Colored/Negro Baseball Teams in Kentucky

There have been a number of amateur Negro baseball teams in Kentucky, some playing for the simple fun of the game, others belonging to leagues associated with churches and organizations. The majority of the audiences were African American fans. Games were played against nearby Negro teams and those from other states.

Mentioned here are only a few of the teams that existed during the first decades of the 1900s, beginning with the Hickman Colored baseball club that traveled to Columbus, OH, in 1900 and defeated the opposing team 20 to 5. The Cloverport Rooters defeated the Tell City, IN, baseball team in 1904 and the Lewisburg Giants in the summer of 1908. The Hardinsburg Colored Team boasted that they were the best team in the county in 1904 and welcomed all challengers. The Berea Colored baseball team took on the Negro school varsity team in 1904.

Ben Boyd's baseball team, from Paducah, was undefeated in three games against the Memphis Monarchs in 1904. An earlier Paducah team, in 1901, defeated the Colored club from Charleston, MO, in a game played in Cairo, IN. The Paducah team was trounced by the Metropolis, IL, team in 1901. They defeated a St. Louis, MO, team in 1903, and it was noted that whites attended the game. There are many more articles about Paducah's Colored baseball teams in the Paducah Sun newspaper.

In 1909, the Stanford Colored ball team defeated the Turnersville team. The Hartford Colored team was twice defeated by the Madisonville team during the summer of 1911. In 1924, the Colored baseball team at Middlesboro (Bell County) played the Lynch (Harlan County) team.

For more see "The Colored baseball club...," Hickman Courier, 6/29/1900, p. 4; The Breckinridge News articles "Win from Tell City," 6/29/1904, p. 1, and "Colored Baseball Games," 7/01/1908, p. 1; "Berea and vicinity, The Citizen, 6/02/1904, p. 6; the Paducah Sun articles "Won three straight," 6/27/1904, p. 2, "Paducah won the game," 7/22/1901, p. 4, "The Metropolis Herald reports...," 7/23/1901, p. 4, and "Colored team of Paducah defeats St. Louis," 5/19/1903, p.  2; "The Stanford Colored ball team...," Interior Journal, 6/15/1909, p. 3; "The Colored baseball team..," Hartford Herald, 6/14/1911, p. 5; and "Middlesboro colored team[s] plays Lynch," Middlesboro Daily News, 7/07/1924, p. 4.