Brian McKenna
09-06-2007, 06:15 PM
William Augustus (Gus) Greenlee was born on the day after Christmas, 1895 or perhaps 1896 in Marion, North Carolina. The 1910 and 1920 Censuses show that Samuel R. (born circa 1862), a brick and mason contractor, and Julia R. (circa 1868) Greenlee had seven children: Maude L. (circa 1894), William, Agnes Blanche (circa 1898), Laura J. (circa 1900), Samuel Francis (circa 1907), Marcus D. (circa 1910) and Charles E. (circa 1914).
Gus' mother Julia was born from a black mother and white father, a well-known area businessman. All Samuel and Julia's children are listed as mulatto. The Greenlee family lived on Bakersville Road amid a slew of extended family. Samuel and Julia encouraged their children to study and attend college.
Two of his brothers became doctors and another one a lawyer but after dropping out during his second year of college, Gus headed for Pittsburgh, settling in the Hill District in 1916. He worked in a steel mill, pushing a wheelbarrow for a construction company, as a fireman and driving for an undertaker. Soon thereafter, Greenlee bought his own taxi.
In October 1917 Greenlee joined the war effort, as a machine gunner for the 367th Infantry Regiment/153rd Depot Brigade, seeing combat at Verdun. He was subsequently injured, hit with shrapnel in the left leg, in St. Mihiel, France and discharged in March 1919.
Start of a Career
Returning to Pittsburgh in 1919, Greenlee began selling whiskey out of his taxi to speakeasies and other bootlegging activities. Prohibition made this profitable and soon he opened a nightclub called the Paramount Club on Wylie Avenue. It was closed down by police in 1922. He reopened the club with a partner in 1924. The new club highlighted entertainment, displaying their own orchestra. That club was closed down again after it became publicly known that white girls were “running wild” at the establishment. Greenlee opened again. This time he also operated a musical booking agency out of the club.
Greenlee also owned the Workingmen’s Pool Hall on Fullerton Street, the Sunset Café and the famous Crawford Grill at 1401 Wylie Avenue. The Grill, nearly a block long, became a Hill District, known as “Little Harlem,” hotspot. The third floor, known as Club Crawford, was a semi-private VIP section where the top Jazz performers of the day entertained. Over the years, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald, Stanley Turrentine, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Billy Eckstein, Lena Horne, Bill Robinson and Miles Davis performed for Greenlee’s audiences. The club became a hangout for both black and white entertainers and sportsmen. Steelers’ owner Andy Rooney was a friend of Greenlee’s and a frequent visitor at the Grill.
About 1926, Greenlee and partner William “Woogie” Harris started a numbers business that they got from Dick Gafney who had brought the racket to Pennsylvania from New York. Greenlee had another partner in the numbers business - Latrobe Brewery owner Joe Tito (white). They were “one of the pioneers of the numbers business in Western Pennsylvania.” Greenlee and Harris proved quite adept at their new trade, soon spreading their business far and wide. At their height the pair administered close to 100 individual clearing houses where bets were placed and money changed hands. It is estimated that as much as $20-25,000 was being made on a daily basis. Later, as his numbers racket died out, Greenlee operated nighttime dice games.
To protect himself, Greenlee allied with several Republican politicians. In fact, Greenlee ran the Third Ward Voters’ League. Black voters, en mass, supported Greenlee’s candidates. Indeed, Greenlee was a political force on the Hill.
The numbers business flourished during the 1920s and '30s. People would pick three numbers. The winners were defined by the final digits of that day's New York Stock Exchange volume index or some other measure. For as little as a penny, one could win between $5 and $6. However, Greenlee was not above manipulating the numbers into his favor. By 1933, Greenlee owned two hotels, several nightclubs and other enterprises including the Pittsburgh Crawford baseball club.
Despite this financial raping of his community, Greenlee was portrayed as a community benefactor. He was respected and admired for his charitable contributions and holiday giveaways to the Hill District. In fact, the clearing houses were the banks of the black community, since African Americans were typically shunned by white bankers. In essence, Greenlee was the Hill District's leading banker. He was named Businessman of the Year in 1948.
