Top 15 Negro League Teams
#9: Indianapolis Clowns
League Affiliation:
Negro American League
Established: 1930s?
Folded: 1962
Based in: Indianapolis,
Indiana
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| 1941 Indianapolis Clowns |
While
the exact date of the club’s formation is not known, it is believed that the
team began in either 1935 or 1936 in Miami as the Giants. They soon became an
independent barnstorming club and changed their name to the Ethiopian Clowns.
Due to their antics on the baseball diamond, the clowns were referred to as the
Harlem Globetrotters of baseball.
In 1943, they moved to
Cincinnati, kept the name Clowns, and joined the Negro American League. In 1944
and 1945, they operated between Cincinnati and Indianapolis and officially
moved to Indy in 1946. The won the NAL Championship in 1950.
As the Negro Leagues began to
decline in the late 1940s and early 1950s due to the integration of Major
League Baseball, the Clowns became an independent team once again. But as all
the other Black ballclubs folded or disbanded, the Clowns continued to operate.
By 1966, they were the last Negro League team playing and although barnstorming
became a dying baseball operation, the Indianapolis Clowns continued to play
exhibition games, again as a Glotbetrotter-type team, until the 1980s.
They officially ceased
operations in 1989.
Some notable players included
Hank Aaron, Buster Haywood and Choo-Choo Coleman.
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