Relatives of Black players on Ontario baseball team that broke barriers taking to the field in their honour

Thirteen years before Jackie Robinson broke the colour barrier in the MLB, the Chatham Coloured All-Stars became the first baseball team with Black players to compete in a championship in Ontario.

The team playedthePenetang Shipbuilders in theProvincial Ontario Baseball Amateur Association championship in 1934 in itssecond year in the league.

The All-Starswon the game, ina historic victorythat reverberated far off the field as well.

The All-Stars' legacy is being commemoratedSaturdaywith a charity baseball gamein Chatham-Kent in southwestern Ontario at Fergie Jenkins Field, named after the Chatham-born all-star MLB pitcherwho retired in 1983, and became the first Canadian inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.

Blake Harding is among teammembers' descendants who will take to the field in an eventcalled Field of Honour, part of continued efforts to get the team into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in St. Marys, Ont.

Harding, 73, wasn'tborn when his father, Wilfred (Boomer)Harding, was the centre-fielder and one of the team's stars, but hegrew up hearing the stories, including about the challenges the players faced because of thecolour of their skin.

"He would talk about the things that they ran into, the adversity and the problems, but yet the camaraderie they shared on the field and off their field," said Harding, who also had a fewuncles on the team.

When the players went toPenetanguishene for the Ontario championship game, they couldn't find a place to stay. They had to drive some 100 kilometres, almost toMeaford, Ont., where they found some cabins.

The owner allowed the teamto stay, but told them they had to be gone before daylight.

"This was '34, and it sounds like a long time ago, but that was right here, southern Ontario, southwestern Ontario," Harding said. "And they played through it."

'Fight their way out of town'

It was fairly common that the team had to "fight their way out of town" if they won. If they lost, they were ridiculed out of town, Harding said.

He recalled hearing about onegame in West Lorne, Ont.,wherefive- and six-year-oldsthrew stones, spit, swore and hurled the N-word at the team after they left the field all encouraged by their parents.

"They didn't have to play the game, but they loved the game," Hardingsaid. "This is what I took from it."

Some of the All-Starscould have played in the majors, said Harding.

Brock Greenhalgh,organizerof the game on Saturday, and who'swritten a children's book about the team,isalso among thosepushing for the team to be inducted.

The All-Starsstory resonates to this day, Greenhalgh said in an interview onCBC Radio's Afternoon Drive overthe summer.

"You have a group of individuals, all they want to do is play baseball, and the sort of bigotry, and racism and obstacles that they had to overcome were amazing."

For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community check out Being Black in Canada, a CBC project Black Canadians can be proud of. You can read more stories here.