The 1926 Cleveland Elites

(Chicago Defender, May 29, 1926, p. 10)

The above shows the 1926 Cleveland Elites and their bus. Aside from its interest as a photograph of a quite obscure team, it is also one of the earlier images I have seen of a Negro league team bus.

The Elites unfortunately did not amount to much—the owner Sam Shepard, a former St. Louis Stars owner, hired Candy Jim Taylor, former Stars manager, to run the new team, but Taylor couldn’t replicate his success in St. Louis. He used at least 37 players trying to come up with a winning formula, but wound up quitting and going to Detroit before the season was done. Cleveland finished 8-40-1 in league competition. (Amazingly that was not the worst record in the league—the Dayton Marcos finished 6-36 to beat out their fellow Ohioans for last-place honors in the very lopsided 1926 NNL.)

Although on the diamond the Elites were way behind the league, on the roads and highways they were leading the pack. As the caption indicates, the multi-talented Shepard designed the Elites’ bus himself, as well as that of the champion Kansas City Monarchs. (Incidentally, while there are many photos of Monarchs buses from the 1930s and later, I don’t think I’ve seen one from the 1920s.)

The 1920s were the decade when Negro league teams switched from trains to buses. This gave them vastly more flexibility. It was once common for games to be curtailed or the second games of doubleheaders cancelled so one or both teams could catch a train. If they could jump on their own bus right after the game teams could stay an extra few hours if necessary—or at least that was the idea. With more control over the travel schedule, team owners found it easier to book more and more games—and the season became even more hectic and exhausting for the players.

UPDATE 11/2/2020 Here is an item from a week earlier about Sam Shepard and the Elites team bus:

(Chicago Defender, May 22, 1926, p. 10)

Also, with respect to the discussion in the comments about the size of the Elites roster: there were roster limits in the NNL. Teams were usually expected to keep no more than 16 players, though this varied a bit, and enforcement of the rule was not always strict. Sometimes teams were content with less—for example, the Cuban Stars used only 13 players over their whole 1926 NNL schedule.

The Elites definitely kept around a large number of players, and Candy Jim Taylor made use of them, with lots of relief pitching, in-game substitutions, pinch-hitters, and pinch-runners. It seemed to be a mixture of cycling through a high volume of players in the hopes of finding some talent while desperately seeking for any possible advantage within a given game.

Here’s a box score for a game played on May 31, a few days after the bus photo was published, showing the Elites using 17 players, including Taylor and Frank Duncan, the veteran player-coach who briefly took over as manager later in the year.

(St. Louis Argus, June 4, 1926, p. 7)

For whatever reason, nothing worked at all—the Elites were trounced in this game 11 to 1, finished with 8 wins and 40 losses in league competition, and folded before the season was over. Taylor finished the year with Detroit, then returned to St. Louis in 1927, eventually leading the Stars to a pennant in 1928.

Comments

[tim]

This team in 1926 came to and was defeated by the Fort Wayne Colored Pirates. The colored Pirates used players supplied by Rube Foster.

[Gary Ashwill]

Here's the Elites/ABCs photo (Hake's posted one high-res detail--wish they had done that with the whole photo):

https://www.hakes.com/Auction/ItemDetail/57872/1926-INDIANAPOLIS-ABCs-AND-CLEVELAND-ELITES-OPENING-GAME-NEGRO-LEAGUE-PANORAMIC-PHOTO

It was sold again for a lot more money 4 years later by Robert Edward Auctions.

[John R]

More interestingly, there is a panoramic photo of the 1926 Cleveland Elites and their opponents, the Indianapolis ABCs, from that May 26 Opening Day extent. If I remember correctly (from trying to ID the players long ago), the Cleveland Elites had 15 players, including their manager, Candy Jim Taylor, and the ABCs had 16 including, their manager Elwood (Bingo) DeMoss. I count 19 guys in uniform for the 1926 Cleveland Elites' spring training bus photo. So somewhere between the first photo and the opening day photo, 3 or 4 guys got thrown off the Bus. Be interesting to know who they were. Also very curious in the Cleveland Elites bus photo is the last man to the right (not in uniform). Is this man on his knees or simply exceptionally short? Maybe some day a better copy of the bus picture will clear that up too.

[John R]

Generally, Negro League teams would go to Spring Training with a bunch of players, sometimes as many as 30 or so. Of course, Negro League Spring Training was not the same as Major League Spring Training (kind of the difference between a working vacation and an actual vacation). The Teams would then whittle the roster down until the actual season started. During the actual season, the roster limit was usually about 15 (in the 1920s and 1930s). The economics involved are somewhat interesting. The teams generally paid room and board (food) but not salaries in the early going. For minimal cost, the Teams got to look over some prospects. In 1926, opening day for the Cleveland Elites was May 26. This photo was published in the Defender on May 29. The Defender had a lag time of about a week for their Sports News. In other words, the photo was probably taken in Mid-May (or earlier) while the Cleveland Elites were still sorting through their prospective players.

[Jay Caldwell]

Gary,

This is a wonderful bit of research.

I count 22 men in the picture. Assuming one was the bus driver, one the owner, one a traveling secretary and one Candy Jim, that leaves 18 players - a high number for a Negro Leagues team. Even with a rotation of 37 players, I wouldn’t expect 18 to be on the roster at one time. Any explanation?

[Bob Poet]

Wow! Big doin's in 1926!

[Kevin]

Another St. Louis connection - The Dorris Motor Car Company was in St.Louis.