Here’s another example of an artifact that for years researchers thought simply didn’t exist: pages from the 1926 Hilldale scorebook, for a September 21 game with the Harrisburg Giants in Parkesburg, Pennsylvania. Hilldale won, 8 to 6, despite a ninth-inning Giants’ rally capped by a two-run home run off the bat of John Beckwith.
This comes to us courtesy of Dick Clark (of the Negro League Researchers and Authors Group). The Hilldale scorebook was, as I understand it, originally found by Neil Lanctot (author of Fair Dealing and Clean Playing: The Hilldale Club and the Development of Black Professional Baseball, 1910-1932,and Negro League Baseball: The Rise and Ruin of a Black Institution). Overall, there are score sheets for 63 games against Eastern Colored League opponents (plus six more against the Earle Mack All Stars), from June 19 through October 9, 1926; these include home, road, and neutral-site games as well as both games of doubleheaders.
The last I heard, the Hilldale scorebook was housed in the African American Museum in Philadelphia, though the museum’s website no longer seems to feature a catalog of its collections.
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