Hilldale   Eastern Colored League (c. 1920’s)

This jersey is from the Hilldale baseball club of the Eastern Colored League. It was obtained from a family in Darby, Pennsylvannia. It is one of the few remaining artifacts of the Eastern Colored League. The uniform is c. 1920’s.



The Hilldale baseball club began as a boy’s baseball team in 1910. In 1911, Ed Bolden of Darby, Pennsylvania (suburb of Philadelphia) took over the operation of the club. They became a professional team in 1916. From 1916 to 1922, they played an independent schedule with most of their games being played on a 60/40 basis with the winner of the game getting 60 % of the gate receipts and the losing team getting 40 %. During these early years, Bolden attracted some of the best Negro League players to his Hilldale club. Some of the Negro League stars that played for Hilldale during these early years were Spottswood Poles, Bill Pettus, Oliver “Ghost” Marcelle, Smoky Joe Williams, Louis Santop and Dick Lundy. Over the yeas, the team would be known as the Hilldale Daises or the Hilldale Giants. As Bolden’s Hilldale club grew stronger, so did his aspirations in Negro League baseball. Ed Bolden was the driving force in creating the Eastern Colored League in 1932. Bolden’s league was an attempt to compete with Rube Foster’s Negro National League. The Hilldale club won the league championship the first three years with the following records:

 1923 Hilldale      32-17    Eastern Colored League Champion

 1924 Hilldale      47-22    Eastern Colored League Champion

 1925 Hilldale      52-15    Eastern Colored League Champion

Hilldale

Hilldale’s success should have been no suprise when you consider the talent on the club. The Hilldale teams of the Eastern Colored League (ECL) included four future Hall of Famers: Judy Johnson, John “Pop” Lloyd, Raleigh “ Biz” Mackey and Louis Santop. The team also included numerous other Negro League stars such as: Clint Thomas, Otto Briggs, Jake Stephens, Jesse “Nip” Winters and Frank Warfield. Bolden sold the team to John Drew who owned the Darby bus line in 1929. Bolden took the team back over in 1932 and made one last attempt to salvage the team and dominate Negro League in the East when the East-West League was formed. Both the league and the team folded with the Depression in 1932.



The league history for the Hilldale club is as follows:

 Independent Schedule       (1916-1922)

 Eastern Colored League     (1923-1928)

 Interstate League                 (1926)

 Eastern Shore League         (1927)

 American Negro League     (1929)

Independent Schedule         (1930-1931)

East-West League                 (1932)

A footnote to Hilldale baseball history is that there also was a Hilldale baseball club in Branch Rickey’s United States League (USL) in 1945. This team was not related to the other Hilldale baseball clubs.