In 2006, Cum Posey and fifteen other individuals from the Negro League baseball era were inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. I profile the 2006 inductees in my book “Last Train to Cooperstown: The 2006 Baseball Hall of Fame Inductees from the Negro League Baseball Era”. The following is an exert from my book with a preview of the chapter about Posey:
“As the country’s economic condition worsened, Posey struggled
to pay the salaries of his ballplayers in 1932. He also faced a major
challenge from the new black team in Pittsburgh started by Gus
Greenlee a night club/restaurant owner and numbers operator, the
Pittsburgh Crawfords. He used a tactic Posey himself employed to
steal players from other teams. Greenlee offered the Grays’ best
players more money than Posey could pay them. Josh Gibson, Oscar
Charleston, and three other players took Greenlee’s offer and
signed with the Crawfords. Other players for the Grays also left for
other teams.
Determined to not let his team die, Cum Posey formed a
business partnership in 1934 with Rufus “Sonnyman” Jackson,
Homestead’s main black numbers operator. Posey operated the
club while Jackson provided the financial backing. Many black
sportswriters thought partnering with whom some called “black
mobsters” hurt Negro League baseball’s image with the fans. But
Posey and the other black owners said financial backing from
those men did not influence the teams’ performance on the field.
The numbers bosses were just fans who loved the game. The truth
was that if it were not for their investment Negro professional
baseball may not have survived.
Jackson’s financial backing allowed Posey to step away from
being the field manager and devote all his time to rebuilding the
team. He brought on Buck Leonard in 1934 as the first step of
putting together what would be the most dominant Negro League
team in the late 1930s and 1940s. The next year the Grays joined
the Negro National League (NNL). Despite Posey’s rebuilding
efforts, the team could not finish ahead of the Pittsburgh Crawfords.
In 1937 Posey got Josh Gibson back in a trade with his crosstown
rival. Part of the trade, as rumored, included “Sonnyman” Jackson
paying off a gambling debt of the Crawfords’ owner. By getting back
Gibson, Posey had the final piece to add to Leonard and the other players he assembled to begin the Grays’ winning tradition.”
To read more about Cum Posey and the Negro League baseball era Last Train to Cooperstown