Hubert V Simmons Museum of Negro Leagues Baseball (3/25/2024)

Monday, March 25, 2024

We met Erich and Pete in Owings Mills, MD, to see the Hubert V Simmons Museum of Negro Leagues Baseball, located in the elevator foyers of the Baltimore Country Public Library and Community College of Baltimore Country Building (Metro Centre).

Unidentified guardrail sculpture (c 2017) at Metro Centre

Entrance to the Metro Centre building
(2011-2013) that houses the Owings Mills
Branch of the Baltimore County Public Library
and the Community College of Baltimore County

Inside the entrance, the sign for the Hubert V Simmons
Museum of Negro Leagues Baseball

It happened that the co-founder of the museum, Ray Banks, was in the lobby after picking up mail, and he noticed our interest in the signs and posters. He offered to take us personally through the museum! As the Negro Leagues Ambassador (he did not play baseball in the Negro Leagues), Ray, along with his friend Hubert Simmons, who played in the Negro Leagues 1941-1950, established the museum in 2008 in a church basement. Needing more space, Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz promised  them a location in the Owings Mills Metro Centre development, which opened in 2013.

First Floor:

From Bud Fowler, the first known African American to play
for a white professional baseball team in Lynn, MA in 1878,
and others who broke the color barrier, to the professional
teams for African American players that in 1920 organized into
the first successful Negro National League; pictured are balls
representing the teams of Atlanta Black Crackers, Cuban
X-Giants, Homestead Grays, and Baltimore Elites (ee-lights)

A baseball memorializing Hubert "Bert" Simmons, who
ended his Negro Leagues career with the Baltimore Elites

The Philly Stars were founded in 1933, disbanding in 1952

An early baseball glove was not meant to catch a ball,
but to knock it down to the ground

The darker autographed bat of Theodore Roosevelt "Double
Duty" Radcliffe, who played as both pitcher and catcher

The autographs of some of the most famous
Negro Leagues baseball players

Photos of the two teams in the first Colored World Series
(1924), between Negro National League champion
Kansas City Monarchs and Eastern Colored League
champion Hilldale (Darby, PA), with Kansas City narrowly
winning 5 games to 4 (and one tie); note that the stands are full

Second Floor:

Three African American women also played
in the Negro Leagues, including Mamie
"Peanut" Johnson, who was also the first
female pitcher; in 1952 she could not join
the All-American Girls Professional Baseball
League (fictionalized in the movie, A League
of Their Own) because of her race

Baseball autographed by "Peanut" Johnson

The museum also featured African American
umpires, including Bob Motley with his
dramatic calls doings splits and lunges

The Negro Leagues in Maryland: Baltimore Elites (1920-1950)
and Baltimore Black Sox (1913-1933)

Ray Banks is seen in a panel about
Shadowball, a common pre-game feature
during which Negro League players
warmed up by staging mock
games with an imaginary ball

Third Floor:

Display of Leon Day artifacts; Day began his
1934-1950 career with the Baltimore Black Sox
and ended with the Baltimore Elite; Day
learned he was to be inducted into the National
Baseball Hall of Fame six days before he died

Figure of Satchel Paige, who played in the
Negro League 1926-1947, then in Major
League Baseball 1948-1953 as the first
Black pitcher in the American League;
he was the first Negro League player to be
inducted in the National Baseball Hall of Fame

Larry Doby played in the Negro League
(1942-1944, 1946-1948), then became the first
Black player in the American League in 1947
with the Cleveland Indians, playing in
Major League Baseball until 1959

Josh Gibson played in the Negro League 1930-1946
and was the second Negro League player inducted in
the National Baseball Hall of Fame

Jackie Robinson played in the Negro League in 1945, and is
known for being the first Black player in Major League
Baseball in the modern era/National League (1947-1956), 

Fifth Floor:

A special exhibit on the House of David, a religious
society established in 1903, which started a barnstorming
baseball team in 1913, playing exhibition games to raise
money; the male members did not cut their hair or beards

The House of David readily accepted anyone, including
African Americans (like Satchel Paige) to play on their teams;
replica House of David baseball glove and autographed balls 

A vintage Louisville Slugger bat autographed by
House of David baseball players, and two replica
bats like those used by the House of David

Erich, Pete, Ray Banks, and Kent