The Eastern Colored League
The Eastern Colored League was founded in 1923 as second Major Negro League (counterpart of the Negro National League which was founded in 1920).
The league was founded by Ed Bolden, owner of the Hilldale Athletic Club, also called the Hilldale Daisies, and Nat Strong, a white promotor. Bolden ran the league for most of its years and was often criticized because he worked with white funders, of which some were openly racist.
Cities represented:
Atlantic City, NJ; Atlantic City Bacharach Giants (1923-1928)
Baltimore, MD; Baltimore Black Sox (1923-1928)
Brooklyn, NY; Brooklyn Royal Giants (1923-1927)
Darby, PA; Hilldale (1923-1928)
Harrisburg, PA; Harrisburg Giants (1924-1927)
New York, NY; New York Cuban Stars (1923-1928); New York Lincoln Giants (1923-1926; 1928)
Newark, NJ; Newark Stars (1926)
Philadelphia, PA; Philadelphia Tigers (1928)
Washington, DC; Washington Potomacs (1924)
The Hilldale club was a powerhouse in the first years of the league as they won in the first three years.
When Holden started to run the business of the club in 1916 the club was playing an independent schedule (barnstorming tours). The club played on a 60/40 basis, which means that the winner would get 60% of the revenue and the loser would get 40%). In the early years of running the business, Holden started to acquire the best players, which explains the dominance in the first three years of the ECL.
The league was founded after the Hilldale Club and the Bacharach Giants, both members of the Negro National League, cut ties with that league and joined forces with Nat Strong.
In the first two years, the league was rather stable but in 1925 the first cracks started to show as the Washington Potomacs moved to Wilmington but still folded in July. The next season, the replacement of the Potomacs, the Newark Stars folded after only eleven games.
In 1927 there were a lot of arguments between the various team owners about schedules, players, parks, umpires, and money. The Lincoln Giants from New York were kicked out of the league because the team had violated the peace between the Negro National League and the Eastern Colored League when they signed a player from the Western Cuban Stars. Even though they returned in 1928 three other teams (Hilldale, Brooklyn Royal Giants and Harrisburg Giants) dropped out. To bring the league back to a competitive number of teams, the Philadelphia Tigers were added. The Tigers were a team composed by a Philadelphia gangster, was actually meant to play during spring. But the league desperately needed teams and allowed the Tigers to become a league member. But the team had to give back most of the players that they raided from other Negro League teams. A new Brooklyn team never came from the ground so the ECL started the 1928 season with five clubs, staggered through the month of May and eventually did not make it to the end of the season as it folded early June.
After the Hilldale team and the Bacharach Giants left the Negro National League, the relationship between the two leagues was uneasy, to put it mildly. But the two clubs leaving the NNL was not the only reason that the realtionship between the two leagues cooled off. The teams from the Eastern Colored League raided the rosters of the Negro National League to strengthen their own clubs. Eventually in 1924 a peace was settled and the winners of both leagues played each other in the Negro World Series. In the first series in 1924, the Hilldale Club fell to the Kansas City Monarchs 4-5. In 1925 Hilldale got their revenge as they beat the Monarchs 5-1. This would be the only time that an Eastern Colored League team would win the Negro World Series.
In 1926 and 1927 the Chicago American Giants won the pennant.
The 1925 Negro World Series was a showdown between the Hilldale Daisies and the Kansas City Monarchs. The Monarchs had won their league in a convincing way. Their star pitcher and hitter,Bullet Logan, posted a 15-2 record with a 1.73 ERA in the regular season and he hit .360. But due to a freak accident at home (while playing with his kid, he got a needle in his knee. When he tried to pull it out, it broke off and Logan needed surgery to remove it) he could not participate in the Negro World Series. Without their star player, the Monarchs lost five of six games.
The Brooklyn Royal Giants were no match for most of the other league members. In 1926 they played more games as barnstorming team than as a member of the ECL, proof that the Early Negro Leagues were loosely organized. But even though the league was loosely organized most of the stats have been kept. Below you see a scored card of a game of the 1926 Hilldale Daisies, which is shown on www.seamheads.com.
The ECL crumbled in its last season. First the Cuban Stars (East) and the Philadelphia Tigers folded after playing only seven and four game respectively. Then the New York Lincoln Giants dropped out of the league, after ten games played. The three remaining teams played on for a couple of weeks but eventually the Hilldale Daisies also folded, which signaled the end of the league.
In 1929, the ECL would be succeeded by the American Negro League, but in fact it was the same league as it was founded by five former ECL members (Atlantic City Bacharach Giants, Hilldale Daisies, Baltimore Black Sox, Cuban Stars (East) and New York Lincoln Giants), the Homestead Grays and a revived Harrisburg Giants. The league finished the 1929 season but did not come back the next year.