1924 Baltimore Black Sox Team Photo

In 1924, the Baltimore Black Sox were one of the strongest clubs in Black baseball. Led by Hall of Fame player-manager Pete Hill and powered by the bats of Jud "Boojum" Wilson and John Beckwith, they climbed to second place in the Eastern Colored League, and that October their home field hosted games of the first Colored World Series. This 1924 Baltimore Black Sox team photo puts that roster on your wall: fifteen ballplayers seated in two rows, BLACK SOX arched across every chest. Printed on premium satin photo paper and offered framed or unframed, it brings a key chapter of Baltimore's Negro League history home.

The 1924 Baltimore Black Sox

Only the Hilldale club of Darby, Pennsylvania, finished ahead of Baltimore in the 1924 Eastern Colored League standings. Baltimore built its second-place finish on a lineup with two of the league's most dangerous hitters in Wilson and Beckwith, plus the speed of Crush Holloway in the outfield. When Hilldale met the Kansas City Monarchs that October in the first Colored World Series, two of the games were played on the Black Sox's home field, Maryland Baseball Park. Off the field, the club was on solid footing as well. In February 1924, owner Charles Spedden announced that the team owned its ballpark outright, calling it a "$35,000 plant fully paid for."

Who Managed the 1924 Black Sox?

Pete Hill led the 1924 club as player-manager at age 41. Before coming to Baltimore, Hill was one of the great outfielders of the early Black baseball era and a longtime star for Rube Foster's Chicago American Giants. He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006.

Notable Players on the 1924 Roster

Team photos of this era rarely recorded names from left to right, and the players in this image have not been individually identified. The 1924 roster included:

• Jud "Boojum" Wilson, first base. One of the most feared hitters in Negro League history, Wilson hit well above .380 in 1924 and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2006. He later starred for the Homestead Grays and appears in our 1943 Homestead Grays at Forbes Field team photo.
• John "The Black Bomber" Beckwith, shortstop. Beckwith joined Baltimore in the middle of the 1924 season after leaving the Homestead Grays and gave the lineup one of the most powerful bats in the league.
• Crush Holloway, right field. The Texas-born outfielder was known for his speed and modeled his aggressive baserunning on Ty Cobb.
• Julio Rojo, catcher. Born in Sagua la Grande, Cuba, Rojo played 21 seasons in the Cuban Winter League in addition to his years in Baltimore.
• George "Chippy" Britt. A pitcher who could play every position on the field, Britt also hit over .300 in 1924.
• Bob "Big Boy" McClure, pitcher. McClure went 9-2 on the mound for Baltimore that season.

Maryland Baseball Park: The Black Sox's Home Field

Maryland Baseball Park stood at Bush and Russell Streets in South Baltimore, a few blocks south of where Oriole Park at Camden Yards stands today. The Black Sox built and operated the park themselves and called it home from the early 1920s until the team moved to Bugle Field in 1932. The ballpark was later lost, and its exact location was not confirmed until 2013, when historian Bernard McKenna found a 1927 aerial photograph showing the field. A waste-to-energy plant now occupies the site.

A Brief History of the Baltimore Black Sox

The Black Sox began as an independent club in 1913 and became a charter member of the Eastern Colored League in 1923. Their best season came in 1929, when they won the American Negro League championship behind the "Million Dollar Infield" of Jud Wilson, Frank Warfield, Oliver Marcell and Dick Lundy. Satchel Paige pitched for Baltimore in 1930. The team played in several leagues before folding in the mid-1930s, and in 2007 the Baltimore Orioles wore Black Sox uniforms to honor the club's legacy.

The Negro Leagues

Shut out of the major leagues by segregation, Black players built their own professional baseball. In February 1920, Rube Foster organized the Negro National League at the Paseo YMCA in Kansas City, and rival circuits such as the Eastern Colored League followed. In December 2020, Major League Baseball recognized the Negro Leagues of 1920 to 1948 as major leagues, and in 2024 their statistics became part of the official MLB record.

Print Details

This open edition print measures 11x17 inches, with a 10x16 inch image area, and is printed on premium satin (semi-gloss) photo paper from a high-resolution reproduction of the archival photograph. Choose the unframed print, or select the black frame for a finished piece of approximately 13x19 inches that arrives ready to hang.

About the Photograph

No photographer's name survives with this team portrait, a gap shared by most Negro League images from the 1920s. The richest source of Black Sox photography is the Baltimore Afro-American, a weekly first published in 1892 and purchased in 1897 by John H. Murphy Sr. Born enslaved in Baltimore in 1840, Murphy rose to first sergeant in the U.S. Colored Troops during the Civil War before turning to publishing. When he died in 1922, his son Carl Murphy took over what had become the largest Black-owned newspaper on the East Coast. The Afro-American followed the Black Sox through their best seasons, and historian Bernard McKenna has used its archives to recover rare images of the club, including a 1930 photo of Satchel Paige in a Baltimore uniform. Documentary photographer Paul Henderson joined the paper in 1929 and later photographed Black Sox pitcher Laymon Yokely on the mound at Maryland Park. Henderson's negatives are now preserved at the Maryland Center for History and Culture.