He was known to help some with rent, college costs, medical care, and with basic needs such as food and heating and operation of a soup line during the Depression. Greenlee also supported local hospitals and the NAACP and provided the start-up capital for many entrepreneurs. Greenlee was one of the leading employers of African Americans in the area, providing income for nearly 500 individuals.
Greenlee began showing an interest in sports, particularly baseball and later boxing. He became the manager and promoter for a stable of black boxers, including John Henry Lewis, whom he took over in May 1935 and would soon thereafter become Light Heavyweight champion with a defeat of Bob Olin on Halloween night 1935 in St. Louis.
Interest in Baseball
The Homestead Grays, taken over in 1912 (originally organized by a group of steelworkers in 1900) by Cum Posey, were the big black baseball attraction in Pittsburgh. In 1931, in fact, the Grays purportedly went 136-10, dominating all competition. In 1925 a group of neighborhood boys (one of which was Charles “Teenie” Harris, Woogie’s brother) from the McKelvey school formed what became known as the Crawford Colored Giants. The name came from their sponsor in a 1926 tournament - the Crawford Bath House, a municipal recreation center.
In 1930 at the behest of the club's players Greenlee purchased the semi-pro club (soon after Josh Gibson jumped the club to join Posey’s Grays). He put the players on salary and charged into the baseball arena. He coaxed the Atlantic City Bacharachs’ shortstop Bobby Williams to manage the Crawfords and recruit and build a winner. Pretty soon, Williams had also coaxed Lefty Streeter, Jimmie Crutchfield, Chester Williams, Pistol Russell and Satchel Paige to join the club.
By 1932, Greenlee had purchased a new Mack bus for the club and transformed their depth chart by raiding other clubs and adding Josh Gibson, Judy Johnson, Satchel Paige, Cool Papa Bell, William Bell, Rap Dixon, Ted Radcliffe and Oscar Charleston as player-manager.
Greenlee Field
In 1932 Greenlee purchased a plot of land from the Entress Brick Company and opened the first ballpark built for a black team, Greenlee Field. The concrete and steel structure would eventually sit about 7,500. It also displayed an attractive brick wall. The park was designed by an architect named Bellinger and cost an estimated $100,000, half of which was financed by Greenlee. The field was located in the Hill District at 2500 Bedford Avenue between Chauncy and Duff Streets, a few blocks up Bedford from Ammon Field. Greenlee added lights to the field in 1933 and even had a tarp which covered hot fans on sunny days.
The project had solid financial possibilities. First, Greenlee decided to charge only 20% of gross receipts when renting out the ballpark. The Barney Dreyfuss and the Pirates were charging black clubs 30% at Forbes Field. Secondly, the park was located at the heart of the black community. Greenlee estimated that 80% of his customer base wouldn’t have to pay cab fare or addition car fare to reach his park. Greenlee Field also had nice, new dressing rooms which stood in contrast to the ones at Forbes Field which were not open to the black players.
The park officially opened on April 29, 1932 with about 4,000 in attendance (some seating was still under construction). The Crawfords played the New York Black Yankees. Paige pitched for Pittsburgh while New York sent Jesse Hubbard to the mound. Paige struck out ten and allowed only six hits; however, Hubbard topped that, giving up only three hits. The Yankees won 1-0. The Crawfords drew a whopping 69,229 fans to Greenlee Park in 1932; however, the team lost an estimated $15,000 that year.
Living Large and Dying Quick in Black Baseball
The Crawfords joined the East-West League in 1932 but it collapsed by June due to financial losses. The league made the mistake of playing too many games. The weekday games were particularly a financial drain.
After the East-West League collapsed, Greenlee set about to establish a new league, one on solid financial footing. This would be no easy task during the Depression. He helped form and organize the National Negro Association, later called the Negro National League. The 6’2”, 230 lbs. Greenlee served as the league’s chairman, or president. He also helped form and organize the highly successful East-West All-Star Game which in time would become the showcase of black baseball.
