Lost Advertisements: Negro Delta Baseball School

10 Apr

negrodeltabbschool

A 1951 ad for the second year of the Negro Delta Baseball School at Brown Stadium, home of the Negro Southern League Jackson Cubs.

The school was started by long-time Negro League player and manager Homer “Goose” Curry. Curry managed 18-year-old Roy Campanella with the Baltimore Elite Giants in 1940–hence Campanella was advertised as an “outstanding product” of the school.

The Jackson Clarion-Ledger said the six-week school had attracted 86 players from across the country.

The first two years, the school operated at Brown Stadium, but moved the following year to the heart of the Delta in Greenville, Mississippi.

currymemphis

Goose Curry

In 1955, a United Press reporter asked Curry, who had just become manager of The Memphis Red Sox, about the impact of integration on Negro League baseball:

“Now the big league teams can offer the young Negro players a bonus and a shot at the majors. All we can offer is a job…We take what the majors leave, keep them a couple of years and if they develop into pretty good players, we can sell them to the majors.”

Curry, who was still operating the school at that point, although it seems to have been dissolved sometime in the mid 1950s, was asked who was the best player he ever saw:

“That title goes to the late Josh Gibson, fabulous home run hitter of the 30s.

“‘He’s have hit 100 home runs in the majors,’ Curry said.”

 

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