Legacy Baseball: Fictional Negro Leagues

[LBL_Brendan]

Hello, all-

Despite having played OOTP since 2008, I have only recently gotten into customizing the game by making my own logos/uniforms. As a forewarning, I am not an artist myself and mostly modify images that I find online to fit my particular needs.

For a couple of years, now, I have been working with @catamount_kid to create a heavily customized fictional historical league called the Legacy Baseball League. He's started a dynasty thread for the league located here if you're curious about reading more about our efforts in that regard.

By way of brief context for this thread, the LBL starts in the 19th century and, as a result of the infamous Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson, one of the other leagues in the LBL universe will be a fictional negro league, established in 1900, that will ultimately have two sub-leagues split by geography (i.e., North v. South) that will serve as a rival major league until integration.

I am still in the process of assembling all of the logos and uniforms for this rival league, but I am working my way backwards from the 1940s to the 1900s, with the idea being that each team's look will be updated roughly every decade or so.

I thought some members of the community might want to make use of these graphics in their own games (although I recognize that fictional historical players are probably a fairly niche part of this great community). So, I'll update this thread as I go to share what I've put together to-date. A big credit is owed to all of the forum members that were involved in assembling the Photoshop jersey/cap templates used throughout this thread. I greatly appreciate all of your efforts and think the templates that you have compiled go a long way to making custom unis look great in-game.

As a quick aside, for each team, I will include the 1942 version of each home/away jersey featuring the Hale Initiative "Health" patch, which you can read more about here if you're curious. I will also include the 1939 version of each home/away featuring the Baseball Centennial patch.

So, without further ado, I present the Negro Legacy League.

Southern League
Atlanta Foxes - 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s
Birmingham Black Magic - 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s
Chattanooga Nickajacks - 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s
Jacksonville Villains - 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s
Kansas City Stars - 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s
Louisville Elite Giants - 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s
Memphis Bears - 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s
Nashville Comets - 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s
New Orleans Blackbirds - 1900s, 1910s, 1920s,1930s, 1940s
Richmond Black Rifles - 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s
Savannah Goobers - 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s
St. Louis Canaries - 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s

Northern League
Brooklyn Cuban Stars - 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s
Buffalo Electrics - 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s
Chicago Emperors - 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s
Cincinnati Snappers - 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s
Cleveland Black Cats - 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s
Detroit/Motor City Braves - 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s
Indianapolis Stars/Columbus Red Sox - 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s
New York Black Kings - 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s
Newark Stars/Jays - 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s
Philadelphia Keystones - 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s
Pittsburgh Rollers - 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s
Washington Hoppers - 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s

Files
1900s
1910s
1920s
1930s
1940s

[LBL_Brendan]

The first team to share from the Southern League is the Atlanta Foxes. The Foxes will derive their team nickname from an early manager, Red "Fox" Williams.

The Foxes's 1940s cap and secondary logo is heavily inspired by the San Francisco Seals and the color scheme is inspired by the St. Louis Browns.

[LBL_Brendan]

The next Southern team is the Birmingham Black Magic. Their nickname derives from Birmingham's nickname as the "Magic City" based on its massive population growth in the early 20th century.

[LBL_Brendan]

Next up from the Southern league is the Chattanooga Nickajacks. I saw someone on this forum mention it as a nickname once upon a time and thought it was a great name for a team. The Nickajack region, per Wikipedia, was a loosely defined region of North Alabama and East Tennessee where, during the Civil War era, public sentiment adhered more strongly to the Union.

Logo and sleeve patch incorporate a train given Chattanooga's rich railroad history. Cap features the classic wishbone C.

[LBL_Brendan]

Presenting the fourth Southern league team, the Jacksonville Villains. Logo is based on this Paris Red Peppers shirt.

I've always been a sucker for the chain-stitched patches on older jerseys, so was happy to work one into this league here.

[LBL_Brendan]

The fifth team in the Southern League: the Kansas City Stars. The team shares a name with the local paper, which has been in print since 1880 and is where Ernest Hemingway got his start.

