| Hilldale Athletic Club | |||||
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| Location | Darby, Pennsylvania | ||||
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| Established | 1910 | ||||
| Disbanded | 1932 | ||||
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| Negro World Series championships | 1925 | ||||
| League titles |
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TheHilldale Athletic Club (informally known as Darby Daisies) were an American professionalNegro leaguebaseball team based inDarby, Pennsylvania, west ofPhiladelphia.
Established as a boys team in 1910, the Hilldales were developed by their early manager, then ownerEd Bolden to be one of the powerhouse Negro league baseball teams. They won the first threeEastern Colored League pennants beginning in 1923 and in 1925 won thesecond Colored World Series.Hall of Fame playerJudy Johnson was a Hilldale regular for most its professional era with 12 seasons in 15 years (1918–1932).PitcherPhil Cockrell played for Hilldale throughout those years.Oscar Charleston,Biz Mackey,Louis Santop,Chaney White, andJesse "Nip" Winters were also important Hilldale players in the 1920s.
Ed Bolden founded the team in 1910 as an amateur athletic club for local young men. Devere Thompson was the first manager but Bolden took over as manager himself before the end of the first season.[1] The club incorporated November 1916, as Hilldale Baseball and Exhibition Company, and began to hire some established players.[2]Spot Poles andBill Pettus led the 1917 team to a 23-15-1 record.[3]
Hilldale and theAtlantic City Bacharach Giants played as eastern "Associates" of the westernNegro National League in 1920 and 1921. In the latter season they held a four game series in September with the winner to face the NNL championChicago American Giants. After both teams won two games, the American Giants traveled east to play one series each. Chicago defeated the Bacharach Giants 2-1-1 but Hilldale beat Chicago 3-2-1.[4]
Hilldale was a charter member of the Eastern Colored League in 1923 and won the first-place pennants in 1923, 1924, and 1925.
They lost the inaugural,1924 Colored World Series to theKansas City Monarchs five games to four (with one tie). Next season they won a rematch with the Monarchs five games to one. The 1925 club featured star catcher and cleanup hitterBiz Mackey, third basemanJudy Johnson, and outfielderClint Thomas. Player-managerFrank Warfield's pitching staff was led by left-handed aceNip Winters and spitballerPhil Cockrell. Hilldale dropped to third in 1926 and fifth in 1927.[1]
Frustrated by the league's lack of organization, Bolden withdrew his club from the ECL prior to the 1928 season. When theAmerican Negro League was organized in 1929, Hilldale joined, but the league lasted only one season. Bolden was subsequently forced out of club management, and Hilldale corporation member Lloyd Thompson assumed control of the club in 1930. He had been the a 14-year-old infielder on the original boys team twenty years earlier, when his older brother had been the manager.[5]After a single season, the team was purchased byJohn Drew, who ran the club until its final collapse in 1932.[6]
During theGreat Depression,Blackurban unemployment hit as high as 50%. This negatively impacted attendance in the Negro leagues in the 1930s. Drew disbanded the ballclub in July 1932 after the combined attendance of two subsequent Saturday afternoon games atHilldale Park totaled 295.[6]
TheNegro National League was formed in 1920. An official League business-card from that year lists the club as one of two "Associated Members" and identifies the club as "Hilldale, Darby, Pa." Unlike other teams listed with both location and team-name, no nickname is identified with Hilldale.[7] (Hilldale was the club name, Darby the locale.)
While various nicknames were informally applied to the club, including "Darby Daisies" and "Clan Darbie", the team was most commonly known simply as Hilldale or the Hilldales.
Hilldale did not have an official team logo as professional and collegiate teams have today. It was not common practice for teams to have such standardized team symbols in the 1910s and 1920s. They wore red and white. Their jerseys in the 1920s had "Hilldale" across the front in the style shown above as the "team logo". The club wore a red cap with a white plain-block capital H as seen above.[8]
TheNegro Leagues Baseball Museum (NLBM) created a series of team logos in the 1990s for the well-known Negro league teams so that the NLBM could license such logos and collect royalties for their use on merchandise. Such revenue helps sustain the museum. Hilldale was one such team for which a contemporary logo was created. It is seen on NLBM-licensed Hilldale Giants merchandise and while it supports the educational efforts of the museum, it is not a historical logo.[9]
Eastern Colored League Pennants
Colored World Series Championships
These Hall of Fame players were Hilldale team members during the listed seasons. Santop also played post-season with the team in 1917 and 1919, as Charleston did in 1926.[10]
| Hilldale Club Hall of Famers | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Inductee | Position | Tenure | Inducted |
| Oscar Charleston | CF | 1928–1929 (captain) | 1976 |
| Martin Dihigo | P/2B | 1929–1931 | 1977 |
| Pop Lloyd | SS | 1923 (captain) | 1977 |
| Judy Johnson | 3B | 1921–1929 1931–1932 (captain) | 1975 |
| Biz Mackey | C | 1923–1931 | 2006 |
| Louis Santop | C | 1918, 1920–1926 | 2006 |
No-hitters
On October 14, 2006, a Pennsylvania Historical marker was dedicated at the site of Hilldale's ballpark at McDade Boulevard and Cedar Streets inYeadon. The ceremony was attended byPhiladelphia Phillies hitting coachMilt Thompson, former Phillies playerGarry Maddox, and Gene Dias, Phillies director of community relations. Also attending were the four living members of the Negro leaguePhiladelphia Stars, Bill Cash, Mahlon Duckett, Stanley Glenn, and Harold Gould, along with Ray Mackey, great grandnephew of former Hilldale and Stars playerBiz Mackey.[11]
The marker is titled, "The Hilldale Athletic Club (The Darby Daisies)" and the text reads,
This baseball team, whose home was here at Hilldale Park, won the Eastern Colored League championship three times and the 1925 Negro League World Series. Darby fielded Negro League teams from 1910 to 1932. Notable players included baseball hall of fame members Pop Lloyd, Judy Johnson, Martin Dihigo, Joe Williams, Oscar Charleston, Ben Taylor, Biz Mackey, and Louis Santop. Owner Ed Bolden helped form the Eastern Colored League.[12]
The year 2010 marked the centenary of the club's founding. The Darby Historical Commission constructed a Walk of Fame alongside the site of the Historical Marker. The Walk of Fame honors former-Hilldale owners Bolden and Drew, as well as team batboy and contemporary area-resident Ed Bacon.[13]
TheAfrican American Museum in Philadelphia maintains the "William Cash/Lloyd Thompson Collection" ofPhiladelphia Stars and Hilldale scorebooks, photographs, and correspondence.[14]
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