On a perfect summer morning last week, about 60 friends, relatives and descendants of Chatham’s first Ontario Baseball Association champions, gathered at Stirling Park to commemorate and invigorate memories of the team.
The irregular shaped field, tucked next to railroad tracks and dead-end streets in an east side neighbourhood, was home to the Chatham Coloured All-Stars, who won their title in 1934.
On this site, with its short right field line adorned even then with netting to stop home runs to the now-overgrown triangle in deep centre field, played some of the 1930s finest athletes who showed that talent, not skin colour, wins championships.
The often-told story of how a group of largely neighbourhood men won the title is going to get an update thanks to a $72,500 grant from the Trillium Foundation and help from the Chatham Sports Hall of Fame.
Miriam Wright, an associate professor with the Department of History at the University of Windsor, will oversee what’s being called the “Breaking the Colour Barrier” project.
For the next 12 months, researchers will be collecting oral histories, digitize print materials and other items about the team and its most famous player, Wilfred “Boomer” Harding, and its star catcher.
The idea for the project began when relatives of Harding, who died in 1991, approached the university about preserving the many photographs, newspaper clippings, and other artifacts of his long career.
Harding, born in 1915, was called by MP Rick Nicholls, “Chatham’s Jackie Robinson” as he broke colour barriers in a wide number of sports including hockey where he was the first black player in various hockey leagues and the first to skate in Detroit’s venerable Olympia Stadium.
“He was an accepted and respected athlete 15 to 20 years before Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s colour barrier,” he said.
The team was inducted into the Chatham Sports
Hall Fame in 2000.
The team’s journey took root after sports icon Archie Stirling noted players’ skills after the team had played two years of exhibition games in the area.
Stirling suggested that the team enter the top-flight Chatham City League and eventually compete for an OBA title.
The team’s official Hall of Fame highlights notes:
“The Coloured All Stars brought Chatham its first OBA title and the team captured the admiration and the hearts of the entire city. (They) defeated Sarnia 2 games to 0, Welland 2 games to 1, and Milton 2 games to 1.
In the finals against Penetang and Phil Marchildon who later pitched 8 years in the major leagues for the Philadelphia Athletics, (they) split the first 2 games of the final series.
With the score tied 2-2 in the 11th inning of the third and deciding game, the umpire, fearing that the favored Penetang team would lose, in a very controversial decision, called off the game because of darkness, even though there was enough light to play a “few more” innings .
The All Stars eventually won the series and the championship 2 games to 1 in the extra fourth game.”
Team members included Stanton Robbins, Len Harding, Hyle Robbins, Earl “Flat” Chase, Kingsley Terrell, Don Washington, Don Taborn, Ross Talbot, Cliff Olbey, Gouy Ladd, Sagasta Harding and Wilfred “Boomer” Harding.
The team was managed by Joe “Happy” Parker and coaches included Louis Pryor and Percy Parker. Jack Robinson was the bat boy.
In 1988 Harding was one of only 18 Canadians to be awarded an Olympic Gold Achievement Medal in honour of more than five decades of sports achievements.
In addition to Harding, Earl Chase, a legendary long-ball hitter who won championships across Ontario, was also inducted singularly.
Heidi Jacobs of the university’s Leddy Library, said researchers are interested in hearing from anyone with knowledge of the team.
“We’re encouraging people to visit the site and review its progress.”
http://cdigs.uwindsor.ca/drupal/breaking-colour-barrier
