Louisville Slugger Museum exhibit sheds light on forgotten African American baseball team

• WHERE: Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory, 800 W. Main St.
• WHEN: Opens Jan. 24
• COST: $16. Tickets are 50% off during the month of February.
• MORE INFORMATION: sluggermuseum.com

When the Louisville Slugger Museum acquired two old photographs believed to be of Negro League baseball players on the 1931 Louisville White Sox, it had no immediate plan for the images. But an initial look by museum curator Bailey Mazik led to questions: Why was a team called the "White Sox" wearing uniforms with the letters "L" and "U" on them?

Those questions led to archival research. And that research led to answers.

“I got chills,” Mazik said. “I don’t think I’ll ever forget the first time I saw ‘Louisville Unions,' I was like, ‘Oh my gosh. This could be them.’”

Mazik discovered the players in the photographs were actually members of the 1908 Louisville Unions, an African American team that competed 12 years before the founding of the Negro Leagues.

That discovery, and subsequent archival research, forms the newest exhibit that opens Jan. 24 at the Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory, 800 W. Main St. in downtown Louisville.  

“This is, perhaps, my most rewarding discovery yet,” Mazik wrote in a blog post that complements the exhibit.

The Center for Negro League Baseball Research has a single reference on its website to the Unions’ existence. Otherwise, the Louisville Unions had been a team forgotten to time.

Jackie Robinson breaking of Major League Baseball’s color barrier in 1947 has been well-documented and remembered — in fact, there are more statues of him than any other athlete in the United States. And Negro League players are celebrated, as well, for their pioneering importance. But African American baseball teams prior to the formation of the Negro Leagues in 1920 have been under-researched.

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The 2019 book "Black Baseball," by African American baseball historian James E. Brunson III, seeks to educate on the topic, and the official historian of Major League Baseball, John Thorn, wrote the book’s foreword.

“The stars of the Negro Leagues are now ensconced in Baseball’s Hall of Fame,” Thorn wrote, “but the bridge to Cooperstown was built by men who barbered and bootblacked, waited table and laundered linens, men who played baseball whenever they could.”

That included the men of the Louisville Union. Mazik studied the images and learned they were set in Louisville by identifying the Sunny Brook Distillery Co. building in the background of one of the photographs.

“It’s so Kentucky that bourbon played a key role,” said Anne Jewell, executive director of the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory.

A faint date written on the back of a photograph — February 1909 — helped place it in time.

It was a starting point for Mazik, who dug through old Courier Journal articles to learn the beginning of the story of the Unions, which, at one point during its 1908 season, won 24 of 27 games. They played other teams based in Louisville, as well as from Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania and New York, and were considered one of the best African American teams in the South.

In fact, opposing teams would occasionally hire a pitcher — a “twirler of national repute from St. Louis,” one article stated — for a single game in order to compete with the Unions.

The exhibit, which will run through the end of the summer, will include photographs, a bourbon bottle from the distillery and articles detailing the Unions' history. Raymond Doswell, the curator for the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, said he’s excited for the exhibit to shed light on a period and topic of baseball history that is seldom discussed.

“Anything that helps to correct or add to the record of the story of black baseball is very important. I’m glad they want to highlight it as well so that folks will come to check it out,” he said.

And while the Unions preceded Robinson’s entry into the MLB by nearly 40 years, African Americans played competitive baseball for decades prior to the Unions, beginning in the mid-19th century. Hundreds of teams barnstormed around the country.

“African Americans have been interested in the game since its origins in the United States,” Doswell said.

During the 1908 season, Louisville even played host to a meeting between teams from several cities in an attempt to establish an African American baseball league.

The Unions drew large crowds, sometimes numbering over 1,000, and they played on the same field as the Louisville Colonels — a major league team that played from 1892-1899. The field, located at 28th Street and Broadway, is where Hall of Famer Honus Wagner began his MLB career.

“This was a place in town that a lot of people knew about, and it had a great history behind it,” Mazik said.

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The Unions played against other African American and white teams , and although the team had well-attended home games and was covered by the local newspaper, some articles noted the grandstand would be segregated.

The Louisville Slugger Museum already has bats from two African American baseball pioneers: perhaps the earliest Robinson bat, as well as a bat from Larry Doby, who broke the American League color barrier. However, the Unions exhibit will highlight an unheralded group — the pioneers that came before the more famous pioneers.

“Maybe this will spur others in and around the communities to mine for some history,” Doswell said.

Entry to the Slugger Museum costs $16, and tickets are 50% off during the month of February.

Although Mazik has uncovered an essentially unknown team, there are still countless questions. Why was there no 1909 season? Who were these players? What was their experience like?

“I really see this as a starting point,” Mazik said.

Hayes Gardner can be reached at hgardner@gannett.com; Twitter: @HayesGardner; Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/subscribe.

The Louisville Unions Rediscovered

WHAT: An exhibit highlighting the forgotten Louisville Unions, an African American baseball team that competed during the 1908 season.

WHERE: Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory, 800 W. Main St.

WHEN: Opens Jan. 24

COST: $16. Tickets are 50% off during the month of February for Kentucky and Indiana residents.

MORE INFORMATION: sluggermuseum.com