Pittsburgh Crawfords were a professional baseball team that played in the Negro leagues of the United States from 1931 to 1940. The Negro leagues were for Black players, who were barred from playing alongside white players because of racial segregation. During the team’s short history, the Crawfords fielded some of the most famous Negro league players of all time. The team played its home games at Greenlee Field in Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania.
In 1930, the Pittsburgh businessman Gus Greenlee purchased a semiprofessional baseball team known as the Crawford Giants. The Giants represented a bath house and recreation center on Crawford Street, in Pittsburgh’s historically African American Hill District. Greenlee re-formed the team in 1931 as the independent and professional Pittsburgh Crawfords. The team enjoyed quick success and opened the new Greenlee Field as their home ballpark in 1932. In 1933, the Crawfords joined the Negro National League (NNL), the top professional baseball league for Black players. The Crawfords won NNL titles in 1935 and 1936 behind such stars as Cool Papa Bell , Oscar Charleston , Josh Gibson , Judy Johnson , and Satchel Paige —all of whom were later elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame .
In 1937, many Crawfords stars left for higher pay on other teams. The Crawfords suffered as a result, and so did attendance at Greenlee Field. Greenlee sold the team in 1939. The Crawfords left the NNL and moved to Toledo , Ohio, as a member of the recently formed Negro American League. The Crawfords then moved to Indianapolis , Indiana, before folding in 1940. In 1945, Greenlee established an unrelated Pittsburgh Crawfords minor league team in the United States League, which lasted two seasons.
