In 1904, the manager of the Chicago Unions and Leland's old teammate and business partner,
W. S. Peters, organized a competing Union Giants team. Leland publicly objected to Peters' use of the name and threatened to take the matter to the courts. Before the 1905 season however, Leland renamed his team the "Leland Giants". This allowed Peters to use the Union Giants name without opposition. In a 1910 article, former
shortstop Jimmy Smith described the 1905 season by saying the team "made a great record of 43 straight wins" between May 19 and July 16, 1905, when they were finally beat by the Spalding team on their home grounds in Chicago.
Bruce Petway took over catching duties in 1906 and the talent improved dramatically in 1907 as
Rube Foster (HOF),
Pete Hill (HOF),
"Big Bill" Gatewood,
"Mike" Moore and four other players came from East Coast teams. The 1907 team compiled a 110–10 record, including 48 straight wins. The Giants went 64–21 against semipro teams in 1908 and tied a cross-region match-up with the
Philadelphia Giants at three games apiece. The team was managed by Foster in 1909 and was just 8–10 against other top black teams. The team faced off against the
Chicago Cubs in a mid-October series.
Johnny Evers and
Frank Chance sat out. In game one the Cubs'
Three-Finger Brown beat
Walter Ball 4–1. The Leland Giants were leading 5–2 in the bottom of the ninth the next day as Foster faced
Ed Reulbach, but Rube allowed four runs in that frame to fall on a controversial final play at the plate. In game three, Brown beat
Charles Dougherty 1–0. The Leland Giants had lost two one-run decisions and another fairly close game against a team that had won 104 games in the
National League, showing they could compete with the top white teams in the country. In 1910, Foster and Leland split and Foster won the rights to the Leland Giants name; Leland's new team was called the
Chicago Giants. The Leland Giants went 11–0 against top black teams that year and said they went 123–6 overall. The club was the most talented to date, as
Home Run Johnson and
Pop Lloyd (HOF) joined to play the middle infield, Petway, Hill and Foster returned and
Frank Wickware joined the staff. After the season, the team traveled to Cuba for the winter, playing the island's top teams. Cuban teams signed Lloyd, Hill, Johnson and Petway to play with them against the touring
Detroit Tigers and
Philadelphia Athletics. Black players gained recognition in the Detroit series by outhitting
Ty Cobb and
Sam Crawford. In 1911, the club was renamed the
Chicago American Giants and moved to
Schorling's Park. Prior to 1911, the club had played in various small local venues, primarily the first "Schorling's Park", a.k.a. "Auburn Park", at 79th Street and Wentworth Avenue in the Auburn Park neighborhood of Chicago's south side.
Franchise continuum DateFormat = yyyy ImageSize = width:800 height:100 PlotArea = left:20 right:50 bottom:20 top:20 Colors = id:majorGridColor value:rgb(0.9,0.9,0.9) id:lineColor value:gray(0.6) id:nl1 value:gray(0.9) id:inactive value:gray(0.5) id:gold value:rgb(0.99,0.72,0.15) id:brown value:rgb(0.36,0.20,0.10) id:vegasgold value:rgb(0.80,0.72,0.49) id:green value:rgb(0, 0.51,0.28) id:darkgreen value:rgb(0, 0.20,0 ) id:orange value:rgb(1 ,0.39,0 ) id:redorange value:rgb(1 ,0.20,0 ) id:red value:rgb(0.80,0.01,0.07) id:red2 value:rgb(0.90,0.01,0.07) id:darkred value:rgb(0.50,0 ,0 ) id:iceblue value:rgb(0.20,0.60,0.80) id:lgray value:gray(0.1) id:gray value:gray(0.3) id:gray2 value:gray(0.5) id:sand value:rgb(0.94,0.89,0.77) id:navy value:rgb(0 ,0 ,0.30) id:teal value:rgb(0 ,0.65,0.65) id:teal2 value:rgb(0 ,0.45,0.45) Period = from:1887 till:1952 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal format:yyyy ScaleMajor = start:1887 increment:5 gridcolor:majorGridColor BarData = bar:UNI # Chicago Unions bar:AMG # Chicago American Giants bar:COL # Chicago Columbia Giants Define $Up = shift:(,1) Define $Left = anchor:from align:right shift:(-1,) Define $Right = anchor:till align:left shift:(2,) Define $Right2 = anchor:till align:right shift:(-25,) Define $Down = shift:(,-10) Define $UpLeft = anchor:from align:right shift:(-1,1) Define $UpLeft2 = anchor:from align:left shift:(-1,1) Define $UpRight2 = anchor:till align:right shift:(-1,1) Define $UpRight = anchor:till align:left shift:(2,1) Define $DownRight = anchor:till align:left shift:(2,-10) Define $DownLeft = anchor:from align:left shift:(2,-10) Define $UpUpRight = anchor:till align:left shift:(2,10) PlotData = color:inactive textcolor:black width:20 fontsize:S mark:(line,black) anchor:middle # other options are anchor:from anchor:till align:center # other options are align:left align:right shift:(0,-5) • Note on dates: A team's bar begins with the season that team played its first game, and ends with the season after that team played its last game. For example, the Cleveland Tate Stars played their first game in 1922 and played their last game in 1923. Therefore, their bar goes from 1922 to 1924. bar:UNI from:1887 till:1901 color:skyblue text:"Chicago Unions" $Right2 bar:UNI from:1910 till:1921 color:gold text:"Chicago Giants" $Right2 bar:AMG from:1901 till:1910 color:yellow text:"Chicago Union Giants / Leland Giants (I)" bar:COL from:1899 till:1901 color:skyblue text:"Chicago Columbia Giants" $Right2 bar:COL from:1910 till:1952 color:gold text:"Leland Giants (II) / Chicago American Giants" $Right2 ==References==