1935 BISMARCK NORTH DAKOTA SEMI-PRO BASEBALL TEAM PHOTO WITH HOF'ERS SATCHEL PAIGE & HILTON SMITH.
Item Description
While our previous Auction #224 July, 2018 offered the opportunity to pick up one of the most significant pieces in International Baseball History, the 1913 All Nations Team Photo Postcard, this time around, we are proud to present what could be considered one of the most important team photographs of the Pre-Integration Era in America. This extraordinary Type I 8x10" team photograph depicting 11 players in full uniform along with their Owner/Manager, Neil Churchill.
In order to fully understand what made this team so special and what secured its place in American baseball history, you need to know how the different races of ballplayers mirrored what was going on in American Society at the end of the 19th Century and on into the first half of the 20th Century. After the Civil War, as the sport of baseball was gaining popularity in the United States, it was extremely rare to find ballplayers of non-Caucasian ethnicities participating in the action. In the rare instances non-Caucasian players competed in organized competition, this individual was almost always the single instance of a non-white player on a team of o/w white ballplayers. By the last decade of the 19th Century, an unwritten rule had been implemented effectively banning African-American ballplayers from professional baseball leagues. Even the town and semi-pro teams that existed in obscurity, if any, would take on no more than one or two non-Caucasian ballplayers when their abilities were truly extraordinary.
As it applied to all of America in terms of restaurants, hotels, public transportation, etc., the early part of the 20th Century saw African-Americans almost totally segregated from white American society. The same continued to hold true on baseball diamonds across the country. Hispanic-Americans would start gaining a place in Professional Baseball during the 1910s, but this was limited to only light-skinned individuals that would not be mistaken for African-Americans. At the same time, African-American communities all across the country were beginning to take up the sport of baseball at enthusiastic levels and their ballplayers' abilities began to rival those of the predominantly white Major Leagues. By 1920, an official Negro National League was established by Rube Foster and interest in Black Baseball would continue to grow over the next two decades, although tough times during the Great Depression put some teams out of business, the sport still carried on.
At the beginning of the 1930s, baseball remained segregated and there were no major teams playing in America that included significant white and black ballplayers on the same squad. However, a local car salesman turned car dealership owner, Neil Churchill, began to assemble a semi-pro team in Bismarck, ND which would tour the Midwest, taking on all comers and defeating just about every one of them. Beginning in 1932, Churchill was able to attract a 20 year-old catcher named Quincy Troupe away from the Chicago American Giants. A year later, Churchill landed his biggest drawing card of all, the best pitcher in organized baseball at that time - Hall of Famer Satchel Paige, successfully luring him away from the Pittsburgh Crawfords. The following season, Ted "Double Duty" Radcliff came aboard, followed by another Hall of Famer, Hilton Smith in 1935, stealing him away from the defending Colored Champions, the Kansas City Monarchs when they were in town to play the Bismarck Club. Adding two more former Negro Leaguers to the fold during the course of the 1935 season - Barney Morris and Red Haley - Churchill had assembled a ball club filled w/a roster that was half black and half white, a feat that had never been accomplished prior to this and would not again be duplicated until more than 25 years later, well after the integration of Major League Baseball. Topping off Churchill's incredible achievement in just assembling such a team, the Bismarck club blew through the National Semi-Pro Championship tournament at year-end and was declared the best team outside of Major League Baseball at the conclusion of the 1935 season. Although Paige and Smith along w/several others would be gone by the following year, this Bismarck, ND team will forever be remembered as the club that broke the color barrier and showed everyone that blacks and whites can play together and the results can be astounding. This ball club was further immortalized in a book by Tom Dunkel entitled "Color Blind," which detailed the tremendous success of the 1935 Bismarck team.
Full roster shown is: (Front Row) - Joe Desiderato (3B), Al Leary (SS), Neil Churchill (MGR), Dan Oberholzer (2B), Ed Hendee (1B), (Back Row) - Hilton Smith (P), Red Haley (IF-OF), Barney Morris (P), Satchel Paige (P), Vernon "Moose" Johnson (LF), Quincy Troupe (C-OF), Ted "Double Duty" Radcliffe (P-C). Reverse side of photo has some paper on surface from scrapbook removal. Front has trace of lt. dust soiling, most noticeable around margin edges. Two corner tips have marks from mounting corners. Image area is glossy and Fine. After extensive internet research, it appears that this original photo is most likely unique to the hobby as we have not been able to find another example that has sold publicly, other than a real photo postcard which utilized the identical image. Ex-Merkin Collection.
