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How the Chatham Coloured All-Stars made history by defying race barriers in baseball

The Chatham All-Stars were the first all-Black team to win an Ontario baseball championship

More than a decade before Jackie Robinson became the first Black player to take the field in Major League Baseball, a ball team from a small city in Southwestern Ontario was breaking colour barriers. 

Ninety years ago, on May 17, 1934, the Chatham Coloured All-Stars opened their season at a packed Stirling Park – the community hub of Chatham's largely Black East End. 

Led by players like Wilfred "Boomer" Harding, Kingsley "King" Terrell, and the legendary Earl "Flat" Chase – both an intimidating pitcher and a fearsome slugger renowned for his tape-measure home runs – the Coloured All-Stars had built considerable buzz. 

"Everybody knew, in the neighborhood, all the men playing on the team…. And they played a really competitive, athletic, exciting kind of baseball," said Heidi Jacobs, author of 1934:The Chatham Coloured All-Stars' Barrier-Breaking Year.

Five months after their opener in October 1934, the Chatham Coloured All-Stars became the first all-Black team to win the Ontario Baseball Association championships, then known as the Ontario Baseball Amateur Association. 

Read the whole CBC article by clicking here.

Included image: Wilfred 'Boomer' Harding the first baseman on the Chatham Coloured All-Stars. He was a teenager when he joined the All-Stars, hailed for his superior skill and athleticism. Harding also broke barriers by becoming the first Black player in the International Hockey League, playing for the Windsor Staffords in 1946. (Image: Courtesy of University of Windsor, Archives and Special Collections)