Cumberland Posey facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Cumberland Posey |
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Posey in 1913
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| Outfielder/manager/owner | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born: June 20, 1890 Homestead, Pennsylvania |
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| Died: March 28, 1946 (aged 55) Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania |
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 Baseball Hall of Fame |
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| Induction | 2006 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Election Method | Committee on African-American Baseball | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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Cumberland Willis "Cum" Posey Jr. (born June 20, 1890 – died March 28, 1946) was an amazing American athlete. He was a talented baseball player, a team manager, and a team owner in the Negro leagues. He was also a professional basketball player and team owner.
Early Life and Family
Cumberland Jr. grew up in a wealthy African American family in Homestead, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh. His father, Cumberland Willis Posey Sr., was a very successful businessman. He worked on riverboats and became one of the first African American licensed engineers in the United States. People called him "Captain Posey."
Captain Posey owned coal companies and was a partner with famous businessman Henry Clay Frick. He also led the Pittsburgh Courier newspaper for many years. The Posey family lived in a beautiful, large house.
Even though his family was wealthy, they still faced unfair treatment because of their race. This unfairness helped shape Cumberland Jr. into a determined athlete. Before 1910, he was a star player and manager for local football teams like the Delaney Rifles.
Basketball Career
Many people thought Posey was the best African American basketball player of his time. He played from the early 1900s until the mid-1920s. His peers and sports writers called him an "All-Time Immortal."
Posey led Homestead High to win the city championship in 1908. He played basketball at Penn State for two years. Later, he went to the University of Pittsburgh and earned a pharmacy degree in 1915.
In 1912, he created the Monticello Athletic Association team. This team won the Colored Basketball World's Championship. He also played varsity basketball for Duquesne University under the name "Charles Cumbert." He was the top scorer for the Dukes for three seasons until 1919. Today, he is in the Duquesne Sports Hall of Fame.
In the mid-1910s, Posey started and played for the Loendi Big Five team. This team became the most powerful basketball team during the Black Fives Era. They won four Colored Basketball World Championship titles in a row. Posey stopped playing basketball in the late 1920s. He wanted to focus on his baseball business and his weekly sports column, "In The Sportive Realm," in the Pittsburgh Courier newspaper.
In 2016, he was chosen for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
Homestead Grays Baseball
Cumberland Posey started playing baseball with the Homestead Grays in 1911. By 1916, he became their manager. In the early 1920s, he became the owner of the team. For 25 years, he turned the Grays into one of the strongest teams in black baseball. They won many championships, including nine in a row from 1937 to 1945.
In 1910, Posey helped organize a group of steelworkers from Homestead into a great baseball club. This team, the Homestead Grays, played in many places. These included famous stadiums like Forbes Field in Pittsburgh and Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C. The team won eight out of nine Negro National League titles.
Posey spent 35 years (1911–1946) in baseball. He was a player, manager, owner, and team official. He built a strong system of games that made the Grays a powerful and successful team. They were one of the best teams in the East.
Posey stopped playing baseball to become the team's field and business manager. In 1920, he took full control of the Grays. He made them a very successful team in their region. The Grays were so popular in Pennsylvania and nearby states that they survived the hard times of the Great Depression.
Posey was always looking for new talent for the Grays. At different times, more than a dozen future Negro Leagues Hall of Famers played for him. He was sometimes accused of taking the best players from other teams. However, he also lost some of his own stars to the wealthy Pittsburgh Crawfords in the early 1930s. The Grays recovered and joined the second Negro National League in 1935. They soon became the best team in the league. Posey's teams won nine championships in a row from 1937 to 1945.
In 1932, Posey tried to start a new league called the East-West League. But it did not last long because of the Depression. Later, he became an officer of the Negro National League. He was a major leader at their meetings. He also often wrote about the league in his sports columns for the Pittsburgh Courier. He would sometimes criticize the league, even after he joined it.
Sportswriter Wendell Smith once wrote that Posey was "the smartest man in Negro baseball and certainly the most successful."
In 2006, he was chosen for the Baseball Hall of Fame. On August 10, 2010, he was added to the Washington Nationals Ring of Honor. This was for his important contributions to baseball in Washington, D.C., as part of the Homestead Grays.
Death
Cumberland Posey passed away from cancer on March 28, 1946, in Pittsburgh. He was 55 years old. On the day of his funeral, his hometown of Homestead declared a school holiday to honor him.
See also
- National Basketball Association
- Negro league baseball
