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Black History Month: Homestead mayor hopes to rename High-Level Bridge after Grays
Wednesday, February 21, 2001 By Jim Hosek, Tri-State Sports & News Service
Homestead Mayor Betty Esper has been quietly getting support for renaming the Homestead High-Level Bridge in honor of the Homestead Grays, the dominant team of the Negro National League in the 1930s and 1940s.
Esper said the team, formed 101 years ago by Homestead steel workers, deserves more recognition than the Pennsylvania Historic and Museum Commission historic marker that was dedicated last September at Amity Street and Fifth Avenue.
"Everyone's heard of the Homestead Grays. But I still don't believe the team has ever gotten the recognition it deserves. The team was responsible for bringing black baseball to prominence," the mayor said.
The Grays played and practiced at a number of fields throughout the area including Homestead. But in its days of prominence, Forbes Field was the team's home.
There is no special community endearment to the name of the Homestead High-Level Bridge, Esper said. "It doesn't really mean anything special."
Esper said naming the bridge for the Grays would make it special. She envisions picture banners of a number of Grays draped along the length of the bridge.
Esper said a bridge renovation is expected by 2003, so that might be the appropriate time to change the name.
She said she has a number of supporters who also want Allegheny County to rename the bridge including Augie Carlino, president of the Steel Industry Heritage Corp.; the Roberto Clemente Foundation; Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation; County Chief Executive Jim Roddey; county Councilman Richard Olasz; Homestead Grays' aficionados; and some members of the black media.
"There's a very great possibility the bridge will be renamed for the Grays. I think it will happen," she said.
Although the mayor said she couldn't recall a lot of details about the team, she remembered it was very dominant, and she knew the late borough resident Cumberland Posey, a team captain who got the team to go professional.
The Homestead Grays won the first and last Negro World Series in 1943 and 1948, respectively. The team also won 12 Negro National League pennants including nine in a row from 1937 to 1945.
The Negro National League and the Negro American League fell by the wayside when the color barrier was dissolved by major league baseball.
A number of Homestead Grays have been inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame including Josh Gibson Sr., Smokey Joe Williams, Buck Leonard and Oscar Charleston.
"Such a team deserves more than a historic marker," Esper said.
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