as home from 1932 to 1938 to two of the Negro Leagues' most successful
franchises, the Pittsburgh Crawfords and the Homestead Greys, Gus Greenlee
Field opened in Pittsburgh in 1932 with a seating capacity of 7,500. In addition to housing the Crawfords and
Greys, Greenlee Field served as the practice site for the National Football
League's Pittsburgh Pirates, who later became known as the Pittsburgh Steelers.
a sandlot team, the Crawfords played their home games at various local facilities
such as Forbes Field and Ammon Field before being purchased by local black
businessman Gus Greenlee. Greenlee built
the stadium named after him for the Crawfords at a cost of $100,000, making his
team the first black-owned franchise to play its home games in a black-owned
ballpark. Greenlee Field provided
players amenities such as locker rooms and showers they were denied whenever
they performed in white-owned ballparks.
In 1933, Greenlee Field became one of the first ballparks to install a
permanent lighting system.
Greenlee Field was demolished after the 1938 season, its dimensions have come
into considerable question through the years.
However, the consensus seems to be that the ballpark's dimensions were
similar to those of Pittsburgh's Forbes Field, only that Greenlee Field was
somewhat larger. As a basis for
comparison, Forbes Field, which served as home to the Pittsburgh Pirates from
1909 to 1970, had a left field wall that stood 360 feet from home plate, a
portion of the wall in deepest left-center that required a blast of more than
462 feet to clear, a center field wall that stood 442 from the batter's box,
and dimensions of 376 feet to straightaway right field and an even 300 feet
down the right field foul line. Greenlee
Field's outfield fence was made of tin.
successful teams that Greenlee Field housed enabled the ballpark to
consistently surpass the 200,000-mark in annual attendance. The Crawfords, who are considered by many
baseball historians to be among the greatest teams of any color ever assembled,
featured future Hall-of-Famers Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, Judy Johnson, Oscar
Charleston and James "Cool Papa" Bell at different times during that
period. Paige reportedly pitched in the
Crawfords' first game, losing 1-0 to the New York Black Yankees. Pittsburgh later won back-to-back Negro
National League pennants in 1935 and 1936, before several of the team's top
stars subsequently left for Santo Domingo to play for dictator Molina Trujillo.
Bell and Johnson returned to Greenlee Field in 1938 to play for the Homestead
Greys, giving the team a squad that rivaled the one that took the field for the
Crawfords just a few years earlier.
Homestead's lineup featured first baseman Buck Leonard, outfielder
Martin Dihigo, and pitcher "Smokey" Joe Williams. The Greys won eight consecutive pennants from
1938 to 1945, continuing their period of dominance after they moved to Forbes
Field in 1939. Owner Gus Greenlee sold
the Crawfords to a group of white businessmen at the conclusion of the 1938
campaign, leading to the demolition of Greenlee Field shortly thereafter.