East-West League
| Sport | Baseball |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1932 |
| Ceased | 1932 |
| No. of teams | 8 |
| Country | USA |
The East-West League was an American Negro baseball league that operated during the period when professional baseball in the United States was segregated. Cum Posey organized the league in 1932, but it did not last the full year and folded in June of that year. It was the first Negro league to include teams from both the Eastern and Midwestern United States.
Although the league lasted less than one season, it featured one of the strongest teams in the history of Negro league baseball, the Detroit Wolves. The league provided a foundation for the development of the second Negro National League, which would become the premier league for African American baseball players.
By early 1932, facing the severe financial problems associated with the Great Depression, the nation no longer had any functioning major Negro leagues. The first Negro National League, which operated primarily in the American Midwest, limped through the 1931 season following the death of its founder, Rube Foster, but formally disbanded in March 1932. In the Eastern states, the Eastern Colored League folded in 1928, and its successor, the American Negro League, folded after the 1929 season.
In this environment, Cum Posey, the owner of the Homestead Grays, undertook an ambitious plan to create a single league that encompassed teams in the East and Midwest. Posey was facing a strong local competitor, Gus Greenlee's Pittsburgh Crawfords, and hoped that a new league would bolster the Grays and isolate the Crawfords. In January 1932, Posey organized the East-West League. The team featured eight teams located in the East and Midwest, at least two of which (Homestead and Detroit) were owned by Posey. The plans for the new league were ambitious relative to the previous Negro leagues. The Al Munro Elias Bureau was hired to compile statistics, and the league would hire salaried, traveling umpires.
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