Tag Archives: United States League

The New York Daily News

25 Monday Nov 2019

Posted by in Brown Dodgers

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

ran an excerpt from Oscar Charleston yesterday, in which I discuss Oscar’s role scouting for Branch Rickey and the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Presumably the article provided readers with a welcome interlude between stories about headless corpses and dogs driving cars.

By spring 1945 two years had passed as Branch Rickey, president and general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, deliberately searched, to no avail, for the first black man to sign for his team.

Part of the problem, he believed, was that it was hard for his white scouts to show up at Negro League games without arousing suspicion. It was even harder for them to get accurate inside knowledge about the character and background of any given player. Oscar Charleston and a new black baseball circuit called the United States League (USL) provided Rickey with a solution to this twofold dilemma.

More here . . .

Managing the Brown Dodgers

03 Sunday Jan 2016

Posted by in Brown Dodgers, Managing Career

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

As this check shows, Oscar Charleston was paid $500 per month to manage the Brooklyn Brown Dodgers of the short-lived United States League in 1945. Usually referred to as the brainchild of the Brooklyn Dodgers’ Branch Rickey, the league had another moving force in former Pittsburgh Crawfords owner Gus Greenlee, for whom Charleston played in the 1930s.

This check was sold at auction for more than $35,000 in 2010. See this Heritage Auction page for more info.

Charleston Brown Dodgers check