The uniforms are inspired by this 1960s Billings Mustangs' script and feature different color raglan sleeves like the KC Monarchs' of that era. I couldn't make the Monarchs' piping look good with the Stars' script; so, plain raglan sleeves it is.

[LBL_Brendan]

Next up is the Louisville Elite Giants. I always appreciated the braggadocio that came with the Baltimore negro league team calling themselves the "Elite Giants," and so wanted to include that nickname in this league. I also got a small kick out of the fact that the Louisville acronym was LEG given the Prohibition-era bootlegging activities of Bourbon Country.

Color scheme is orange and blue in a bid to diversify beyond just blue-and-red like so many real teams of the era.

[LBL_Brendan]

Next up in the Southern league is the Memphis Bears. It's maybe not the most creative name, given the real-life Memphis Grizzlies, but I liked the simplicity of it and it seemed era appropriate.

The simple block font jerseys in dark navy turned out nicely, I think.

[LBL_Brendan]

Next up is the Nashville Comets. No real reason for the nickname, just thought it sounded nice and thought it made sense for an early 20th century team name when many team names were tied to natural occurrences. Wanted a green and gold team, so Nashville answered the call.

[TrbldWiseman]

These are looking pretty good Can't wait to see the rest of them

[Eugene Church]

Very nice work... you are very talented.

[LBL_Brendan]

Next up is the New Orleans Blackbirds, one of my personal favorite franchises in the sets. Named by local sportswriters based on their black socks in their early days, the Blackbirds' look features the classic Cardinals' bat-on-bird.

[LBL_Brendan]

Next is the Richmond Black Rifles. Canonically, at the outset, the LBL was mostly bankrolled by a tobacco magnate from Richmond who placed a condition on his funding that one of the inaugural teams represent Richmond. So, the Richmond Rifles were one of the first teams in the LBL. After Plessy, the owner of the Rifles similarly set about establishing the NLL and the Black Rifles' franchise.

The look draws heavily from the Birmingham Black Barons of the same period and their fantastic hat.

[LBL_Brendan]

Another of my favorites, also borrowing heavily from the KC Monarchs' look of the '40s, is the Savannah Goobers. Credit for the logo inspiration goes to Raitis Supe . There was something about the notion of a baseball playing peanut that just delighted me.

[LBL_Brendan]

The last Southern league team, the St. Louis Canaries drew their nickname in a similar fashion to the New Orleans Blackbirds--their early caps and socks were yellow. Over time, the team incorporated more red, and de-emphasized their primary yellow, but the name persists.

[LBL_Brendan]

The first team from the Northern league, the Brooklyn Cuban Stars (much like their real-life counterparts the New York Cuban Stars) were originally a team of professional baseball players from Cuba and other Latin American countries competing in the NLL.

The logo and cap are imitations of a logo and cap that I'm reasonably sure @Cooleyvol put together at some point for a different fictional team. I saw it in an online league run by @tarmer and was very impressed by it. The colors are taken from the Cuban flag.

[LBL_Brendan]

Next up in the Norther league is the Buffalo Electrics.

Buffalo is nicknamed the City of Light. Owing in large part to its proximity to Niagara Falls, NY, Buffalo earned its nickname when it became the first city to have widespread streetlights in in the late 19th century.

The jersey was inspired by this Great Falls Electrics jersey. Maybe not fully 1940s in style, but I liked the simplicity of it and the blue(ish)-and-white color scheme hopefully harkens back to pre-TV days.

[LBL_Brendan]

Next up is the Chicago Emperors. Baseball teams have a long history of monarchical names. So, why not something even more grandiose for this Chicago powerhouse?

[LBL_Brendan]

Originally Posted by TrbldWiseman

These are looking pretty good Can't wait to see the rest of them

Originally Posted by Eugene Church

Very nice work... you are very talented.

Thanks, guys! Glad you’re enjoying them!

[Eugene Church]

Just a suggestion... do a set with New Orleans rather than just Orleans.

I'm an old New Orleans Pelicans' fans from the 1950s.

You really do excellent work... thanks for sharing it with us.