Cumberland Posey, The one particular person Inside the Baseball and Basketball Halls of Fame, was not solely An excellent athlete. He additionally was Definitely one of many shrewdest enterprisemales and expertise evaluators Inside the Negro Leagues, a fierce advocate for Black baseball and a sports activities pioneer.
Early Inside the Twentieth century, the Pittsburgh-space native turned The primary African American to play sports activities at Penn State After which at Duquesne, the place he used an alias. Later, Posey turned proprietor of the Homestead Grays, thought-about Definitely one of many goodest groups Inside the historic previous of Negro League baseball.
“He is Amongst The numerous three most important house proprietors in Negro League baseball,” says Jim Overmyer, author of Cum Posey of the Homestead Grays. Overmyer consists of Posey Amongst The numerous most influential Negro Leagues decides with fellow Hall of Famers Rube Foster, a group authorities, and James L. Wilkinson, the Kansas Metropolis Monarchs’ proprietor.
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Posey’s enterprise acumales allowed him to take “An prolonged view,” Overmyer says, which led to monetary and aggressive success for the Grays as they barnstormed and performed Inside the Negro Leagues. He additionally was a revered decide in Pittsburgh.
“Some might say he crushed the weak As properly as to the strong on The biggest Method to The very Greater of the ladder,” wrote Wendall Smith of the Pittsburgh Courier, a nationally excellent Black newspaper. “However it Does not matter what his critics say, They will’t deny that he was The smartest man in Negro League baseball And positively In all probability the most worthwhile.”
Cumberland Posey: A Descendant of Freed Slaves
The grandson of freed slaves, Posey was born June 20, 1890, in Homestead, Pennsylvania, a borough seven miles southeast of Pittsburgh. His father, Cumberland “Cap” Wunproperlyis Posey Sr., turned What’s believed to be the nation’s first Black licensed riverboat engineer. The elder Posey constructed riverboats and based and owned the Diamond Coke and Coal Agency.
Posey’s mcompletely different, Anna Stevens Posey, The primary Black graduate of her Highschool in Athens, Ohio, referred to as for equal recognition of African American womales’s civic groups. She as quickly as fired warning photographs with a pistol to scare off two males who tried to rob her husband.
Posey grew up in A refined, brick house on East 13th Road in Homestead, shut to the Carnegie Metallic Works on the south financial institution of the Monongahela River. In 1911, Posey, An excellent athlete, performed center area for the Murdock Grays, Educated group. (The group later was reidentifyd the Homestead Grays To mirror its …….
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