Art Rust's Weekly Round Up

Remebering Gus Greenlee
By Art Rust, Jr.

“Get off that car,” bellows Gus Greenlee as my friend Sonny Curtis and I were lounging upon it. It was 1933 and we were both 6 years old. Resting against that car in front of 654 Saint Nicolas Avenue, we must have been discussing what in our minds was very serious or we wouldn’t have touched that very classy foreign car. As it turned out, that Rolls Royce belonged to Gus Greenlee, an important Black man respected for his wit, money and political power.

Greenlee was born in North Carolina and migrated north after serving overseas in World War I. He operated a bar located in Pittsburgh where he became the numbers king. This cigar chomping, robust man was also affectionately called “Big Red.” Greenlee used surplus cash to build a boxing stable from which in 1935 a world’s light-heavyweight champion, John Henry Lewis emerged. In 1939 Lewis became the first Black to fight Joe Louis for his title. Of course Joe Louis easily won that rumble, but Greenlee was in the game.

While Greenlee had no baseball background, he did have outstanding organizational skills. In 1931 he formed the Pittsburgh Crawfords, and because he could afford it, he hired the luminaries of Black baseball: Cool Papa Bell, Satchel Paige, Oscar Charleston, Josh Gibson, Jimmie Crutchfield, Ted Page and Leroy Matlock. One of the most important contributions Greenlee made toward the advancement of Black baseball was the creation of the East-West game. All the Black superstars of baseball participated in this game. In Chicago in 1933, there were 20,000 fans; 51, 723 attended in 1943. All games were played at Cominsky Park, home of the Chicago White Sox. With Greenlee’s organization and high sums of fresh money from attendance, by 1945, Black baseball had reached its height. Despite his input in helping create black baseball, he was never fully recognized for his accomplishments.

Sidelines: Way to go Willie in the Flushing by the Bay at Shea. The Yankees at this point need more than Roger Clemens. Why did Oscar quit jabbing? Congrats to quick punching Mayweather. Just let Barry Bonds play his game….