Pittsburgh Crawfords

Pittsburgh Crawfords
Pittsburgh Crawfords
Information
Location	Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Established	1931
Disbanded	1940
League titles	1935; 1936;
Former name(s)	Pittsburgh Crawfords (1931–1938); Toledo Crawfords (1939); Toledo–Indianapolis Crawfords (1940);
Former league(s)	Independent (1931–1932); Negro National League (II) (1933–1938); Negro American League (1939–1940);
Former ballparks	Gus Greenlee Field (1933–1938); Swayne Field (1939–1940); Victory Field (1940);

The Pittsburgh Crawfords, popularly known as the Craws, were a professional Negro league baseball team based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The team, previously known as the Crawford Colored Giants,^[1] was named after the Crawford Bath House, a recreation center in the Crawford neighborhood of Pittsburgh's Hill District.^[2]

In 1931 Gus Greenlee, an African-American businessman in Pittsburgh, bought the Crawfords. In 1933 he founded what is known as the second Negro National League, and built Greenlee Field as a ball park for his team. During the mid-1930s, the Crawfords were one of the strongest Negro league teams ever assembled.

^ Major League Baseball Hall of Fame, biography of Josh Gibson: "In 1929, the Crawford Colored Giants, a semi-pro team in Pittsburgh, convinced him [Gibson] to leave the Gimbels and join their squad." Archived 2019-09-06 at the Wayback Machine
^ "Kings on the Hill: Rise of the Pittsburgh Crawfords". Archived from the original on 2017-07-11. Retrieved 2017-06-10.

[1] Major League Baseball Hall of Fame, biography of Josh Gibson: "In 1929, the Crawford Colored Giants, a semi-pro team in Pittsburgh, convinced him [Gibson] to leave the Gimbels and join their squad." Archived 2019-09-06 at the Wayback Machine

[2] "Kings on the Hill: Rise of the Pittsburgh Crawfords". Archived from the original on 2017-07-11. Retrieved 2017-06-10.

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