Harjo's All-Indian Baseball Club

All-Indian Baseball in 1930s AmericaThe Spring 2009 issue of NINE: A Journal of Baseball and Culture has an article by Royse Parr on Ben Harjo's All-Indian Baseball Club (Project MUSE subscriber link).

A full-blood Creek, Harjo was born on October 8, 1898, in Indian Territory near the city of Holdenville, now within the state of Oklahoma.

According to the 1930 United States census, Harjo had ten laborers of Negro or Indian extraction who lived on the farm with his wife Susey and their five children.

Fortunately for Harjo and his baseball dreams, his full-blood Seminole Indian wife, Susey, was oil-rich from her land allotment in the Seminole oil fields.

The Harjo club's play on the field, especially when they won the prestigious Denver Post Little World Series in 1932, proved that they were skilled professional athletes.Comment:  For more on the subject, see More Indian Baseball Lore and Invisible History of Indian Baseball.