Baseball in Arkansas

With February, spring training begins for baseball teams across the country. Arkansas itself has hosted major league games in the past. One remarkable team that gathered a lot of attention in its short lifespan was the Little Rock Grays of the early 1930s, a team owned and manned by Africanamericans.

Baseball had long since become America’s pastime. Millions of Americans followed their favorite teams, from the major leagues down to simple sandlot games. In a time when America was still divided, even baseball was divided. In the 1880s, major league teams decided they would not allow African-americans to play on the teams with white players, a decision that stood until 1947.

As a result, African-americans formed a series of baseball teams that came to be called the “Negro Leagues.” These teams included many of the best baseball players in the country, including future Hall of Fame inductees such as Jackie Robinson, Hank Aaron, and Satchel

Paige. The league included organizations across the South and Midwest, from Kansas City to San Antonio to New York. Seeing the popularity of baseball in Arkansas, in 1931, Little Rock businessman Jesse J. Floyd formed the Little Rock Grays formed as a new Negro Southern League team.

Floyd faced many challenges with the team. As an African-american, he had limited access to financing, and the team faced problems of segregated hotels for road games. He also had to compete with a cross-town rival, the new Little Rock Black Travelers, which had just formed in North Little Rock.

The Grays held their first game at Kavanaugh Field in Little Rock, just to the west of what is now Central High School. The park itself had a storied history in Arkansas baseball lore. It had been built in 1894 in what was at that time the west end of Little Rock as the home of the original Little Rock Travelers, a minor league team (and called by their modern name, the Arkansas Travelers, after 1963). The park also became the site of the first night game played in the state just after it opened. Two major league teams had used the park as sites for spring training at the turn of the century, the St. Louis Browns and the Boston Red Sox. Famed pitcher Cy Young even trained at the field before the Red Sox went on to win the World Series for the 1907 season. After the Travelers moved on to their new park a few blocks away in 1931, later called Ray Winder Field, the Little Rock Grays moved in.

The Grays hosted the Nashville Elite Giants in their first game on July 31. The Grays narrowly lost, 10-9. After three games in Little Rock, the Grays took their first road trip. They traveled to Tennessee to play the Memphis Red Sox and then to Alabama to play the Montgomery Grey Sox. It was in Montgomery where they won their first game. They returned to Little Rock by the end of the month. The played four games against the Little Rock Black Travelers at Booster Park in North Little Rock and lost all four. This effectively ended their season.

With the 1932 season, Floyd invited a local African-american mortician, Daniel Dubisson to invest in the team as part owner. The Grays also moved to Crump Field on 33rd Street in southern part of the city. Arthur Crump, a local Africanamerican store owner, had built the field a few years before for local Africanamerican youth. With new ownership, a new field, and a new season, the Grays were back with a renewed energy. In the season opener in April, they defeated the Black Travelers. However, they lost a four-game series against the Monroe Monarchs of Louisiana a few days later. The followed up by sweeping the Cleveland Cubs in four games the next week. They would go on to play against two other African-american teams based in Arkansas, the Little Rock Stars and the Camden Tigers.

The season was ultimately much more successful, but disputes within the Negro Southern League, money problems with the organization, and the pressures of the Great Depression forced the Grays to disband. The Black Travelers would similarly end play in 1932. The Stars would replace the Grays in the Southern League for the 1933 season.

While the Grays would only last a short time, Arkansas would continue its love of baseball, with minor league teams playing across the state and major league training camps in Hot Springs and the state producing many noted players.