Mindful of the Depression and failures of the East-West League, the NNL set a few cost-conscience guidelines. First, rosters would be limited to 16 up until June 1 and to 14 thereafter. Second, a salary cap was imposed at $1,600 monthly. The league also decided not to guarantee visiting clubs a minimum payoff. Seats would be priced between 25 and 35 cents.
During the early and mid 1930s the Pittsburgh Crawfords fielded perhaps the best clubs in Negro league history. In early 1937 eight of the Crawfords’ best were plucked by Dictator Rafael Trujillo to play in the Dominican Republic. With that, Greenlee found it difficult to make payroll and the team gradually collapsed.
With the Trujillo raids and the economy's further downturn the NNL suffered severe losses in 1937 and '38. Greenlee was also spending an increasing amount of time with his boxers. Owners, particularly Posey and the Manleys, became very disgruntled with Greenlee's leadership.
Greenlee took additional hits as well. In December 1938 Greenlee Field was demolished by the city, which only paid $38,000 for the property, for a housing project. Greenlee was also facing financial difficulties as competitors made their way into the Pittsburgh numbers business. Within a day of each other in January 1939 Greenlee's brother Marcus was killed in an auto accident and John Henry Lewis was knocked out in the first round after moving up in class to fight Joe Lewis. In June John Henry was stripped of his title and his career was over after it was discovered that he had partial bindness. With that combination Greenlee resigned as president of the NNL in February 1939 and disband the Crawfords in April.
Greenlee was looking to get back in baseball as soon as 1940. He made an open call for ballplayers and eventually established a semi-pro Crawford club. He made repeated efforts to gain admittance to the Negro National League and the Negro American League. Each time, in 1942 and '44, he was turned away. There were a few issues which soured the Negro leagues on Greenlee. The foremost was that he was particularly at odds with Cum Posey who was now wielding power in the leagues. Secondly, Greenlee's reign as NNL president was an autocratic one and many didn't want a repeat of the pushy, overbearing administration. Also, there was rampant speculation that Greenlee was involved in a game-fixing occurrance against the Brooklyn Bushwicks in 1936. Finally, Greenlee left the NNL on a sour note. He verbally attacked the other owners and he left behind numerour debts and bounced checks.
By 1944, Greenlee realized that the established leagues just wouldn't have him back so he took steps to upset their balance. First, he raided the Homestead Grays, Chicago American Giants and Baltimore Black Sox for players. The new Crawfords played independently in 1944. Greenlee also started stirring up the players, telling them that they were being treated unfairly. He got to the all-stars just prior to the East-West Classic. Negro league officials were furious when all the Eastern players demaded $200 for their participation.
In 1945 (first meeting on 12/27/1944) Greenlee started the United States League, headquartered out of his nightclub. Former player and Cleveland lawyer John Shackelford became the league's president. The league, which lasted into a second season, situated franchises in Pittsburgh, Brooklyn, Chicago, Boston, Detroit, Cleveland and Philadelphia. In May 1945 Branch Rickey threw his support behind the league in a very public manner - by calling a press conference. He offered Ebbets Field and all the 22 ballparks controlled by the Brooklyn Dodger organization to the USL. The Hilldale club was shifted to Brooklyn (and Ebbets), renamed the Brown Dodgers and managed by Oscar Charleston. Rickey would later tell Jackie Robinson that the (Brooklyn) Dodgers pumped $30,000 into the USL. The USL, lacking the country's top players, never approached the star quality of the other Negro leagues.
However, Rickey's motives were not altruistic. With his interest in the new league, Rickey could openly scout black players without drawing undue attention. He also set himself up to pluck players from the Negro leagues with remuneration. He justified this by claiming that the Negro leagues were merely a racket anyway.
Throughout his time in baseball, Greenlee faced legal difficulties. He was charged, later dismissed, in connection to election fraud in a race in the 3rd Ward in 1931. In December 1932 he was indicted, and not for the first time, in connection with his illegal lottery business. He was eventually sued by the government for failure to pay income taxes.
