SCRANTON, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) \u2014 For generations, baseball has been one of the country\u2019s most popular sports, but until 1947, black men weren\u2019t able to compete professionally. They had to play in Negro Leagues, and it turns out that NEPA had a Negro League baseball team of their own. They were called the Scranton Battling Giants, and until recently, have been largely forgotten. The ensuing search to try to find anything about the team and to try to meet the people keeping their legacy alive would become a rabbit hole.<\/p>\n
And it all started with one question: Who were the Scranton Battling Giants?<\/p>\n
The search for answers began with a 2020 blog post by the Black Scranton Project, the only online source with any information about the team.<\/p>\n
\u201cI came across the Battling Giants through the owner, founder, manager of the team, Charles \u201cSusky\u201d Battle,\u201d recalled Black Scranton Project founder and CEO Glynis Johns. \u201cHe was a business owner here in the city of Scranton in the late 1800s until the 1920s. And during that time, he ran the only black owned hotel in the city of Scranton, it was very popular.\u201d<\/p>\n
To learn more, research turned to newspaper archives. At the Luzerne County Historical Society\u2019s library, a review of the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader uncovered 12 references to the team across a three-month span, beginning on April 5, 1909. Among advertisements and local notices appeared the headline: \u201cScranton Negroes Have A Baseball Team,\u201d offering one of the first glimpses into the Battling Giants.<\/p>\n
Named in part for owner Charles \u201cSusky\u201d Battle, the team began practicing in May 1909. Drawing players from surrounding states and some from the South, they competed in towns within roughly 50 miles of Scranton. Their first recorded game, an exhibition match against Nanticoke, ended in a 6\u20138 loss. Despite that start, reports soon noted the team was doing \u201cfine work this season on the diamond.\u201d<\/p>\n
Additional records from the Lackawanna County Historical Society helped expand the team\u2019s scope. Between May and June 1909, the Battling Giants played in Olyphant and Lestershire, New York (neither score was found), defeating Archbald twice, as well as Endicott, White Mills, and Hawley. The Hawley game remains significant as a picture was taken, and it stands as the only known photograph of the team.<\/p>\n
Johns continued, \u201cWe don\u2019t have that many living images, or when there were photos being taken, they were only taking them of the white players on the field, you know? So, it\u2019s like we were there, but we weren\u2019t always seen and like we weren\u2019t given the spotlight a lot of times.\u201d<\/p>\n
While many game records have been lost, contemporary coverage makes clear the team\u2019s impact. White sportswriters at the time acknowledged their prowess. While recounting two Battling Giants wins, an article in the June 30, 1909, edition of The Citizen said, \u201cIt was no disgrace for the locals to lower their colors before the Giants; we were simply outclassed in every part of the game,\u201d and described the Battling Giants players as \u201cgreased lightning on the bases.\u201d After a different win, an article from the May 29, 1909, edition of The Archbald Citizen admitted, \u201cThey are fast players and it is no disgrace to be walloped by them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not an easy thing to discover,\u201d said Adam Marco, director of communications for the Scranton\/Wilkes Barre Railriders. \u201cYou\u2019re talking about historical records, players from over 100 years ago. It\u2019s just been such an interesting deep dive to figure out as much as you possibly can with just a miniscule amount of information.\u201d<\/p>\n
A key figure behind the Battling Giant’s success was Clarence \u201cWaxy\u201d Williams, the team\u2019s manager and catcher. Williams was one of the most prominent Black players of the era and had also played for the Cuban Giants, the first paid professional Black baseball team.<\/p>\n
Research also shed light on team owner Charles \u201cSusky\u201d Battle. Best known for operating the Newport Hotel on the 300 block of Center Street in Scranton, Battle was described as \u201cthe dominating spirit of the colored people of this city\u201d and was widely recognized for his generosity.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was a wealthy man, and he\u2019d always give back to people in the community,\u201d explained Johns. \u201cSo, he was seen as someone who, if you needed a place to stay or you needed a meal, he was someone that was going to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Battle\u2019s influence extended beyond Scranton. He was a key figure and close friend to boxer Jack Johnson, helping arrange fights and financially backing him early in his career. In 1910, Johnson knocked out Jim Jeffries in a 15-round bout in what became known as \u201cthe fight of the century,\u201d becoming the first Black world heavyweight boxing champion. Battle, through betting on his friend, would make a fortune.<\/p>\n
Battle died at the age of 42 in January 1912 from acute Bright\u2019s disease. Hundreds attended his funeral. After his death, ownership of the Battling Giants changed, and while some references suggest the team may have existed into the 1940s, limited records make their later history difficult to confirm.<\/p>\n
Now, more than a century after their founding, the team is being recognized once again.<\/p>\n
The conclusion of years of work, the Scranton\/Wilkes-Barre Railriders plan to host an event in collaboration with the Black Scranton Project in late July. The event aims to honor the players and preserve the history of a team long overlooked.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe tell the stories of yesterday and yesteryear because it is who we are,\u201d explained Marco after being asked why it\u2019s important for them to honor the forgotten team. \u201cIt is what made us this area, this team, this sport, this industry all at the same time. So, you tell it in part because we\u2019re historians, we\u2019re custodians of the game, but also because it\u2019s fascinating and because Clarence \u201cWaxy\u201d Williams and Charles Battle and the Battling Giants need their story told. And if it\u2019s not done by the Black Scranton Project and the Scranton\/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders, I\u2019m not going to say the authorities on the subject, but if it\u2019s not done by us, then who? So, it is up to us to be able to pass this information along.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the long overdue recognition of a team, and owner, that shaped sports history in NEPA.<\/p>\n
In a time when Black achievements were often minimized or ignored, the story of the Scranton Battling Giants stands as a reminder that Black Scrantonians and the communities they built have always been important, influential, and integral to making America amazing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SCRANTON, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) \u2014 For generations, baseball has been one of the country\u2019s most popular sports, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173544,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":["post-173543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}