The story of how the Negro Leagues' East-West All-Star Game came to be

On a cloudy, sodden September day in 1933 at Comiskey Park on Chicago’s South Side, Bill Foster went into his windup and delivered a pitch to Cool Papa Bell at the plate. And with that, a crowd of 19,568 -- a number that certainly would’ve been higher were it not for the storm clouds threatening rain -- witnessed the start of a 20-year tradition that would come to define the Negro Leagues: the East-West All-Star Game.

From the start, the East-West Game was destined to be the jewel event on the Negro Leagues calendar, even bigger than the Negro World Series, which was played sporadically as teams (and leagues) came and went. In the leadup to the first East-West Game, the Black press referred to it as the “Game of Games,” an event that would bring the biggest stars of the Negro Leagues together on the same field.

“It is indisputable that the East-West classic was the highlight of any season,” Negro Leagues researcher Larry Lester wrote in his 2001 history of the event, “Black Baseball’s National Showcase: The East-West All-Star Game, 1933-1953.” “Many veterans of the Negro Leagues emphasized the all-star game as the pinnacle of their careers. … The game became the showcase for the best Black stars during baseball’s segregated era. It was the mecca of Black baseball. It was the ultimate thrill for the fans, who witnessed the best players from around the league in one ballpark, in contrast to the league’s world series, which featured only two teams.”

Lester cites sportswriters Roy Sparrow of the white Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph and Bill Nunn of the Black weekly Pittsburgh Courier as first coming up with the idea for a North-South All-Star Game to be played at Yankee Stadium. When they presented this idea to Pittsburgh Crawfords owner Gus Greenlee in July 1933 -- shortly after MLB staged its first All-Star Game at Comiskey Park -- he suggested an East-West Game in conjunction with Chicago American Giants owner Robert Cole. Those two, along with Nashville Elite Giants owner Tom Wilson, became the initial sponsors of the contest, though it was Greenlee who put up the $2,500 needed to rent the ballpark.

On July 29, 1933, the first East-West All-Star Game was announced. Scheduled for Sept. 10 that year, teams would be composed of players chosen by fans via mail-in ballots printed in Black newspapers. With more than 1 million votes cast, Crawfords first baseman Oscar Charleston led all players with 43,793, while Foster paced West players with 40,637.

For the first game, each team consisted of 17 players: a starting nine, three or four utility players, an extra catcher and three or four additional pitchers. The East was made up of the Crawfords, Philadelphia Stars, Homestead Grays and New York Black Yankees. The Chicago American Giants, Cleveland Giants, Nashville Elite Giants and Kansas City Monarchs represented the West.

The inaugural exhibition drew fans from all over the country, with railroads adding cars to trains bound for Chicago to accommodate for the influx in passengers. Foster, the brother of Negro National League founder Rube Foster, went the distance in the West’s 11-7 victory, the only complete game of the 26 exhibitions held (some years featured a second contest staged in a different city).

Sam Streeter of the Crawfords fanned Turkey Stearnes of the American Giants in the first for the game’s first strikeout. Jud Wilson of the Philadelphia Stars recorded the game’s first hit in the second. Sam Bankhead of the Elite Giants scored the first run in the third inning, driven in by Stearnes. The first stolen base was swiped by Rap Dixon of the Philadelphia Stars in the fourth. And, just like in MLB’s first All-Star Game earlier that year, the first home run was slugged by the pre-eminent power hitter in the game: Mule Suttles, representing the American Giants, went deep in the fourth.

“Two hundred and thirty pounds of solid bone and muscle, with his knock-knees carrying his huge frame along, and with the biggest bat on the field being carried as though it were a toothpick, Mule advanced to the plate,” Nunn wrote in the Courier. “What an ovation he got? Because, Mule, to colored fandom, is what Ruth is to Major League Baseball.”

The East-West Game proved to be so popular that by its fourth year, 1936, it outdrew MLB’s Midsummer Classic, drawing 26,400 fans to Comiskey Park while 25,556 attended the AL/NL contest at Boston’s Braves Field. In all, attendance at the Negro Leagues’ version would be higher eight times, including every year from 1942-48 (though MLB didn’t put on an All-Star Game in ’45 because of World War II). In those seven years, the East-West Game averaged 44,560 fans, with a high of 51,723 in ’43 and a low of 33,088 in ’45.

“Optimistically, the owners hoped for success with this new venture,” Lester wrote in his book. “To everyone’s surprise, especially league officials, this event became the biggest annual sporting event in Black American history. The East-West Game became the spirit and life of Negro League baseball, serving to entertain, educate and ultimately provide a forum to integrate our national pastime many years later.”

In all, 35 East-West alumni would eventually play in the AL or NL, beginning with Jackie Robinson’s debut in 1947. (Robinson went 0-for-5 in his lone East-West Game in ’45.) Seven East-West stars also appeared in MLB’s All-Star Game during their careers: Ernie Banks, Roy Campanella, Larry Doby, Junior Gilliam, Minnie Mi?oso, Satchel Paige and Robinson. Gilliam is the only player to homer in both games, going deep in the 1950 East-West Game and the ’59 All-Star Game.

Twenty-seven East-West stars have been inducted into the Hall of Fame, and many of them lead the way on the East-West leaderboards compiled by Lester. Buck Leonard’s all-time high of 13 games (tied with Alec Radcliffe) helped him top a few other categories: runs (nine), home runs (three), RBIs (14) and total bases (27). Josh Gibson’s 17 hits lead the way, and he is one of only two players with four hits in an East-West Game (he did it in 1935 and Artie Wilson matched it 12 years later). Willie Wells’ seven doubles are three more than any other player, and Suttles’ .941 slugging percentage (minimum 15 at-bats) is .149 points better than the next player.

The final East-West Classic on Aug. 16, 1953, drew only an estimated 10,000 fans. Though he went 0-for-4, a 22-year-old Ernie Banks was cited for his sure-handed play at shortstop for manager Buck O’Neil’s West squad. Just 32 days later, Banks debuted for the Cubs at Wrigley Field.

In 26 games played over 21 years, the West claimed a 14-12 edge. But the game’s legacy would carry on as its players starred in the integrated Major Leagues.

“Right away, it was clear that our game meant a lot more than a big league game,” O’Neil recalled in his memoir, “I Was Right On Time.” “Theirs was, and is, more or less an exhibition. But for black folks, the East-West Game was a matter of racial pride. Black people came from all over to Chicago every year – that’s why we outdrew the big league game some years, because we always had fifty thousand people at ours, and almost all of them were Black people; not until after Jackie Robinson [played] did any white come out.”