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Date
4-23-2025
Abstract
George H. Taylor was a Black baseball player born in Kansas but raised in Denver, Colorado, where he learned to play the game. From the 1880s to 1894, he played primarily for integrated teams in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nebraska, and Iowa, including minor league clubs in Aspen, Colorado and Beatrice, Nebraska. Taylor was also invited to play for otherwise white teams in Cheyenne, Wyoming and Ogden, Utah after they saw him play on visiting teams from Denver. From 1895 to 1907, Taylor mostly played for Black teams in Michigan, Illinois, and Minnesota, including the Page Fence Giants, Leland Giants, and St. Paul Gophers, some of the best independent baseball teams in the country. This essay was originally published in 2023 and has undergone revisions and corrections for its release in 2025 as part of the five-volume anthology Peeking through the Knothole. The open-access, digital version of this essay is available through the “Download” button on this webpage. The print-on-demand version is available through the “Buy this Book” button for volume two of the anthology (Baseball Biographies with Kansas Connections).
Keywords
George Taylor, baseball history, integrated baseball, segregated baseball, Black baseball, Denver baseball, Colorado baseball, Iowa baseball, Michigan baseball, Minnesota baseball, Nebraska baseball, Utah baseball, Wyoming baseball, Colorado State League, Nebraska State League, Page Fence Giants, Union Giants, Leland Giants, St. Paul Gophers.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
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© The Author(s)
Recommended Citation
Eberle, Mark E., "George H. Taylor: From Colorado to the Pinnacle of Black Baseball, Revised" (2025). Monographs. 39.
DOI: 10.58809/UNOM3575
Available at:
https://scholars.fhsu.edu/all_monographs/39
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For questions contact ScholarsRepository@fhsu.edu
Originially Published 2023
Revised Edition 2025