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Negro league baseball team

The Homestead Grays (also known as Washington Grays or Washington Homestead Grays) were a professional baseball team that played in the Negro leagues in the United States. The team was formed in 1912 by Cumberland Posey, and remained in continuous operation for 38 seasons. The team was originally based in Homestead, Pennsylvania, adjacent to Pittsburgh. By the 1920s, with increasing popularity in the Pittsburgh region, the team retained the name "Homestead" but crossed the Monongahela River to play all home games in Pittsburgh, at the Pittsburgh Pirates' home Forbes Field and the Pittsburgh Crawfords' home Greenlee Field. From 1940 until 1942, the Grays played half of their home games in Washington, D. C., while remaining in Pittsburgh for all other home stands.

The Grays grew out of an earlier industrial team. In 1900, a group of African American players had joined together to form the Germantown Blue Ribbons, an industrial league team. For ten years, the Blue Ribbons fielded a team every season and played some of the best sandlot teams in the area. In 1910, the managers of the team retired. The players reorganized the team and named themselves the Murdock Grays. In 1912, they became the Homestead Grays, the name they retained for the remainder of the franchise's history.

The Grays did join the American Negro League in 1929, but that league lasted only one season. Cumberland Posey was their inaugural manager in organized league play. The Grays went 32 29 (with three ties) for a fourth place finish. The team operated independently again until 1932, when Posey organized the ill fated East West League; that league also collapsed before completing its first and only season. Jud Wilson and Posey combined to lead the 1932 team to a 24 16 record (with one tie) before the Grays joined the Negro National League in 1933

Posey managed the next two seasons, leading them to a 3rd and 7th place finish, respectively. Outfielder Vic Harris (a long time player for the Grays) became player manager in 1936. With the near collapse of the Pittsburgh Crawfords, Josh Gibson returned to the Grays in 1937, combining with slugger Buck Leonard to power the Grays. From 1937 to 1948, the Grays went on an unprecedented run of success in Negro league baseball. They finished first place in the league in ten of twelve seasons while competing in organized playoff baseball in six of those seasons (which they won three). Their one challenge for the Negro National League came in 1939, which matched the top four teams (of a six team league) in a postseason tournament that required three victories. They beat the Philadelphia Stars in five games to reach the Championship Series against the Baltimore Elite Giants. They lost to Baltimore in five games. The Grays rolled through the next two seasons with ease; in 1942, they competed in the re born Negro World Series, which they lost in four games to the Kansas City Monarchs. For the 1943 and 1944 seasons, Candy Jim Taylor served as the manager for the Grays. They won the pennant each time to advance to the Series, which they won each time. Harris returned to manage the Grays for 1945, where he continued for four seasons. They went to the Series twice and won the 1948 Negro World Series, the final one to be played before the demise of quality in the leagues. During their tenure in organized league baseball, the Grays went 629–377, which included a season each in the ANL and EWL and fifteen years spent with the Negro National League (where they went 573 332). They finished first place in the league ten times while reaching the Negro World Series (second incarnation) five times, which resulted in three championships. The Grays had just one losing season in their time in the National League (1935, when they finished 26 36), which was also one of only three times they ever finished in the bottom half of a league. Pittsburgh Steelers founder and owner Art Rooney related in a 1981 interview that he "from time to time" had "helped financially support the Negro League team, the Homestead Grays, and . was a better baseball fan than football fan."

Following the collapse of the Negro National League after the 1948 season, the Grays struggled to continue as an independent club and joined the minor league Negro American Association. The Grays dominated the competition, won both halves of the split season and cruised to the league pennant. The league collapsed after the 1949 season and the Grays returned to barnstorming. After completing their 1950 season, they ultimately disbanded in May 1951.

From the late 1930s through the 1940s, the Grays played their home games at Pittsburgh's Forbes Field, home of the Pittsburgh Pirates. However, during this same period the club adopted the Washington, D. C. area as its "home away from home" and scheduled many of its "home" games at D. C.'s Griffith Stadium, the home park of the Washington Senators. During these games, they were alternatively known as the Washington Grays or Washington Homestead Grays.

On July 11, 2002, the Homestead High Level Bridge which connects Pittsburgh to Homestead over the Monongahela River at Homestead was renamed the Homestead Grays Bridge in honor of the team.