The 1926 Colored World Series was the championship tournament for the 1926 season of Negro league baseball. It was the third overall Series played. It matched the Chicago American Giants, champions of the Negro National League (1920–1931), and the Bacharach Giants of Atlantic City, New Jersey, champions of the Eastern Colored League. Initially planned as a best-of-nine series, two ties meant that the series went eleven games. Chicago won just once in the first six games, but games 1 and 4 had ended in ties, meaning that they only trailed three games to one when the Series shifted to Chicago. They were down to their final game after losing the eighth game, but the Chicago American Giants proceeded to win the next three games to complete the comeback and win their first ever World Series.
Claude "Red" Grier of the Bacharach Giants pitched a no-hitter in Game 3. No pitcher would throw a no-hitter in a postseason game in the major leagues until Don Larsen did so thirty years later.
Background This was the second postseason for the Negro leagues to involve a Championship Series played prior to the World Series. The Negro National League Championship Series involved the champions of the split season in the Kansas City Monarchs (first-half) and the Chicago American Giants (second half), which like the World Series was also a best-of-nine series, with the first four games in Kansas City and the remaining games in Chicago. The Giants lost four of the first five games (with Game 4 being the only win). However, the Giants proceeded to win four consecutive games at home, however, to clinch the pennant, which included three games decided by one run and a Game 9 that ended in the fifth inning with a 5–0 win. It was their fourth league title, all done in the span of six years.
Bacharach Giants John Henry Lloyd, who had managed the Atlantic City Bacharach Giants in 1925, left the team and signed as manager with the Lincoln Giants after the Bacharach Giants attempted to reduce his salary. The Bacharach Giants' shortstop, Dick Lundy, was promoted to player-manager in his place, returning to the post he had held in 1923 before Lloyd's arrival.
At the winter meetings, the Eastern Colored League admitted the Newark Stars (also known as the Newark ABC's) to the league as the eighth team. The seven teams that had finished the previous season were the Bacharach Giants of Atlantic City, the Baltimore Black Sox, the Brooklyn Royal Giants, the Cuban Stars (East), the Harrisburg Giants, the Hilldale Club, and the Lincoln Giants of New York. The two leagues also announced a $3,000 maximum monthly salary limit for each team. The league, then in its fourth year, was attempting to play a 70-game full-season competition, but had experienced problems in enforcing a uniform schedule. The league decided that a team if a team failed to play at least 50 league games, it would not be eligible to compete in the Colored World Series, or to have claim to the money awarded to the second or third place clubs. The season began on May 1.
Early in the season, the Bacharach Giants trailed in the race. On May 23, their record was 2–7, placing them in seventh place, trailing the league-leading Harrisburg Giants. By June 28, their record had improved to 9–12 and they had inched into sixth place, ahead of the Brooklyn Royal Giants and the last place Newark Stars. The Cuban Stars were in first place with a 10–3 record. A week later, the manager of the Newark Stars announced that they would quit the league and disband, leaving the league with seven teams. And although the Brooklyn Royal Giants remained in the league, they were rumored to be planning to leave the league the next season as they had only played six games and were disregarding the league schedule. Instead of playing league games, they were playing semi-pro teams in Brooklyn or barnstorming in upstate New York. In the month of July, the Bacharach Giants took off, winning 13 straight games, before losing to the Cuban Stars on July 26.
During August, the Cuban Stars clung to their lead in the pennant race, with the Bacharach Giants, the Harrisburg Giants, the Hilldale Club, and the Lincoln Giants all remaining in the mix. But by August 31, the Bacharach Giants had moved into first place with a 31–20 record. A week later, the Bacharach Giants were solidly in first place with a 33–20 (.623) record and four games remaining before the scheduled September 15 end of the season. The second-place Harrisburg Giants had a 25–17 (.595) record, and the third-place Hilldale Club had a 34–24 (.586) record. (Because of the unbalanced schedule, championships were awarded to the team with the highest winning percentage.) An article in the Afro-American newspaper provided a retrospective of the season, saying that with the Bacharach Giants' move from also-ran to first place, "The Bacharach Giants have astonished the world in the last six weeks."
Chicago American Giants
Over the winter, Rube Foster, the co-owner and manager of the American Giants (as well as president of the Negro National League), engaged in a series of trades and transactions designed to overhaul and rebuild his aging team. He traded for Rube Curry, who had pitched for the victors of 1925 Negro World Series—the Hilldale Club. He traded for outfielder George Sweatt from Kansas City, pitcher Robert Poindexter and outfielder Sandy Thompson from the Birmingham Black Barons, sending away long-time American Giants players Cristóbal Torriente, Juan Padrón, and Bingo DeMoss (who went to manage the Indianapolis ABCs). From the Memphis Red Sox, which had forfeited its NNL franchise, he picked up Sanford Jackson, Charlie Williams, and catcher Pythias Russ. Third baseman Dave Malarcher was named as captain of the team.
The Memphis and the Birmingham teams, which had played in the NNL in 1925, left to join the new Negro Southern League and did not renew their franchises, which were returned to the league. Their players were distributed to other teams. A new franchise was approved for the Cleveland Elites, owned by Sam Shepard of St. Louis; Candy Jim Taylor was named as the team's manager. The league would have eight teams—the Chicago American Giants, Cleveland Elites, Cuban Stars (West), Dayton Marcos, Detroit Stars, Indianapolis ABCs, Kansas City Monarchs, and St. Louis Stars. Bullet Rogan took over as player-manager of the Monarchs, and Arvell "Bill" Riggins became the player-manager of the Detroit Stars. The schedule called for the season to open on May 1, with the league playing two halves and the winners of each half playing a league championship series.