Greenlee had a heart attack in July 1946. Falling ill again, Greenlee spent six months in a VA hospital from 1960-51. Also in 1951 his nightclub burned down. Greenlee died after a stoke on July 7, 1952 at age 55. He is buried at Allegheny Cemetery in Pittsburgh in the same section (#50) as Josh Gibson.
Gus' mother Julia was born from a black mother and white father, a well-known area businessman. All Samuel and Julia's children are listed as mulatto. The Greenlee family lived on Bakersville Road amid a slew of extended family. Samuel and Julia encouraged their children to study and attend college.
Two of his brothers became doctors and another one a lawyer but after dropping out during his second year of college, Gus headed for Pittsburgh, settling in the Hill District in 1916. He worked in a steel mill, pushing a wheelbarrow for a construction company, as a fireman and driving for an undertaker. Soon thereafter, Greenlee bought his own taxi.
In October 1917 Greenlee joined the war effort, as a machine gunner for the 367th Infantry Regiment/153rd Depot Brigade, seeing combat at Verdun. He was subsequently injured, hit with shrapnel in the left leg, in St. Mihiel, France and discharged in March 1919.
Start of a Career
Returning to Pittsburgh in 1919, Greenlee began selling whiskey out of his taxi to speakeasies and other bootlegging activities. Prohibition made this profitable and soon he opened a nightclub called the Paramount Club on Wylie Avenue. It was closed down by police in 1922. He reopened the club with a partner in 1924. The new club highlighted entertainment, displaying their own orchestra. That club was closed down again after it became publicly known that white girls were “running wild” at the establishment. Greenlee opened again. This time he also operated a musical booking agency out of the club.
Greenlee also owned the Workingmen’s Pool Hall on Fullerton Street, the Sunset Café and the famous Crawford Grill at 1401 Wylie Avenue. The Grill, nearly a block long, became a Hill District, known as “Little Harlem,” hotspot. The third floor, known as Club Crawford, was a semi-private VIP section where the top Jazz performers of the day entertained. Over the years, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald, Stanley Turrentine, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Billy Eckstein, Lena Horne, Bill Robinson and Miles Davis performed for Greenlee’s audiences. The club became a hangout for both black and white entertainers and sportsmen. Steelers’ owner Andy Rooney was a friend of Greenlee’s and a frequent visitor at the Grill.
About 1926, Greenlee and partner William “Woogie” Harris started a numbers business that they got from Dick Gafney who had brought the racket to Pennsylvania from New York. Greenlee had another partner in the numbers business - Latrobe Brewery owner Joe Tito (white). They were “one of the pioneers of the numbers business in Western Pennsylvania.” Greenlee and Harris proved quite adept at their new trade, soon spreading their business far and wide. At their height the pair administered close to 100 individual clearing houses where bets were placed and money changed hands. It is estimated that as much as $20-25,000 was being made on a daily basis. Later, as his numbers racket died out, Greenlee operated nighttime dice games.
To protect himself, Greenlee allied with several Republican politicians. In fact, Greenlee ran the Third Ward Voters’ League. Black voters, en mass, supported Greenlee’s candidates. Indeed, Greenlee was a political force on the Hill.
The numbers business flourished during the 1920s and '30s. People would pick three numbers. The winners were defined by the final digits of that day's New York Stock Exchange volume index or some other measure. For as little as a penny, one could win between $5 and $6. However, Greenlee was not above manipulating the numbers into his favor. By 1933, Greenlee owned two hotels, several nightclubs and other enterprises including the Pittsburgh Crawford baseball club.
Despite this financial raping of his community, Greenlee was portrayed as a community benefactor. He was respected and admired for his charitable contributions and holiday giveaways to the Hill District. In fact, the clearing houses were the banks of the black community, since African Americans were typically shunned by white bankers. In essence, Greenlee was the Hill District's leading banker. He was named Businessman of the Year in 1948.
He was known to help some with rent, college costs, medical care, and with basic needs such as food and heating and operation of a soup line during the Depression. Greenlee also supported local hospitals and the NAACP and provided the start-up capital for many entrepreneurs. Greenlee was one of the leading employers of African Americans in the area, providing income for nearly 500 individuals.
