A new historical marker honoring a chapter of Capital Region baseball history is now on display.
The sign commemorates the Mohawk Colored Giants, who called the former Island Park field home, and also memorializes a 1913 game where the Colored Giants faced ace Walter Johnson and his All-American Team in a game eventually called due to darkness.
Speaking at the unveiling ceremony in late July, National Baseball Hall of Fame President Josh Rawitch says it ensures Schenectady history won’t be forgotten.
“This was a game that started about an hour and a half late because the players on the Colored Giants hadn’t been paid in five weeks, and they decided to stand up for their rights and got what they were due,” Rawitch said.
The Colored Giants won that game, called in the fifth inning, 1-0.
City historian Chris Leonard says baseball has a long history in the Electric City, beginning with the city’s council’s 1821 ban on ball-playing in front of City Hall and Union College forming the city’s first organized team in 1859.
“They were followed by the Mohawk Club in 1860 and the Ancient Baseball Club of Schenectady in 1868. Professional baseball arrived in 1895 with the Schenectady Dorpians. While the team did not survive that year, they would return in 1899 as part of the New York State League, which included teams from Albany, Troy, Binghamton and Syracuse,” Leonard said.
That team, the Frog Alleys, left for Scranton in 1904, leaving Schenectadians yearning for the return of professional ball. Leonard says General Electric worker Bill Wernicke took on that mission, seeking to bring a Negro League team in at a time when the city’s Black population was about 270 people out of a total of more than 73,000.
Leonard says Wernicke hired William “Big Bull” Smith, a Negro League veteran, to recruit players in New York City and Chicago. He says Smith was quite successful in those goals, with top-line players joining the Colored Giants.
“They included ‘Smoky Joe’ Williams, a future Hall of Famer, ‘Home Run’ Johnson, Chappie Johnson, Harry Buckner, ‘Knucks’ James and a great young pitcher named Frank Wickware. The 1913 Mohawk Giants began and ended the season with exhibition games against white teams; in between, they finished with a record of 52 wins against 22 losses and two ties,” Leonard said.
The first iteration of the Colored Giants folded in 1915. The team was resurrected during the 1920s and lasted until 1943.
The city’s last professional team was the Schenectady Blue Jays, who played at McNearney Stadium — the site of which is now a golf course — between 1946 and 1957.
State Assemblyman Angelo Santabarbara, a Democrat whose 111th District includes the park, says the struggle the Colored Giants faced then parallels today’s realities for people with disabilities.
“We just had a disability awareness game in the city of Amsterdam where kids with disabilities got to play on a field for the first time. We have another one here coming up at the A Diamond where kids with disabilities are going to get to play. So I come to appreciate the sport in so many ways, and hearing today about this history just absolutely amazing, very meaningful to me,” Santabarbara said.
Santabarbara’s son was diagnosed with autism at age 3.
SUNY Schenectady President Dr. Steady Moono says today’s baseball stands on the shoulders of Giants, noting there’s still progress to be made.
“This is a wonderful, wonderful reminder that all of us need to make those sacrifices, and that our students as they walk through here, as they see this plaque next to the memorial of other giants as well who fought for our freedoms, they will persevere and actualize their dreams,” Moono said.
City Council President Marion Porterfield says she only recently learned of the team’s history, adding it was never taught in school.
“It came up last year when we- the NAACP, I'm the civic engagement chair- and we were doing our program last year, and somehow the talk came about the Mohawk Giants, and so I spent a lot of time looking to it. I have a whole lot of research that I've done as we prepare for prepare for 2025 when that's actually what we're going to do, is recognize the Negro Baseball teams,” Porterfield said.
Councilor Damonni Farley says his experience was much the same as Porterfield’s.
“There were certain people that, going to school, that valued this message and understood the importance of letting people know about certain aspects of history, but I would say, as part of our general curriculum? No, absolutely not,” Farley said.
The plaque says thousands of fans crossed “the ‘Binne Kill’ river inlet via a bridge located near Schenectady’s Old Waterfront” to watch the team.
