1952 Pittsburgh Courier All-Time All-America Team.

This month marks the 70th anniversary of the Pittsburgh Courier naming an All-Time All-Star team.

The Courier was an African American Weekly with a lot of baseball coverage.  In 1952 the paper surveyed 31 of the top baseball men in the country 

On April 19th 1952 they published the results: 

As part of our latest ArtCard Project we have taken the 1952 Courier Selections and created cards for several of the players using the 1976 Topps All-Star subset. 

Battery

First we have the Battery. LHP John Donaldson was a showman who created a blueprint of how to make money outside of segregated MLB - this same idea would be adopted by Satchel Paige. To show this relationship we added a nod to Paige in the form of a US postage stamp behind Donaldson. Smoke Joe Williams and Biz Mackey who played for the Philadelphia area Hilldale Daisies round out the battery selections. 

Infield

The Infield is let by Jackie Robinson who we show here "Breaking Barriers" of the card/frame. We don't know a lot about Oliver Marcelle but his nickname was ghost, an image we added above his right shoulder. Above his left shoulder we have his son Ziggy Marcell who played in the 1930s era Negro Leagues. 

Outfield 

We conclude with the Outfield. Both Cristobal Torriente and Martin Dihigo are natives of Cuba and we have added the countries flag for each. There flairs on Monte Irvin's card represent the day that he went out to purchase a saxophone but instead came home with a baseball glove.

If you want to delve more into the Pittsburgh Courier selections here is the full page from 1952. You will need to click on the image and expand it to read the details.

Sources and Links

Pittsburgh Courier 1952 April 19 

SABR Bios

Negro League eMuseum