*This date in 1920 celebrates the founding of the Kansas City Monarchs baseball organization. The Monarchs played out of Kansas City, Missouri, and were the longest-running franchise in Negro League history.
Winners of more than a dozen league championships, the Monarch name became the Negro League's answer to the New York Yankees. They won their first Colored World Series title in 1924, defeating the Hilldale Giants from Philadelphia in a thrilling ten-game series. They were also charter members of the Negro National League in 1920. Some of Black baseball's best players wore the Monarch uniform: Cool Papa Bell, Turkey Stearnes, Newt Allen, Jesse Williams, Bonnie Serrell, Wilber Rogan, and a fellow they called Skip, Buck O'Neil.
The Monarchs sent the most players into Major League Baseball after the color barrier was broken. Some players from this elite group were Jackie Robinson, Satchel Paige, Ernie Banks, Elston Howard, Hank Thompson, and Willard "Home Run" Brown. They were one of over 30 communities located primarily in the Midwest, northeast, and south and were home to these franchises organized into six different leagues. The Monarchs were Black baseball's glamour franchise. Wilkinson sold the franchise after the 1948 season to Tom Baird. The Monarchs operated through the 1950s; the league was strictly a minor league operation by then.
