Indianapolis Clowns
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Indianapolis Clowns were a professional baseball team in the Negro American League. Playing variously as the Indianapolis Clowns and Cincinnati Clowns, the club was the only clowning team to earn entrance into black baseball's "major league." From its beginnings as the Miami Giants and transition to the Ethiopian Clowns, the team built a national following as one of baseball's favorite entertainment attractions during the 1930s. Though the Clowns always played a credible brand of baseball, their Harlem Globetrotters-like clowning routines were the stuff that paid the bills and brought them national attention.
In 1943 the club (then playing as the Cincinnati Clowns) toned down its clowning routines to become a member of the Negro American League, a league affiliation which it maintained through the end of the Negro Leagues' golden age in 1949 and beyond. Though the club routinely fielded a quality lineup, the Clowns failed to capture an NAL pennant during this period.
After the demise of the Negro National League and integration of organized baseball, the Clowns gradually returned to their clowning routines as a measure of financial necessity. During the early 1950s the team had the distinction of signing a young Hank Aaron who would, of course, ultimately become baseball's all-time home run king.
The Clowns fielded such stars as Buster Haywood, DeWitt "Woody" Smallwood, showman "Goose" Tatum, and future Major Leaguers John Wyatt (Kansas City Athletics), Paul Casanova (Washington Senators), and Choo-Choo Coleman (New York Mets).
The Clowns were the first professional baseball team to hire a female player. Marcenia "Tony" Stone played second base with the team in 1953. She batted .267. The following year the Clowns sold her contract to the Kansas City Monarchs. They hired two women replacements: Marie "Peanuts" Johnson, pitcher; and, Connie Morgan, second base. Women also served as umpires for the team.
After many years of operation as a barnstorming team, the Clowns finally disbanded around 1988.
[edit] External links
Book by: Bill Heward about the Clowns:
- Some are called Clowns: A season with the last of the great barnstorming baseball teams, ISBN 0-690-00469-9.
