MIRROR INDY – Jeremy Beer is a longtime member of the Society for American Baseball Research. But even he was surprised when, 15 years ago, he stumbled across a name in a Top 100 Baseball Players list, curated by historian Bill James, that he didn’t recognize.
He knew the top three ranked players on the list: Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner and Willie Mays. The fourth, center fielder Oscar Charleston, is one of the best athletes to grow up in and play in Indianapolis. Beer set out to learn everything he could about Charleston’s professional baseball career, which started in 1915 with the Indianapolis ABCs, an independent team that later became part of the Negro National League.
In 2020, Beer, a native Hoosier, teamed up with fellow baseball historian Bob Kendrick to update Charleston’s headstone in Floral Park Cemetery on Indy’s west side. For decades, those who walked past Charleston’s grave would have no way of knowing the impact the man buried there had on baseball. All it said was “Oscar M. Charleston” and his ranking in the United States Army from his service in World War I.
Today, visitors to his grave will find an etching of the ball player as he appeared in the early 1930s while playing for the Homestead Grays in Pennsylvania.
Along with a brief bio and info about his 1976 Baseball Hall of Fame induction, the headstone includes a quote from Hall of Famer Honus Wagner: “I’ve seen all the great players in the many years I’ve been around and have yet to see anyone greater than Charleston.”
On May 29, Major League Baseball (MLB) announced it will incorporate Negro Leagues’ statistics into its historical records. That means Charleston – who never was allowed to play in the MLB – will finally be recognized in the league’s top 10 in batting average, slugging percentage, on-base percentage and on-base plus slugging. These metrics put him in the running as one of the best hitters in Major League history.
Though an Indianapolis park and an apartment complex have been named after him, his legacy has been overshadowed by “Indianapolis’ other Oscar” – Oscar Robertson.
Charleston’s baseball career began as a bat boy for the Indianapolis ABCs after he dropped out of school in the eighth grade. The seventh of 11 children, Charleston enlisted in the United States Army at 16, where he was stationed in the Philippines. There, in 1912, he played on the Twenty-Fourth Infantry Regiment’s team.
Charleston spent the next 43 years of his life on the field, starting as a center fielder for the ABCs and ending with his death in 1954 while managing the Indianapolis Clowns, a team in the Negro American League.
‘There’s injustice, but it’s much more than that.’
When Charleston joined the Indianapolis ABCs – formed by the American Brewing Company – in 1915 after leaving the Army, he quickly became a standout center fielder and impressed audiences with powerful at-bat appearances. He played off-and-on for the team for five years, leaving in 1924 to become a player-manager for the Grays. He retired from playing in 1941, and worked the rest of his career as a manager for various teams in the Negro Leagues.
Like many other players in the Negro Leagues, Charleston’s legacy is often unknown to anyone other than die-hard baseball fans. Beer said he hopes the headstone is a starting point for people to learn about the history of African Americans in baseball, and hopes they learn more than just statistics and records.
“There were so many interesting people,” Beer said. “It’s a cool story, it’s a sad story, there’s injustice, but it’s much more than that.”
The Indianapolis ABCs folded in 1926, six years after joining the Negro National League. The team had several notable players on their roster over the years.
Dick Redding joined the ABCs as a pitcher with Charleston in 1915 and was known for his fastball and brushback pitches – strikes which throw batters from the plate. Throughout his career, until 1932, Redding pitched roughly 30 no-hitters.
Crush Holloway debuted as an outfielder for the ABCs in 1921 and played with the team through 1923. A powerful switch hitter, Holloway perfected the drag bunt, a hit down the first baseline which helped him to outrun infielders for a base hit.
Despite their talents and success – the ABCs clinched back-to-back western championships in 1915 and 1916 – many of the players never received the accolades they were due.
The rules were different for Black players
Racism was heightened across the nation with the 1915 release of “Birth of a Nation,” a three-hour silent film celebrating the Ku Klux Klan and perpetuating the Lost Cause Myth. In Indiana, Klan control of the state legislature and the Indianapolis city government at the dawn of the 1920s posed significant threats and challenges to African American Hoosiers, including the men on the Indianapolis ABCs roster.
In 1916, the ABCs were playing at Federal League Park, a stadium built for the short-lived Federal League on the grounds of Greenlawn Cemetery. The state-of-the-art park was built of concrete and steel. After the Federal League folded in 1915, the stadium was left vacant, and the ABCs began using the field for home games that year.
Dr. Geri Strecker, a retired Ball State University professor and baseball historian, said there were some tensions about the city’s Black team having a better facility than the Indianapolis Indians, who at the time played at Washington Park across the street and had been playing in Indianapolis since 1902.
The field was demolished in 1917 to create a railroad freight terminal. The ABCs were relegated to playing at Washington Park, which was renamed for Charleston in 1998.
“They were only allowed to use Washington Park when conditions were favorable to the people who owned the park,” Strecker said. “They didn’t allow players to use the locker rooms, restrooms or sit in the seats. Federal Park was integrated as heck, but Washington Park wasn’t.
“A lot of the reasons people don’t know about the ABCs is because of what happened in Indianapolis in the ’20s. The Klan took away the ability for Black professional baseball to thrive,” Strecker said.
Conditions for Black ball players on the road weren’t any better. Teams often struggled to find lodging, dining and other accommodations that would serve African Americans. Often, players would sleep on the bus or in parks and eat a quick lunch on the field before games. It wasn’t easy, Strecker said, but they did it for the love of the game.
Indianapolis Clowns: From Bush Stadium to barnstorming
From 1944-1948, the Indianapolis Clowns played home games in Bush Stadium on the city’s west side. Notably, in 1952, the Clowns briefly had future Hall-of-Famer Hank Aaron on their roster, though he never played a game in Indianapolis.
In 1954, the Clowns, managed by Charleston, were barnstorming – traveling to different cities and incorporating theatrical acts into their games. Two women pitched for the team.
During that time period, Black baseball fans were flocking to Bush Stadium not to see the Clowns, but the Indianapolis Indians, who brought Black players Al Smith and Dave Pope to the city.
On October 5, 1954, Charleston died of a heart attack and stroke in Philadelphia at the age of 57. Shortly before his death, he told Pittsburgh Courier reporter Wendell Smith that, because of the barriers he faced, he was committed “to see[ing] that. Everyone who goes up compensates in some way for me.”
Beer, who now lives in Arizona, wants to see Charleston’s legacy enshrined in Indianapolis.
“Because of digitization, it’s easier to know someone like Oscar Charleston in 2024 than it was in 1954,” Beer said. “[Charleston’s] story is that of triumph, perseverance and courage. There should be a statue of Charleston where the Indians play, because he was as important to Indianapolis as Reggie Miller or Oscar Robertson.”
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