{"product_id":"baltimore-black-sox-field-portrait-1920s-negro-league-art","title":"Baltimore Black Sox: Field Portrait (1920s)","description":"\u003cp\u003eThrough the 1920s, the Baltimore Black Sox were the pride of Black baseball in Maryland. A charter member of the Eastern Colored League, the club fielded future Hall of Famers Jud Wilson and Pete Hill, power hitter John Beckwith, and, by 1929, a \"Million Dollar Infield\" that carried Baltimore to the American Negro League championship. This field portrait brings you up close to that era: three Black Sox players standing on an open field in pinstripe flannels, gloves in hand, with BLACK SOX lettered across the chest. Double matted in a black frame, it arrives ready to hang.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA Closer Look at the Photograph\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUnlike a formal team portrait, a field portrait shows players the way fans saw them at the ballpark. The three men stand a few paces apart in pinstriped uniforms with piped trim and striped stirrup socks, each holding his glove at his side. Two of the jerseys carry BLACK SOX in block letters, and a fence line and trees mark the edge of the field behind them. The players have not been individually identified, and the 1920s date is an estimate based on the team's peak years.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Black Sox in the 1920s\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFounded as an independent club in 1913, the Black Sox joined the newly formed Eastern Colored League in 1923 and quickly became contenders. They finished second in 1924 under player-manager Pete Hill, with Jud \"Boojum\" Wilson and John Beckwith anchoring the lineup. Pitcher Laymon Yokely arrived in 1926 and became a fixture on the staff for years. In 1929, Wilson, Frank Warfield, Oliver Marcell and Dick Lundy formed the celebrated \"Million Dollar Infield,\" a nickname the press gave them for what they might have been worth in the segregated major leagues, and that year Baltimore won the American Negro League title.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eHome Field in South Baltimore\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor most of the decade, the Black Sox played at Maryland Baseball Park, a ballpark the club built near Bush and Russell Streets in South Baltimore. In 1924, it hosted two games of the first Colored World Series. The park became a junkyard in 1934, and its exact site went unconfirmed for decades until historian Bernard McKenna found a 1927 aerial photograph of it in 2013.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eComplete the Collection\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePair this portrait with our \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.blackartdepot.com\/products\/1924-baltimore-black-sox-team-photo-negro-league-art\"\u003e1924 Baltimore Black Sox Team Photo\u003c\/a\u003e, which shows the team seated in two rows in their arched-letter uniforms, or the \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.blackartdepot.com\/products\/baltimore-black-sox-team-photo-1920s-negro-league-art\"\u003eBaltimore Black Sox Team Photo (1920s)\u003c\/a\u003e, where the full club poses in pinstripes like the ones worn here. Go back to the club's independent years with the \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.blackartdepot.com\/products\/baltimore-black-sox-team-photo-late-1910s-negro-league-art\"\u003eBaltimore Black Sox Team Photo (Late 1910s)\u003c\/a\u003e. Jud Wilson later starred for the Homestead Grays, featured in our \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.blackartdepot.com\/collections\/homestead-grays-art-gifts-and-collectibles\/products\/1943-homestead-grays-at-forbes-field-wright-and-riley-negro-league-art\"\u003e1943 Homestead Grays at Forbes Field\u003c\/a\u003e team photo.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Negro Leagues\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSegregation kept Black players out of the American and National Leagues, so they built leagues of their own. Rube Foster launched the Negro National League in Kansas City in 1920, and the Eastern Colored League, which Baltimore helped found, followed in 1923. A century later, Major League Baseball formally recognized the Negro Leagues of 1920 to 1948 as major leagues, and in 2024 their records became part of MLB's official statistics.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFraming Details\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAbout the Photograph\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eLike most images of Black baseball from this period, this photograph carries no photographer's credit. Black teams rarely kept team photographers or archives of their own, so much of what survives came from local commercial photographers and the Black press. In Baltimore, that meant the Afro-American, the city's leading Black newspaper, which reported on the Black Sox throughout the 1920s. First published in 1892 and owned by the Murphy family since 1897, it grew into one of the largest Black newspapers in the country. Its archive remains a key source for historians of the team, including Bernard McKenna, whose 2020 book on the Baltimore Black Sox traces the club from 1913 to 1936.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Local Baltimore African-American Press \/ Studio Photographers","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50569950953637,"sku":"bsox-fieldportrait-blkfr","price":24.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0217\/9998\/files\/blaltimore-black-sox-field-portrait-5x7-upscaled-dblmat-blkfr-sq.jpg?v=1791059046","url":"https:\/\/www.blackartdepot.com\/products\/baltimore-black-sox-field-portrait-1920s-negro-league-art","provider":"The Black Art Depot","version":"1.0","type":"link"}