The defending champion Monarchs jumped to an early lead in the race, winning all of their first nine games of the season and 13 of their first 15, with the American Giants in second place winning 10 of their first 13. On May 18, however, the Monarchs suffered a tragic setback when their star shortstop, Dobie Moore, was shot in the leg by a girlfriend, resulting in compound fractures that would end his professional baseball career. The American Giants immediately retook the lead in the race, with Kansas City dropping to third. But the Monarchs quickly rebounded and regained the lead, winning two consecutive series, eight of nine games, against the American Giants. The first half race finished on July 5 with Kansas City winning it with a 35–12 record. Detroit (34–17) was in second place and Chicago (28–16) in third.
Two weeks into the second half, the league's weakest team, the Dayton Marcos, withdrew from the league and folded. A week later the Cleveland Elites also quit. The Cuban Stars had initially announced that they would return early to Cuba, but when Cleveland withdrew the Stars decided to stay and allow the league to continue with six teams. Meanwhile, the American Giants jumped to an early lead in the second half race by going 22–1 in their first 23 games. In late August, American Giants manager Rube Foster experienced a nervous breakdown after several weeks of exhibiting erratic behavior. He was taken into custody at his home by police and, after several days of observation, was committed to the mental asylum at Kankakee State Hospital. Dave Malarcher took over the management of the team. With a 29–7 record, the American Giants won the second half, narrowly edging the second-place Monarchs.
The NNL League Championship Series was a best-five-of-nine contest played from September 18 to 29. The series opened in Kansas City, where the Monarchs won the first three games, 4–3, 6–5, and 5–0, before the American Giants won the fourth game 4–3. Traveling to Chicago to play the remainder of the series, the Monarchs won the fifth game 11–5, leaving them ahead four games to one. The Chicago Giants, however, rallied to win the next two games by scores of 2–0 (a shutout by Curry) and 4–3.
On September 29 the Monarchs were still leading four games to three with a doubleheader scheduled. If the American Giants won, the teams would play a second, five-inning game and the winner would board the train to Atlantic City for the World Series. The teams' ace pitchers, Foster and Rogan, faced off in a great pitching duel. Both were pitching shutouts as the game went to the bottom of the ninth. Jackson beat out a roller to third, Foster sacrificed him to second, and with two outs, Thompson singled to drive in the winning run. When Rogan (the Monarchs' manager) saw that Foster was warming up to start the second game also, he decided to go back himself, taking the ball from Chet Brewer who had been scheduled to start. The decisions worked out better for the American Giants as Foster pitched his second shutout in one day. Chicago beat Kansas City 5–0, thereby clinching the league championship and a berth in the World Series.
Series Plans As late as the beginning of September, Chicago Defender sportswriter Fay Young wrote that "there might not be any world series this year" because the Cuban Stars (East) were narrowly leading the Eastern Colored League pennant race. There were concerns that the Cuban squad did not have a park and would not generate enough attendance to cover the expenses of a series. By mid-September the leagues had agreed to a best-five-of-nine-game series, with the first four games to be held in the East with games split among Atlantic City, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and the last five games played in the West.
Summary GameScoreDateBallparkAttendance1Chicago 3, Bacharach 3October 1, 1926 (Friday)Bacharach Park, Atlantic City, New Jersey 3,158 2Chicago 7, Bacharach 6October 2, 1926 (Saturday)Bacharach Park, Atlantic City, New Jersey 1,9563Chicago 0, Bacharach 10October 3, 1926 (Sunday) Maryland Park, Baltimore 2,8594Chicago 4, Bacharach 4October 4, 1926 (Monday)Baker Bowl, Philadelphia 2,1215Chicago 5, Bacharach 7October 5, 1926 (Tuesday)Baker Bowl, Philadelphia 1,4346Chicago 4, Bacharach 6October 6, 1926 (Wednesday)Bacharach Park, Atlantic City, New Jersey 1,1867Bacharach 4, Chicago 5 October 9, 1926 (Saturday)Schorling Park, Chicago2,3088Bacharach 3, Chicago 0October 10, 1926 (Sunday)Schorling Park, Chicago3,6209Bacharach 3, Chicago 6October 11, 1926 (Monday)Schorling Park, Chicago90510Bacharach 0, Chicago 13October 13, 1926 (Wednesday) Schorling Park, Chicago73311Bacharach 0, Chicago 1October 14, 1926 (Thursday) Schorling Park, Chicago 2,089
Rosters Atlantic City's regular lineup consisted of Willie Jones as catcher, Chance Cummings as first baseman, Chano García as second baseman, Oliver Marcelle as third baseman, Dick Lundy as shortstop and manager, Ambrose Reid in left field, Chaney White in center field, and Luther Farrell in right field. Their starting pitchers were Rats Henderson, Claude Grier, Alonzo Mitchell, and Hubert Lockhart, and Roy Roberts was a relief pitcher. Their bench included outfielder Elias "Country" Brown and backup catcher Joe Lewis.