Kansas City Monarchs

The Kansas City Monarchs were the longest-running franchise in the history of baseball's Negro leagues. Operating in Kansas City, Missouri, and owned by J. L. Wilkinson, they were charter members of the Negro National League from 1920 to 1930. Wilkinson was the first white owner at the time of the establishment of the team. In 1930, the Monarchs became the first professional baseball team to use a portable lighting system which was transported from game to game in trucks to play games at night, five years before any Major League Baseball team did. The Monarchs won ten league championships before integration, and triumphed in the first Negro World Series in 1924. The Monarchs had only one season in which they did not have a winning record and produced more major league players than any other Negro league franchise. After relocating to Grand Rapids, Michigan, the team was disbanded in 1965.

The Monarchs were formed in 1920, primarily from two sources. Owner J. L. Wilkinson drew players from his All Nations barnstorming team, which had been inactive during World War I, and the 25th Infantry Wreckers, an all-black team recruited into the U.S. Army almost exclusively for their playing talent. He put together a collection of talent, including pitcher/outfielder Bullet Rogan, an eventual Hall of Famer who established himself as one of the most popular stars of the new league; sluggers Dobie Moore, Heavy Johnson, George Carr, and Hurley McNair; and pitchers Rube Currie and Cliff Bell. Immediate contenders, the Monarchs became bitter rivals to black baseball's reigning power, Rube Foster's Chicago American Giants. After three years of failing to break off the Giants' hold on the pennant, Wilkinson fired manager Sam Crawford in mid-1923, replacing him with veteran Cuban star José Méndez, who then led the Monarchs to the league championship.

Winning the pennant again in 1924, the Monarchs participated in the first Negro League World Series, defeating the Eastern Colored League champion Hilldale team from Darby, Pennsylvania, in a ten-game series (five wins, four losses, and one tie). In this series, Méndez had an ERA of 1.42 in four of the games and was responsible for a shutout in the one game he was the starting pitcher in. Motivated by the Monarchs' runaway pennant victory, NNL president Rube Foster changed the league schedule to a split-season format for 1925. However, Kansas City still took the league title again in 1925, but lost the World Series to Hilldale when Rogan was injured just before the series began, winning one game and losing five. Even though Méndez was the manager, he still pitched during the few years he held the position. Among the team's regulars during these years were the second baseman/shortstop Newt Allen who in the 1924 series alone had a batting average of .282 and seven doubles and Frank Duncan. Newt Joseph played third base for the Monarchs from 1922 through their NNL years, hitting a composite .284 during that time.

In 1926 manager Méndez returned to Cuba, and Rogan took over as player/manager. He kept up the Monarchs' tradition of fine pitching, as the team's staff over the next few years featured Negro league greats including Chet Brewer, William Bell, and lefty Andy Cooper. The club traded for legendary Cuban outfielder Cristóbal Torriente, but also permanently lost the services of star shortstop Dobie Moore, whose career ended that year due to a severe off-the-field injury. After winning the first-half pennant, the Monarchs dropped a best of nine playoff to the Chicago American Giants when Rogan lost both games of a series-closing doubleheader to the young Bill Foster, another eventual Hall of Famer. In 1928 the Monarchs narrowly missed a second-half title, but won both halves of the 1929 NNL title with the best overall single-season record ever compiled by a Negro league team at 62 wins and 17 losses. By this time, pitcher Andy Cooper who had made a name for himself by playing for seven years with the Detroit Stars had joined the Monarchs. No World Series was played that year between the Monarchs and the Baltimore Black Sox, champions of the eastern American Negro League.

J.L. Wilkinson was the owner of the Kansas City Monarchs team from 1920 until the team was sold to Tom Baird in 1947. J.L. Wilkinson was the first person to use days like "Ladies' Day" and "Kid's Day". These days were used to promote baseball and attract more players to the All Nationals Club to develop their talent and eventually be available to be placed on the Kansas City Monarch team. He was among the top businessmen and promoters for African American baseball. This helped the Kansas City Monarchs become a very stable and successful franchise. J.L. Wilkinson's Kansas City Monarchs was the only team in the Negro Leagues to play against a comedic team even after there were regulations put in place so that other teams could avoid playing against the comedic team. This comedic team wore grass skirts, war paint, and bright uniforms with a clown on the front.

The Monarchs won four pennant championships before they introduced night baseball in the 1930s. The Kansas City Monarchs started playing night baseball to try to get more people to come to the games. the first night game was in early march, 1930 in Lawrence, Kansas. The Monarchs had portable light systems that could be transported on the team's bus to any game. The lights were powered by portable generators and attached to retractable poles. This was the first team to regularly play baseball under artificial light, including the major league teams. Night baseball gave the Monarchs more time to play more games, which also allowed them to make more profits. This increase in profits helped the Kansas City Monarchs continue to be one of the most stable franchises in the Negro Leagues.

Following the death of the original league, the Monarchs spent several years as an independent team, mostly barnstorming through the Midwest, West, and western Canada. They frequently toured with the House of David baseball team. Hall of Famers Hilton Smith, a pitcher, and Willard Brown, a slugging shortstop/outfielder with a consistent batting average of over .300, became Monarch mainstays during this time. During the 1940s, Willard Brown became the go-to home run hitter for the Monarchs. With Andy Cooper now at the helm, the Monarchs became charter members of the Negro American League (NAL) in 1937, winning the first league title. Andy Cooper was responsible for leading the Monarchs to bring home the pennant in 1939 and 1940. The Kansas City Monarchs then won the next two league championships and won winning the renewed Negro League World Series in 1942 in four straight games against the Homestead Grays.

At the start of this run the Monarchs acquired their most famous player, Hall of Fame pitcher Satchel Paige, who had since his rookie season in 1927 built a reputation as the best hurler in black baseball for the Birmingham Black Barons, Pittsburgh Crawfords, and several other teams. Suffering from an arm injury and generally thought to be done, Paige joined the Monarchs' B team in 1939; by 1940 he had recovered and been called up to the Monarchs' main squad, where he became their top drawing card. Paige was the subject of a lot of stories, both true and folklore, and became a legend to people who don't even follow baseball. For example, he was known to have known the outfielders to sit on the ground behind him while he struck out the hitter and there was someone on base that could possibly tie the game up. Paige also warmed up before pitching in a game by throwing across a gum wrapper as home plate. Paige led another superb Monarchs' staff that included fellow Hall of Famer Hilton Smith, the veteran Chet Brewer, Booker McDaniels, Jim LaMarque, and several others. They won one last NAL pennant in 1946, but lost a seven-game World Series to the Newark Eagles; in this series, they lost four games and won three.