Frank Leland
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Frank C. Leland was a Negro Leagues outfielder, manager and club owner.
Frank Leland, from Memphis, Tennessee, attended Fisk University. He began his baseball career with the Washington Capital Cities in the League of Colored Baseball Clubs.
In 1888, he organized the black amateur Union Base Ball Club, with sponsorship from some of Chicago's black businessmen. Leland obtained a lease from the city government to play at South Side Park, a 5,000-seat facility. In 1898 his team went pro and became the Chicago Unions.
He played outfield with the Unions in the 1880s. A businessman, Leland returned to baseball in 1901 when he merged the Unions and the Columbia Giants to form the Chicago Union Giants. This became the top Negro League team in the Midwest. Leland served as manager of the Union Giants as well as owner.
The team changed its name to the Leland Giants in 1905; in 1907 Rube Foster replaced Leland as manager and Pete Hill and Foster strengthened the club in the field. A rift between Foster and Leland in 1910 split the team in two; Foster's team won a legal battle over the Leland Giants name, so while Foster ran the team with Leland's name, Leland's club was called the Chicago Giants. This confusion ended in 1911 when Foster's team became the Chicago American Giants. Leland left baseball a short while later after having been the premier owner and manager in black baseball for a decade.
[edit] References
- This article includes information from the article of the same name in the Baseball Reference Bullpen, accessed December 5, 2006. It is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
- Holway, John, The Complete Book of Baseball's Negro Leagues. ISBN 0803820070. The complete book is available for online viewing at Google Books.
- Lester, Larry, Sammy J. Miller and Dick Clark, Black Baseball in Chicago. Arcadia Press, 2000. ISBN 0738507040. (Excerpts).
- Riley, James, The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues. ISBN 0786709596.
[edit] External links
- A little history from the Josh Gibson Foundation
