Kansas City Monarchs · Kansas City, Missouri · 1920

Some of the biggest base ball men in the country

In February 1920 the biggest men in Negro base ball met in Kansas City and formed a league: the American Giants, the A. B. C.s, the Stars, the Giants and the Monarchs, with Rube Foster handling the bookings. The Sun saw a red hot base ball town coming. History calls it the Negro National League.

The Kansas City Sun of February 28, 1920 reported that a base ball meeting held in the city the week before “brought together some of the biggest base ball men in the country connected with Negro Base Ball clubs, as well as the best sporting writers in the country.” The meetings at the Community Club Rooms produced “a base ball organization to be known as The Western Circuit of Negro Base Ball League”: the Chicago American Giants, the A. B. C. Club of Indianapolis, the Detroit Stars, the St. Louis Giants and “The Kansas City Monarchs of this City,” with the Cuban Stars of Havana, the Chicago Giants and the Dayton Marcos taken in as traveling clubs.

The circuit would run “through a booking agency handled by Andrew Rube Foster of Chicago,” each city assigned dates with the other clubs, and “plans were made for a regular base ball league to begin operation in 1921.” A constitution was adopted and guarantees posted by each club to live up to it. That meeting is remembered as the founding of the Negro National League, and here it is reported the week it happened, a couple of paragraphs tucked at the bottom of a column, right below some skeptical remarks about doctors.

The Sun knew what it had. The city “will this season see some of the best Negro base ball clubs in the country playing here,” enough that “the fans will run Chicago a close second for being a red hot base ball town.” The Elks threw the magnates and the visiting newspaper men a smoker Saturday night. The Kansas City Club would report about April 15, “and the first game will be played at Association Park.”