Baseball shoes worn by Jimmie Crutchfield

At five foot seven Jimmie Crutchfield may not have been as tall as teammates James “Cool Papa” Bell or Josh Gibson, but the man Bell called “the best team player in baseball” made a huge impact on the baseball diamond. A speedster, defensive wizard and four-time All-Star, Crutchfield starred for several Negro League clubs during the 1930s and 1940s, most notably the Pittsburgh Crawfords, considered by many to be black baseball’s greatest team.

Crutchfield wore these shoes in the early 1940s, a period when he manned the outfield for the Chicago Americans, and briefly, the Cleveland Buckeyes. During this period, he also served in the Second World War, attaining the rank of staff Sergeant in the US Army. He retired from baseball in the mid-1940s, remaining in Chicago to become a postal worker and banker. Crutchfield passed away in 1993, with his originally unmarked grave being given a formal tombstone by members of the Society for American Baseball Research in 2003.

The Negro Leagues developed in response to Major League Baseball’s exclusion of African Americans, a practice held from the late 19th century until 1947, when former Negro Leaguer Jackie Robinson took first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers opening day. While independent teams comprised of black players had competed since baseball’s origins, the organized Negro Leagues primarily existed from 1920 and lasted until 1955. Today, Major League Baseball includes statistics from the seven main Negro Leagues in their official records.