The Other Boys of Summer
For much of its history, baseball was a segregated sport. There were white teams and there were Black teams. The first Black player in modern Major League Baseball was Jackie Robinson. He started at first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15,1947.
Even then, teams were slow to integrate. The Negro Leagues, which had existed since the 1880’s, didn’t completely disband until the 1960’s. In Gainesville, the first Black player for the G-Men was Warner Jackson in 1955. Jackson only played five games, and the first full time player was Adair Ford later that year.
The Central City Nine baseball team thrived in Gainesville alongside the Oak Halls in the1890’s. They played their games at the old ballpark near the Porter’s community. They would often play two games in a day and traveled to Tampa, Ocala, and Jacksonville to play other Black baseball teams.
Image from the Matheson History Museum Collection
These are the original Gainesville Eagles at their first game in 1965. Herman Williams, top row on left, and Willie Powers, top row second from right, posed with their teammates at Harris Field. Powers recalled that he joined when he was about sixteen for,
“something to do and stay out of trouble where my mother wouldn’t kill me.”
He left the team for a while when he joined the military, but rejoined when he came back to Gainesville.
Image from the Matheson History Museum Collection
This jersey was worn by Herman Williams when he played first base for the Gainesville Eagles. When he returned from the military in 1964, there was no African-American baseball team in the area, so he and five friends formed their own team. The Eagles played home games at Harris Field and traveled across the state playing other teams. They just weren’t, “the type of team that lost many games.” In fact, they only lost three games in their first two years.
Jersey donated by Herman Williams