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Date
2025
Abstract
The Kansas City Monarchs, a Black baseball team founded by J.L. Wilkinson in 1920, is one of the storied franchises in Negro Leagues history. The story of Black baseball teams and players in Kansas City prior to this is less known, yet it forms the foundation on which the 1920 Monarchs were established. The early amateur and semipro teams first organized in the 1870s each played a few years, but in 1899, former classmates organized the Lincoln High Schools and played as the Jenkins’ Sons in 1900–1907 and the “original” Kansas City Monarchs in 1908–1909. Two professional teams—the Kansas City Kansas (KCK) Giants and the Kansas City Royal Giants—took center stage from 1909 to 1912. The KCK Giants continued to compete in subsequent years as a semipro team, along with the Kansas City Royal Americans and other teams. In 1918, after the United States entered the First World War, the top team was named the Kansas City Allies. After 1900, a few of these teams had the opportunity to play exhibition games against minor league and major league clubs. This essay was originally published in 2019 as Black Baseball in Kansas City, 1870–1899. The original essay has undergone revisions and corrections, and new text has been added to cover the years through 1919 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 four of the anthology (Black Baseball in Kansas City, 1870–1919).
Keywords
Kansas City Maroons, Kansas City Times Hustlers, Bradburys, Kansas City Unions, Jenkins’ Sons, Kansas City Monarchs, Kansas City Kansas Giants, Kansas City Royal Giants, Kansas City Royal Americans, Kansas City Cyclones, Kansas City Allies, Frank Maupin, George William Castone, Frog Emery, Preston Greenbury, Toots Woodson, Chick Pullam, Tom McCampbell, Tom Stirman, Tom Sterman, Topeka Jack Johnson, Roy Dorsey, Hurley McNair
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., "Black Baseball in Kansas City, 1870–1919, Revised and Expanded" (2025). Monographs. 7.
DOI: 10.58809/OCQZ8184
Available at:
https://scholars.fhsu.edu/all_monographs/7
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For questions contact ScholarsRepository@fhsu.edu
Originally Published 2019
Revised Edition 2025