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IL1 Indianapolis Indians

Boggs Proud to Wear Clowns Jersey

August 26, 2012 - International League (IL1)
Indianapolis Indians News Release


INDIANAPOLIS -- For the Indianapolis Indians, it was a display of heritage, civil rights and local history.

For right fielder Brandon Boggs, who donned a No. 25 jersey with "Clowns" emblazoned across the chest, it was a note of personal pride.

The jersey harkened back to the days of the Indianapolis Clowns, a club that started as a barnstorming team before playing in the glory days of the Negro Leagues in the 1940s and finally disbanding in 1988.

The unusual moniker came from the club's origins as a traveling squad that consistently fielded a solid lineup but also included members known mostly as comedic side-show acts.

As NegroLeagueBaseball.com writes, "Though the Clowns always played a credible brand of baseball, their Harlem Globetrotter-like clowning routines was the stuff that paid the bills and brought them national attention."

The team put its clowning ways behind it and adopted a straight-laced brand of baseball in 1943, when the club was based out of Cincinnati. (The organization shuffled back and forth between the cities several times, but spent the majority of its existence calling Indianapolis home.)

At that time the club became the first and only 'clowning' team to make join the Negro Major Leagues, becoming a member of the Negro American League. According to NegroLeagueBaseball.com, "Though the club routinely fielded a quality lineup, the Clowns failed to capture an NAL pennant during this period."

The Clowns eventually returned to their clowning ways after the golden age of Negro League Baseball ended in the late '40s and integration took many of the stars to the organized major leagues. One of the penultimate claims to fame for the Indianapolis Clowns was signing a young Hank Aaron in 1952, but the organization soon sold the future Hall-of-Fame slugger to the Boston Braves for $10,000.

After 30 more years of barnstorming -- including signing the first female player in professional baseball, second basewoman Toni Stone, in 1953 -- the Clowns organization eventually folded having spent more than half a century entertaining the masses.

A 1976 film, The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings -- starring James Earl Jones, Billy Dee Williams and Richard Pryor -- was loosely based on the exploits of the Clowns.

On Saturday night, the Indianapolis Indians did their part to make sure the memory of the Clowns is not forgotten. The team wore throwback Clowns jerseys and invited four former Negro League players to sign autographs on the Victory Field concourse.

The importance of the night was not lost on Boggs, the only member of the Tribe with an African-American heritage.

"It's always an honor to wear [Negro League jerseys], being a black player, because there's not that many of us in this game to wear a jersey that was a part of a league that was kind of forgotten but had some good players that could have played in Major League Baseball back then," Boggs said before Saturday's 8-6 win over the Columbus Clippers. "I've never seen these jerseys before, so I'm happy to just put it on and wear it."

Boggs then did his best on Saturday to honor those who came before him, hitting a first-inning solo home run and later making a running catch in the right-center-field gap.

The switch-hitter touched a point that has been brought up a lot of late: the waning numbers of black ballplayers in professional baseball.

A 2009 study, The Decline of The Black Community's Participation in America's Pastime: A Qualitative Investigation, recorded that "MLB saw increases in black player participation that peaked in 1975 at 27% [of all Major League Baseball players]." By the late 2000s, the study wrote, that percentage had dipped in single-digits.

Boggs said he doesn't know exactly what caused the trend, which has shown an increasing decline in black participation in Major League Baseball since peaking 30 years after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947.

"Everybody has their ideas [why blacks have shied away from baseball], but it's just to where they don't grow up playing the sport and they don't get into it. They'd rather play football or basketball or something like that," Boggs said. "But then again, some of us are really good. You've got to have a lot of commitment to play this sport."

Boggs was born in St. Louis but grew up in Atlanta and considers that city home. There, he sees potential for a shift in the recent trend.

"One of these days, there will probably be a lot more. It could all change. It's always a possibility," Boggs said. "You never can tell the future, but back in Atlanta there's a big crop of good baseball players that come from the inner city that may one day make it to the big leagues or [at least] be drafted by a team."

In Atlanta, Boggs is involved heavily in L.E.A.D., a non-profit organization that looks to assist inner city athletes pursuing collegiate baseball scholarships.

"Basically I just go out and work with them, do different skills and things during the offseason. Outside of that, I go around and talk to them, try to get them to do well in school so that they can get scholarships," Boggs said. "I grew up and I got a scholarship in baseball, but it's not just a one-way thing, you can ... make an impact in the sports world or even in the classroom."

The Indians were hoping a to make an impact in the final classroom of early black baseball, auctioning off the Clowns jerseys with mobile bidding throughout Saturday night's game to raise money for the Negro Leagues Museum in Kansas City, Mo. Boggs was happy to see his organization providing support for the museum, and hoped to do his part.

"Hopefully my jersey [sells] for a lot," Boggs said with a laugh before Saturday's game. "I'm the only black player out there, so hopefully it goes for a lot."

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