Greenlee began showing an interest in sports, particularly baseball and later boxing. He became the manager and promoter for a stable of black boxers, including John Henry Lewis, whom he took over in May 1935 and would soon thereafter become Light Heavyweight champion with a defeat of Bob Olin on Halloween night 1935 in St. Louis.
Interest in Baseball
The Homestead Grays, taken over in 1912 (originally organized by a group of steelworkers in 1900) by Cum Posey, were the big black baseball attraction in Pittsburgh. In 1931, in fact, the Grays purportedly went 136-10, dominating all competition. In 1925 a group of neighborhood boys (one of which was Charles “Teenie” Harris, Woogie’s brother) from the McKelvey school formed what became known as the Crawford Colored Giants. The name came from their sponsor in a 1926 tournament - the Crawford Bath House, a municipal recreation center.
In 1930 at the behest of the club's players Greenlee purchased the semi-pro club (soon after Josh Gibson jumped the club to join Posey’s Grays). He put the players on salary and charged into the baseball arena. He coaxed the Atlantic City Bacharachs’ shortstop Bobby Williams to manage the Crawfords and recruit and build a winner. Pretty soon, Williams had also coaxed Lefty Streeter, Jimmie Crutchfield, Chester Williams, Pistol Russell and Satchel Paige to join the club.
By 1932, Greenlee had purchased a new Mack bus for the club and transformed their depth chart by raiding other clubs and adding Josh Gibson, Judy Johnson, Satchel Paige, Cool Papa Bell, William Bell, Rap Dixon, Ted Radcliffe and Oscar Charleston as player-manager.
Greenlee Field
In 1932 Greenlee purchased a plot of land from the Entress Brick Company and opened the first ballpark built for a black team, Greenlee Field. The concrete and steel structure would eventually sit about 7,500. It also displayed an attractive brick wall. The park was designed by an architect named Bellinger and cost an estimated $100,000, half of which was financed by Greenlee. The field was located in the Hill District at 2500 Bedford Avenue between Chauncy and Duff Streets, a few blocks up Bedford from Ammon Field. Greenlee added lights to the field in 1933 and even had a tarp which covered hot fans on sunny days.
The project had solid financial possibilities. First, Greenlee decided to charge only 20% of gross receipts when renting out the ballpark. The Barney Dreyfuss and the Pirates were charging black clubs 30% at Forbes Field. Secondly, the park was located at the heart of the black community. Greenlee estimated that 80% of his customer base wouldn’t have to pay cab fare or addition car fare to reach his park. Greenlee Field also had nice, new dressing rooms which stood in contrast to the ones at Forbes Field which were not open to the black players.
The park officially opened on April 29, 1932 with about 4,000 in attendance (some seating was still under construction). The Crawfords played the New York Black Yankees. Paige pitched for Pittsburgh while New York sent Jesse Hubbard to the mound. Paige struck out ten and allowed only six hits; however, Hubbard topped that, giving up only three hits. The Yankees won 1-0. The Crawfords drew a whopping 69,229 fans to Greenlee Park in 1932; however, the team lost an estimated $15,000 that year.
Living Large and Dying Quick in Black Baseball
The Crawfords joined the East-West League in 1932 but it collapsed by June due to financial losses. The league made the mistake of playing too many games. The weekday games were particularly a financial drain.
After the East-West League collapsed, Greenlee set about to establish a new league, one on solid financial footing. This would be no easy task during the Depression. He helped form and organize the National Negro Association, later called the Negro National League. The 6’2”, 230 lbs. Greenlee served as the league’s chairman, or president. He also helped form and organize the highly successful East-West All-Star Game which in time would become the showcase of black baseball.
Mindful of the Depression and failures of the East-West League, the NNL set a few cost-conscience guidelines. First, rosters would be limited to 16 up until June 1 and to 14 thereafter. Second, a salary cap was imposed at $1,600 monthly. The league also decided not to guarantee visiting clubs a minimum payoff. Seats would be priced between 25 and 35 cents.
