Wilbur Hayes

Wilbur Hayes was the business manager of the Cleveland Buckeyes and Cincinnati Buckeyes of the Negro American League from 1941 to 1950. The team was owned by Ernest Wright, a local business owners, but he left Hayes all the leeway to run the team, as he was busy with his numerous other ventures including nightclubs restuarants, pool halls and a hotel. For his part, Hayes was a local sports promoter in Cleveland, OH.

On September 7, 1942, he was one of a number of team members who were seriously injured when one of the team's three vehicles was involved in a crash near Geneva, OH. C Joe Brown and P Smoky Owens were both killed, and pitchers Gene Bremmer, Alonzo Boone and Herman Watts were injured alongside Hayes.

During his tenure, the Buckeyes were a successful team on the field, winning the 1945 Negro World Series over the Homestead Grays, and then returning in 1947, when they lost to the New York Cubans, but not so much at the gate. He tried moving the team to Louisville, KY to stave off the losses in 1949, where they were known as the Louisville Buckeyes, but folded it in 1950 after a return to Cleveland and a terrible 3-33 start. By then all of his best players having been raided away by white teams, and by which time the Negro Leagues had fallen into terminal decline.