Greenlee Field

The only black-owned Negro League field in the East, Greenlee Field was the home of the Pittsburgh Crawfords in their heyday. Named after Crawfords owner & Pittsburgh numbers operator, Gus Greenlee, the stadium stood at 2400 Bedford Avenue in Pittsburgh, PA. The first game was held on April 29, 1932, a loss to the New York Black Yankees. The field had a capacity of about 6,000 for baseball and 10,000 for boxing. Lights were installed in August, making it the first stadium to allow for night baseball.

By 1937, Pittsburgh's politicians were clamping down on numbers rackets and put a dent in Greenlee's empire, leading the Crawfords to sell Josh Gibson to their tenant, the Homestead Grays. With Greenlee short on cash, Satchel Paige began a mass exodus from the Crawfords from which the franchise and Greenlee never recovered.

When the Crawfords ceased to exist after the 1938 season, the stadium was quickly destroyed on December 10, 1938. The Bedford Dwellings housing project was built on the site.

A historical marker was erected by the state of Pennsylvania on the site in 2009. The plaque states that Greenlee Field was the first ballpark to be owned and operated by African-Americans in the Negro Leagues. This is not quite correct, as the ballpark replaced the short-lived Central Amusement Park, which was also built and operated by African-American businessmen.

Main source: Black Baseball's National Showcase by Larry Lester

Related Sites

• Greenlee Field (Pittsburgh) at the SABR Bio Project