The Columbia Giants were a professional, black

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

team based in Chicago at the turn of the 20th century, prior to the

Negro leagues The Negro leagues were United States professional baseball leagues comprising teams of African Americans and, to a lesser extent, Latin Americans. The term may be used broadly to include professional black teams outside the leagues and it may be ...

Founding

In 1899, a group known as the Columbia Club, organized the Columbia Giants under the direction of John W. Patterson. Many of the original players including Patterson came from the recently disbanded

Page Fence Giants The Page Fence Giants were a professional Black-American baseball team based in Adrian, Michigan, from 1895 to 1898, performing as one of the nation's top teams in the Negro leagues. Named after the Page Woven Wire Fence Company in Adrian, they ...

. Patterson also signed

Chicago Unions The Chicago Unions were a professional, black baseball team that played in the late 19th century, prior to the formation of the Negro leagues. Founding Organized as the Unions in 1887, the club was led by Abe Jones (1887–1889) and by W.S. ...

pitcher

Harry Buckner Harry Edward "Green River" Buckner (October 22, 1876 – March 26, 1938), also nicknamed "Buck" and "Goat Head", was an American Negro league pitcher and outfielder in the between 1896 and 1918. Biography A native of Hopkinsville, Kentucky, Buckne ...

1899 season

In 1899, managed by Al Garrett, they beat the Chicago Unions for the western championship, winning game one 4–2 and game two 6–0. Stars included (Grant)

Home Run Johnson Grant U. "Home Run" Johnson (September 23, 1872 – September 4, 1963) was an American shortstop and second baseman in baseball's Negro leagues. In a career that spanned over 30 years, he played for many of the greatest teams of the deadball era ...

at shortstop,

Charlie Grant Charles Grant Jr. (August 31, 1874 – July 9, 1932) was an American second baseman in Negro league baseball. During his 20-year career, he played for some of the best teams in the Negro leagues. Grant nearly crossed the baseball color lin ...

at secondbase, and (George) Chappie Johnson at firstbase and catcher. They lost a cross-country title match with the Cuban X-Giants by a 7–4 score. Home Run Johnson homered in two of the three major matches.

1900 season

At the beginning of the season, in May, the team included George Wilson,

Sol White King Solomon "Sol" White (June 12, 1868 – August 26, 1955) was an American professional baseball infielder, manager and executive, and one of the pioneers of the Negro leagues. An active sportswriter for many years, he wrote the first definit ...

, Joseph "Cannon Ball" Miller, William Binga, Chappie Johnson, Peter Burns, Sherman Barton,

, and

Billy Holland Billy Holland (born 3 August 1985) is an Irish former rugby union player, who spent his entire career playing for his native province of Munster Rugby, Munster, whilst also earning a single international cap for Ireland national rugby union te ...

, with John W. Patterson managing."Colored Champions" Muskegon Daily Chronicle, Muskegon, MI, Tuesday, May 15, 1900, Page 7, Columns 3 and 4
/ref> Patterson's office that year is listed as 3030 State Street in Chicago, Illinois."The Columbia Giants of Chicago" Indianapolis Freeman, Indianapolis, IN, Saturday, March 24, 1900, Page 7, Column 1
/ref> In 1900 no championship was played and the Unions and Columbia Giants both claimed to be number one.

went to the Union Giants but was replaced by future Hall-of-Famer

. Pitcher

also joined the team that year.

Merge

In 1901,

Frank Leland Frank C. Leland (1869 – November 14, 1914) was an American baseball player, field manager and club owner in the Negro leagues. Early life and career beginnings Leland was born in Memphis, Tennessee. He attended Fisk University in Nashville, ...

combined his

with the Giants and renamed the team the Chicago Union Giants, which was renamed to the

Leland Giants The Leland Giants, originally the Chicago Union Giants, were a Negro league baseball team that competed independently during the first decade of the 20th century. The team was formed via a merge of the Chicago Unions and the Chicago Columbia Gia ...

in 1905.

Franchise continuum

DateFormat = yyyy ImageSize = width:800 height:100 PlotArea = left:20 right:50 bottom:20 top:20 Colors = id:majorGridColor value:rgb(0.9,0.9,0.9) id:lineColor value:gray(0.6) id:nl1 value:gray(0.9) id:inactive value:gray(0.5) id:gold value:rgb(0.99,0.72,0.15) id:brown value:rgb(0.36,0.20,0.10) id:vegasgold value:rgb(0.80,0.72,0.49) id:green value:rgb(0, 0.51,0.28) id:darkgreen value:rgb(0, 0.20,0 ) id:orange value:rgb(1 ,0.39,0 ) id:redorange value:rgb(1 ,0.20,0 ) id:red value:rgb(0.80,0.01,0.07) id:red2 value:rgb(0.90,0.01,0.07) id:darkred value:rgb(0.50,0 ,0 ) id:iceblue value:rgb(0.20,0.60,0.80) id:lgray value:gray(0.1) id:gray value:gray(0.3) id:gray2 value:gray(0.5) id:sand value:rgb(0.94,0.89,0.77) id:navy value:rgb(0 ,0 ,0.30) id:teal value:rgb(0 ,0.65,0.65) id:teal2 value:rgb(0 ,0.45,0.45) Period = from:1887 till:1952 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal format:yyyy ScaleMajor = start:1887 increment:5 gridcolor:majorGridColor BarData = bar:UNI # Chicago Unions bar:AMG # Chicago American Giants bar:COL # Chicago Columbia Giants Define $Up = shift:(,1) Define $Left = anchor:from align:right shift:(-1,) Define $Right = anchor:till align:left shift:(2,) Define $Right2 = anchor:till align:right shift:(-25,) Define $Down = shift:(,-10) Define $UpLeft = anchor:from align:right shift:(-1,1) Define $UpLeft2 = anchor:from align:left shift:(-1,1) Define $UpRight2 = anchor:till align:right shift:(-1,1) Define $UpRight = anchor:till align:left shift:(2,1) Define $DownRight = anchor:till align:left shift:(2,-10) Define $DownLeft = anchor:from align:left shift:(2,-10) Define $UpUpRight = anchor:till align:left shift:(2,10) PlotData = color:inactive textcolor:black width:20 fontsize:S mark:(line,black) anchor:middle # other options are anchor:from anchor:till align:center # other options are align:left align:right shift:(0,-5) # Note on dates: A team's bar begins with the season that team played its first game, and ends with the season after that team played its last game. For example, the Cleveland Tate Stars played their first game in 1922 and played their last game in 1923. Therefore, their bar goes from 1922 to 1924. bar:UNI from:1887 till:1901 color:skyblue text:"Chicago Unions" $Right2 bar:UNI from:1910 till:1921 color:gold text:"Chicago Giants" $Right2 bar:AMG from:1901 till:1910 color:yellow text:"Chicago Union Giants / Leland Giants (I)" bar:COL from:1899 till:1901 color:skyblue text:"Chicago Columbia Giants" $Right2 bar:COL from:1910 till:1952 color:gold text:"Leland Giants (II) / Chicago American Giants" $Right2

References

*This article includes information from th
article of the same name
in the Baseball Reference Bullpen, accessed November 30, 2006. It is available under the GNU Free Documentation License. * * {{Negro League teams, Independent Negro league baseball teams Columbia giants Defunct baseball teams in Illinois Baseball teams disestablished in 1900 Baseball teams established in 1899