Top 15 Negro League Teams
#3: Chicago American Giants
League Affiliation:
Negro National League
Negro Southern League
Negro National League II
Negro American League
Established: 1910
Folded: 1952
Based in: Chicago,
Illinois
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| 1919 Chicago American Giants |
The
Chicago American Giants were the brainchild of Rube Foster, who started the
club in 1910. Foster was the captain of the Chicago Leland Giants and was able
to wrest legal control of the name “Leland Giants” from club owner Frank
Leland. In 1911, Foster changed the name to the American Giants and the team
became the most dominant Black Baseball club for the next 20 years.
Foster created the first Negro
National League in 1920 and the team won the Pennants in 1920, 1921 and 1922.
Four years later, Foster would have to relinquish control of both the NNL and
the American Giants due to ailing health. Dave Malarcher took over the team and
the Giants won two more pennants in 1926 and 1927.
After the demise of the NNL in
1931, the American Giants joined the Negro Southern League in 1932 and won the
championship in their only season in the league. They joined the new NNL in
1933 and promptly won the championship that year.
They would join the Negro
American League in 1937, but never had the same success they had enjoyed
earlier. Still, the Giants managed to hang to until the end of the 1952 season
before folding. The last three years of its existence, with the Majors now
opening its doors to Black players, the American Giants signed white players in
order to keep the club running.
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