Teammates & Rivals: Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson and the Pittsburgh Crawfords

On September 10, 1942, the Negro American League champion Kansas City Monarchs faced the Negro National League champion Homestead Grays at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. It was Game Two of a best-of-seven matchup that would determine the World Series of Black baseball. The Monarchs had taken a one-game lead in the series the previous day, handily defeating the Grays, 8–0. Homestead was out for...
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Editor’s Letter

One hundred years ago, Landis Valley Village & Farm Museum — now a site on PHMC’s Pennsylvania Trails of History — opened to the public. It was founded by two free-spirited brothers, Henry and George Landis, who essentially devoted their lives to building a massive collection of artifacts related to Pennsylvania German rural life and culture. Conestoga wagons, farm implements and machinery,...
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Soaring above the Sandlots: The Garfield Eagles

Baseball was first and foremost among American sports, but it is only a summer game. Its place in the seasons bas much to do with its charm. In March and April, after sport’s tiempo muerto, many are willing to endure cold snaps and icy spring rains. But in the fall, each sunset foreshadows season’s end as baseball runs its course. Some pursued it year-round, in Cuba and Mexico,...
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Josh Gibson, The Heartbreak Kid

The kid tapped his bat on Yankee Stadium’s home plate and tugged at the sleeves of his gray visi­tors’ uniform, revealing biceps “built like sledge ham­mers.” Before him, the stadi­um’s left field roof, with its famous gingerbread lattice facing, soared one hundred and eighteen feet into the air some four hundred feet from home plate. The scene was the World Series...
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