Baltimore Black Sox Team Photo (1920s)

By the 1920s, the Baltimore Black Sox had a ballpark of their own, a seat at the table of organized Black baseball and a roster that included future Hall of Famers Jud Wilson and Pete Hill. This team photo shows the club in that decade: a dozen players in pinstripe uniforms and SOX caps, posed before a covered wooden grandstand, with a man in a dark overcoat standing among them. Double matted in a black frame, it arrives ready to hang.

A Closer Look at the Photograph

Seven players stand in the back row with BLACK SOX lettered across their jerseys, and four more kneel in front, several showing a "BS" monogram on the sleeve. At center, a smaller figure sits cross-legged on the dirt with bats and a glove at his feet. The setting has not been confirmed, though the Black Sox played most of their home games in the 1920s at Maryland Baseball Park, a ballpark the club built and ran in South Baltimore. The players have not been individually identified.

The Black Sox Decade

• 1921: Maryland Baseball Park opens on May 15 with a doubleheader before a big crowd.
• 1922: First baseman Jud "Boojum" Wilson joins the club. He hit well above .380 in 1924 and entered the Hall of Fame in 2006.
• 1923: Baltimore becomes one of the six charter members of the Eastern Colored League.
• 1924: Under Hall of Fame player-manager Pete Hill, the Black Sox finish second, and their ballpark hosts two games of the first Colored World Series.
• 1926: Pitcher Laymon Yokely arrives and becomes a fixture on the staff for years to come.
• 1929: Wilson, Frank Warfield, Dick Lundy and Oliver Marcell form the "Million Dollar Infield," and Baltimore wins about 70 percent of its games and the American Negro League championship.
• 1930: Satchel Paige takes the mound in a Baltimore uniform.

Who Photographed the Black Sox?

For most of the 1920s, Baltimore's leading Black newspaper, the Afro-American, did not have a photographer on staff. That changed in 1929, the same year the Black Sox won their championship, when the paper hired Paul Henderson, a Tennessee-born photographer it called its first. Henderson went on to document Black Baltimore for three decades, from civil rights protests and NAACP campaigns to the Baltimore Elite Giants, and his collection is now preserved at the Maryland Center for History and Culture.

Earlier portraits like this one rarely carry any credit. The photographers who made them, like many of the players they posed, went unnamed, and their work survives in scattered prints, newspaper pages and family collections. Each image that remains helps fill in the story of a team that fans of the era knew well and history nearly lost.

Complete the Collection

See the club before league play in our Baltimore Black Sox Team Photo (Late 1910s), then follow the decade with the 1924 Baltimore Black Sox Team Photo and the Baltimore Black Sox Field Portrait (1920s). Wear the history with the Baltimore Black Sox Legacy Baseball Cap.

The Negro Leagues

Barred from the American and National Leagues, Black players created professional leagues of their own, beginning with Rube Foster's Negro National League in 1920 and followed by the Eastern Colored League in 1923. Major League Baseball recognized the Negro Leagues of 1920 to 1948 as major leagues in December 2020, and in 2024 their statistics joined the official MLB record.

Framing Details

The 5x7 inch image is printed on premium satin (semi-gloss) photo paper, double matted and set in a black frame for a finished size of approximately 12x10 inches. It is available framed only and ships ready to hang.

About the Photograph

The photographer and exact date of this portrait were not recorded. The 1920s date is an estimate based on the team's history, and the players and the man in the overcoat have not been identified. If you recognize anyone pictured, we would love to hear from you.