During the early and mid 1930s the Pittsburgh Crawfords fielded perhaps the best clubs in Negro league history. In early 1937 eight of the Crawfords’ best were plucked by Dictator Rafael Trujillo to play in the Dominican Republic. With that, Greenlee found it difficult to make payroll and the team gradually collapsed.
With the Trujillo raids and the economy's further downturn the NNL suffered severe losses in 1937 and '38. Greenlee was also spending an increasing amount of time with his boxers. Owners, particularly Posey and the Manleys, became very disgruntled with Greenlee's leadership.
Greenlee took additional hits as well. In December 1938 Greenlee Field was demolished by the city, which only paid $38,000 for the property, for a housing project. Greenlee was also facing financial difficulties as competitors made their way into the Pittsburgh numbers business. Within a day of each other in January 1939 Greenlee's brother Marcus was killed in an auto accident and John Henry Lewis was knocked out in the first round after moving up in class to fight Joe Lewis. In June John Henry was stripped of his title and his career was over after it was discovered that he had partial bindness. With that combination Greenlee resigned as president of the NNL in February 1939 and disband the Crawfords in April.
Greenlee was looking to get back in baseball as soon as 1940. He made an open call for ballplayers and eventually established a semi-pro Crawford club. He made repeated efforts to gain admittance to the Negro National League and the Negro American League. Each time, in 1942 and '44, he was turned away. There were a few issues which soured the Negro leagues on Greenlee. The foremost was that he was particularly at odds with Cum Posey who was now wielding power in the leagues. Secondly, Greenlee's reign as NNL president was an autocratic one and many didn't want a repeat of the pushy, overbearing administration. Also, there was rampant speculation that Greenlee was involved in a game-fixing occurrance against the Brooklyn Bushwicks in 1936. Finally, Greenlee left the NNL on a sour note. He verbally attacked the other owners and he left behind numerour debts and bounced checks.
By 1944, Greenlee realized that the established leagues just wouldn't have him back so he took steps to upset their balance. First, he raided the Homestead Grays, Chicago American Giants and Baltimore Black Sox for players. The new Crawfords played independently in 1944. Greenlee also started stirring up the players, telling them that they were being treated unfairly. He got to the all-stars just prior to the East-West Classic. Negro league officials were furious when all the Eastern players demaded $200 for their participation.
In 1945 (first meeting on 12/27/1944) Greenlee started the United States League, headquartered out of his nightclub. Former player and Cleveland lawyer John Shackelford became the league's president. The league, which lasted into a second season, situated franchises in Pittsburgh, Brooklyn, Chicago, Boston, Detroit, Cleveland and Philadelphia. In May 1945 Branch Rickey threw his support behind the league in a very public manner - by calling a press conference. He offered Ebbets Field and all the 22 ballparks controlled by the Brooklyn Dodger organization to the USL. The Hilldale club was shifted to Brooklyn (and Ebbets), renamed the Brown Dodgers and managed by Oscar Charleston. Rickey would later tell Jackie Robinson that the (Brooklyn) Dodgers pumped $30,000 into the USL. The USL, lacking the country's top players, never approached the star quality of the other Negro leagues.
However, Rickey's motives were not altruistic. With his interest in the new league, Rickey could openly scout black players without drawing undue attention. He also set himself up to pluck players from the Negro leagues with remuneration. He justified this by claiming that the Negro leagues were merely a racket anyway.
Throughout his time in baseball, Greenlee faced legal difficulties. He was charged, later dismissed, in connection to election fraud in a race in the 3rd Ward in 1931. In December 1932 he was indicted, and not for the first time, in connection with his illegal lottery business. He was eventually sued by the government for failure to pay income taxes.
Greenlee had a heart attack in July 1946. Falling ill again, Greenlee spent six months in a VA hospital from 1960-51. Also in 1951 his nightclub burned down. Greenlee died after a stoke on July 7, 1952 at age 55. He is buried at Allegheny Cemetery in Pittsburgh in the same section (#50) as Josh Gibson.