BUZZ MAGAZINE – The Negro Leagues have only recently received their due in baseball history, as their story, in a time when blacks were barred from Major League Baseball, was pushed aside. One franchise, however, always found a way to stand out.
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The Kansas City Monarchs were one of the elite teams of the Negro League era, loaded with talent that went on to star in the majors. Thirteen former Monarchs are in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Until Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947, blacks were excluded from the majors, partly due to the influence of dictatorial MLB commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis, who fought to keep baseball all-white. The barrier prevented many of the game’s top players from ever appearing in a Major League game, based on their skin color.
Many of these players ended up in the Negro Leagues, a loose confederation of seven baseball associations that dates to 1920. Black baseball, however, traces its roots to 1885 with the Cuban Black Giants, considered the first African-American pro baseball team.
The Monarchs were considered royalty in the Negro Leagues throughout much of their existence from 1920-65. In their 46 years of play, they only finished with a losing record once, while winning twelve league titles and the first-ever Negro League World Series, in 1924.
The franchise was founded with players from the All-Nations barnstorming team owned by J.L. Wilkinson, a white businessman who took over ownership of the Monarchs as well. Joining the barnstormers were members of the 25th Infantry Wreckers, an all-black Army team recruited for the U.S. Army on their baseball talent.
With this combination, the Monarchs made an immediate impact, and never looked back. A key reason was their talent level, as some of the best Negro Leaguers in history wore the distinctive uniform of the Monarchs, which included one style of a red-and-white jersey adormed with large letters of “KC.”
Though fans sat in segregated seating, the Monarchs, like many Negro League franchises, had a large fan base. A recent article in a Kansas City magazine notes that the Monarchs were the city’s most popular sports team in the 1920s.
Jackie Robinson, a former Army officer who had been a football standout at UCLA, spent a season with the Monarchs in 1945, batting .387. The next year, baseball visionary Branch Rickey signed Robinson to a contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers, and he continued his success in 1946 with the Montreal Royals, the top Brooklyn affiliate. Robinson helped the Dodgers to six pennants and one world championship during an eleven-year career from 1947-57.
Another Kansas City star was Ernie Banks, who is affectionately called “Mr. Cub” by North Side fans in Chicago. He spent four seasons with the Monarchs from 1950-53, helping the franchise to a league title in his final season.
Banks later said that “playing for the Kansas City Monarchs was like my school, my learning, my world. It was my whole life.” He was a fourteen-time All-Star and two-time National League MVP who hit 512 home runs in his stellar career.
Elston Howard, a Monarch from 1948-50, was the first black player in New York Yankees history and took over as catcher from Yogi Berra in 1960. He was a twelve-time All-Star and the American League MVP in 1963. Howard later became the first black coach in the American League.
Some Monarchs spent their most productive years in the Negro Leagues, including Satchel Paige, the eccentric righthander who saw some time in the majors late in his career. Paige threw three scoreless innings for the Kansas City Athletics on Sept. 25, 1965 at age 59, though some researchers debate his actual age.
One of the most feared pitchers in Negro League history, Paige played for the Monarchs in 1935 and again from 1940-47. He spent five years in the majors, making his debut with Cleveland in 1948 at age 42 as the first black pitcher in American League history. Paige then returned for his legendary outing with the A’s in 1965.
Paige helped build the legend of outfielder James “Cool Papa” Bell, a Monarch from 1932-34, who spent most of his career in the Negro Leagues and never played in the majors. Paige once said that Bell was so fast that he could flip a switch, then be in bed before the lights went off.
That may have been true, since many Negro League teams stayed in second-rate hotels, which often had a delay between a switch and the lights going out. One teammate said that Cool Papa was “an even better man off the field than he was on it. He was honest. He was kind…I’ve never seen him smoke, take a drink or say one cuss word.”
In 1999, the Sporting News ranked Cool Papa as the 66th best baseball player in history, which may have been an understatement. A street and a statue in Bell’s hometown of St. Louis pay homage to his legacy.
Few, though, were as revered as Buck O’Neil, who became one of the faces of the Negro League legacy before his death in 2006 at age 94. The remarkable O’Neil spent sixteen years with the Monarchs as a player, mainly as a first baseman, and later managed the franchise to league titles in both 1953 and 1955. He became the first black Major League Baseball coach when he was hired by the Cubs in 1962.
By then, the Negro Leagues were on the decline, as Robinson’s courage in battling through the 1947 season had opened the door for other black baseball stars, including Larry Doby, Don Newcombe, Monte Irvin, and Willie Mays.
The Monarchs were not immune. The team had played in the same stadium that became home to the Athletics after that franchise moved to Kansas City from Philadelphia in 1955, and shared the facility for one season. However, in 1956 management sold more players to the majors, released O’Neil to become a Cubs scout, and sold the franchise to a new owner, who moved the Monarchs to Grand Rapids, Mich.
There, the Monarchs were strictly a barnstorming team for the last decade of their existence, which ended in 1965.
Today, the Monarchs have returned to the forefront with numerous commemorations, and in 2021, the name even returned. The Kansas City T-bones, a struggling franchise in the American Association, an independent minor league, announced that they would take on the Monarchs name after negotiations with the Negro League Baseball Museum. The museum, also located in Kansas City, was organized by efforts led by the great Buck O’Neil.
On eleven occasions since 2001, the Kansas City Royals have worn throwback jerseys to honor the Monarchs, who were one of the greatest teams in the history of baseball, even in the dark days of baseball segregation.
This story was originally published in the February 2025 issue of The Prairie Land Buzz Magazine - http://www.thebuzzmonthly.com.
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