“Times of Greatness,” a rolling exhibit of Negro Leagues history, will make a stop in Baltimore this weekend, as the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum revisits one of the league?s key hubs. The museum is open to the public Friday from 4 to 7 p.m. and Saturday from 3:45 to 5 p.m. in Lot C outside Oriole Park at Camden Yards.
The mobile museum, built by Roadway, is housed in a 53-foot trailer, featuring photos, video and memorabilia. The museum will also have on hand a life-size statue of Satchel Paige and a regional display with a focus upon the Negro Leagues in the Northeast.
“If you can?t come to [the Negro Leagues Hall of Fame in] Kansas City, we?ll bring the museum on the road to you,” said Bob Kendrick, director of marketing for the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. “It?s a multimedia type of display. It?s a very dynamic way to take the Negro Leagues on the road.”
Orioles? pitcher LaTroy Hawkins, an African-American, plans to visit the exhibit this weekend, despite having visited the Hall of Fame in Kansas City an estimated 40 times.
“It?s a place to show you how far the game has come and evolved, and hopefully where we?re going,” Hawkins said. “It makes you appreciate what you have.”
Kendrick noted that it was important to make Baltimore one of the 30 stops on this year?s tour. In fact, Baltimore is the final destination for the caravan.
“Baltimore is at the heart of the Negro League?s history,” Kendrick said. “[Baltimore Elite Giants? pitcher] Leon Day is one of the greatest players ? not in just the history of the Negro Leagues, but in the history of baseball.”
One topic likely to be discussed this weekend is the exclusion of Negro Leagues? legend Buck O?Neil from the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. O?Neil, 94, was left off a list of 17 Negro League personalities inducted into the Hall of Fame last month.
“If we all miss this opportunity, that would be a tragedy,” Kendrick said.
Hawkins agrees.
“I think it?s a crying shame, some of the people they let in, and not let Buck O?Neil in,” Hawkins said. “What he?s done for the game of baseball ? if there was something higher than the Hall of Fame, he belongs in that.”
BALTIMORE?S BLACK BALL CLUBS
» The Baltimore Elite Giants played in the Negro National League and the Negro American League, winning the 1939 National League title and the 1949 American League title.
» The Baltimore Black Sox debuted as an independent club and played in various leagues before initially joining the Negro Leagues in 1929.
