The Chatham Coloured All-Stars' story is still being told long after its brief run

The Chatham Coloured All-Stars may have only been an amateur baseball team for seven years in the 1930s, but its legacy lives on decades later. 

"It was more than a game. It was a passion for the team and it was a passion for the people of colour in the community," said Blake Harding, whose dad Wilfred "Boomer" Harding played first base for the team. 

"It's given kids in the east end something to shoot for all these years later," he told The Current's Matt Galloway.

The Chatham Coloured All-Stars was formed in 1932 by a group of friends in Chatham, Ont., making it the first all-Black organized baseball team in the province. 

They initially toured parts of Ontario, often playing against all-white teams in exhibition games. But in 1933, they were noticed by local business owner Archie Stirling. He was a representative for the Ontario Baseball Amateur Association, and brought them into the city league.

The following year, they became the first all-Black team to win a provincial OBAA championship with a victory in the Intermediate B Division.

"I think my father's fondest memories of those games was actually after the games had been played and they returned back to Chatham," said Don Tabron, whose dad, also named Don, played for the All-Stars.

"He always spoke so finely about how the citizens of Chatham were waiting on the team to come back and they carried them through the downtown area on their shoulders, celebrating the victory."

The story of the team's title-winning season is being told by Heidi L.M. Jacobs in the new book, 1934: The Chatham Coloured All-Stars' Barrier-Breaking Year. It was released on June 6.

Jacobs said the All-Stars' victory was huge for Chatham, which saw itself as a baseball town. But for the Black