Recognition for Negro Leagues' baseball stars stirs memories of Alberta barnstorming tours

Leroy (Satchel) Paige found himself pitching in front of thousands of fans in central Alberta for Ponoka's first annual baseball tournament in 1959.

Before making his mark on Major League Baseball (MLB), the Hall of Fame pitcher was a name to watch for in the Negro Leagues — and was involved in a number of firsts for baseball in Western Canada.

Now Paige and other baseball greats like Cool Papa Bell who played in Alberta will be in the MLB's official book after the league announced it is absorbing the available Negro Leagues numbers.

After the decision was announced last week, the move was stirring local memories of a time when barnstorming Black baseball greats drew huge crowds to exhibition games in Alberta.

The Negro Leagues were made up of African American players in the United States who were excluded from playing in the majors due to their race. 

The leagues began at a national level in the 1920s but faded after Jackie Robinson became MLB's first Black player when he joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. 

"In Canada, you couldn't necessarily see Major League Baseball players come up here unless you had a minor league team," Ian Wilson, co-founder of Alberta Dugout Stories, a baseball blog and podcast, said in an interview on CBC's Calgary Eyeopener.

Until 1971, none of the players who predominantly played in the Negro Leagues were inducted into the MLB Hall of Fame. 

That changed when Paige joined their ranks that year.

Alberta's connection to baseball's history runs deep into the archives.

With a lot of Negro League teams and their affiliated players unable to draw large crowds in the U.S. — and some games even being protested — they often travelled north of the border, staging exhibition games in front of fans who