 2013 in
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Born in Buxton, Ontario in 1910, Earl “Flat” Chase was one of the region’s top young baseball players in the first half of the 1900′s.
Chase was a powerful hitter, holding records across Southwestern Ontario for the longest home runs hit in several parks. He also was annually atop league batting statistics, including as a member of the
1934 Chatham Colored All-Stars.
As both a star hitter and pitcher, Chase led the Chatham league in 1934 with an incredible .525 batting average. He also pitched the final two games of the 1934 OBA Championship series, leading the Chatham Colored All-Stars to an OBA title. In 1935, Chase continued his winning ways in Chatham, helping them to yet another OBA Intermediate B title.
In 1939, Chase starred for the London Majors as they won the Amateur World’s Baseball Championship.
From there, he continued playing in the Chatham City League, helping the Chatham Arcades, Chatham Shermans, and Chatham Hadleys to OBA titles in 1945, 1947, and 1949 respectively. In 1947 he was again the city batting champion, hitting an impressive .471 average.
Sadly, Chase, who was inducted into the Chatham Sports Hall of Fame in 2001, died in 1954.
Don Tabron, 93: SS For Chatham Colored All-Stars
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1/3/09
Colored All-Stars Lose Final Surviving PlayerFROM: The (Ontario) Chatham Daily News ~
By Mark Malone, Daily News Staff
One of the most storied teams in Chatham sports
history has lost its final surviving player.
Don Tabron of the 1934 Chatham Colored
All-Stars [1] died Dec. 19 in Detroit at age 93.
Tabron was a shortstop and pitcher for the Colored
All-Stars, the first Chatham team to win an Ontario
Baseball Association championship and the first
all-black team to enter the OBA playdowns.
The team was inducted into the Chatham Sports
Hall of Fame in 2000.
The Toronto Blue Jays saluted the Chatham Colored
All-Stars by wearing their replica uniforms for
a game July 13, 2002 [2].
"I never anticipated anything like this," Tabron said
at the time. "At no time in my life did I think
something like this might happen."
The last two surviving players -- Tabron and Sagasta
Harding -- received a pre-game tribute at the
SkyDome and threw out the ceremonial first pitches.
Harding died in December 2002.
Horace Chase, a son of former All-Stars player Earl
(Flat) Chase, spoke annually with Tabron for the
past few years.
"He was a nice man," Horace Chase said. "Very
easy to talk to. Very social, jovial."
Tabron was recruited from
Detroit to play for the Colored All-Stars as an
18-year-old. He lived with teammate Wilfred
(Boomer) Harding and his wife.
"I remember them talking favour-ably about him,"
said their son, Blake Harding. "He stayed with them
for about a year, a year-and-a-half."
Tabron's baseball skills saved him from paying rent
to the Hardings.
"They wanted him to play ball," Blake Harding said.
"I guess that was worth the rent. He was quite
a player."
Tabron later played against legendary pitcher Satchel
Paige and visited segregated states in the southern
U. S. with the Detroit Stars.
He threw out the first pitch at Comerica Park before
a Detroit Tigers game in 2003.
Even if the major leagues had been desegregated in
the 1930s, Tabron wasn't sure if he could have made
a team.
"I thought I might have made the No. 1 minor
(league)," he said in 2002. "I thought my hitting as
a shortstop would have kept me out of the majors.
I was not a great hitter."
Tabron returned to Detroit in 1935 and became an
electrician. In 1944, he opened the Tabron Electric
Co., a family business that ran for more than 50
years.
He suffered in recent years from dementia, prostate
cancer and congestive heart failure.
He is survived by his wife Velma, sons Donald Jr.
and Gerald and daughter Jo Ellen.
A couple of links to some more info on the team...
1934 -The Ontario Play Downs versus the Chatham... | Sports | Midland Free Press
Tom Hawthorn's blog: Don Tabron, ballplayer (1915-2008)