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June 2005  >  Sports  >  Baseball Memorabilia

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Lot 389: 1900s Brown Cubs Negro League Broadside

ITEM DESCRIPTION

 
Reserve: $300.00
Winning Bid: $1,355.41
Price Realized: $1,619.71
Auction Date:6/26/2005 9:00 PM EST

This marvelous find -- a black baseball broadside from the 19__s touting a game between the Brown Cubs and the Oshkosh "8500 Cabs" -- may evoke a "Bingo Long" vibe but its history is more interesting, reaching into the very heart of black baseball -- the schoolhouses of Deep South that begat some important black teams like The Brown Cubs, who were sponsored by the Piney Woods Country Life School in Jackson, Mississippi. Called the "Singing Baseball Team" because it sometimes accompanied the school's Cotton Blossom Singers on fund-raising trips, they barnstormed against teams like the Montgomery Grey Sox of the Southern Negro Baseball League, giving a springboard to talent like future Homestead Gray star Howard Easterling. 11 x 14" broadside is a wealth of riches for "blackball" collectors, with a team shot of the Brown Cubs inside of an illustrated "cub" and shots of two players -- "Fence Busting" Gray and "Submarine Slim" Sterling -- on the right side. Bottom reads "Memorial Park Twilight Game, Thurs. Aug. 25, Game Called 4:30 PM," suggesting it was a Sunday game subject to blue laws. Brown lettering against a white background. GD-VG but very attractive. Priceless history of the black game.

BIDDING

The bidding for this lot has ended.


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