Windsor, Ont. — A commemorative baseball game honouring the historic 1934 Chatham Coloured All-Stars team take places this weekend.
Thirty living descendants of the barrier-breaking team will play Fergie Jenkins Field at Rotary Park in Chatham during the 'Field of Honour' game on Saturday starting at 11 a.m.
Replica uniforms from the era have been been created for the occasion.
“It’s been a long time coming!”
Former Chatham resident and 'Hard Road to Victory: The Chatham All-Stars Story' author, Brock Greenhalgh has been leading the effort to get the team inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame.
“We can’t wait! It’s going to be a lot of fun.”
The 1934 Chatham Colored All-Stars were the first Chatham team to win an Ontario Baseball Association (OBA) title and were also the first-ever completely Black team of athletes to enter the OBA playoffs.
Their success came 13 years before Jackie Robinson became the first Black player in Major League Baseball.
“Whether they realized it or not, they were trailblazers,” Greenhalgh tells CTV News Windsor. “It was a team of all Black athletes. Something like this hadn’t happened before, and 13 years before Jackie Robinson breaks the colour barrier in the major leagues, you have this team of athletes who win a fairly major award.”
He explains, “I think it’s important that we continue to honour the team and find a way to get them into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame.”
Greenhalgh notes the team has been on the ballot for five years and can remain there for up to nine, so long as one nomination comes into the 24-member hall of fame committee.
He hopes the game will be the final push to keep the team in the spotlight and raise money for the Chatham-Kent Black Historical Society and Black Mecca Museum. Admission is by donation.
“Protocols will allows us about 225 people in the stands, but we’re also inviting people to bring lawn chairs. They can line the outside of the field and be part of something that will hopefully be that push to get this team into the hall of fame.”
