Homestead Grays Art Print, Negro League Baseball Dynasty, Vintage Baseball Wall Art

Nine. Consecutive Negro National League pennants, between 1937 and 1945, plus the Negro World Series in 1943 and 1944.

The team was built around Josh Gibson and Buck Leonard, compared to Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig by people who had watched all four. They split their home games between Pittsburgh and Griffith Stadium in Washington, where they sometimes outdrew the major league team that played there.

Gibson died in January 1947, aged thirty five, three months before Jackie Robinson played his first game for Brooklyn. The league folded the year after, and their records were left out of the official history for another seventy years.

Stories worth passing on, not just remembering.