The all-Black baseball team from Chatham that broke barriers in a white-dominated sport has been honoured in the very field where they played back in the 1930s.
A plaque was unveiled at Stirling Park in Chatham on Tuesday, commemorating the 1934 Chatham Coloured All-Stars, the first all-Black team to win an Ontario Baseball Amateur Association championship. The team has also been inducted into both the Ontario Baseball Hall of Fame and Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame.
“Those guys opened a lot of doors that are still open and the recognition comes at a time, in our present-day history, when that story needs to be told,” said Blake Harding, the son of Chatham Coloured All-Stars player Boomer Harding, during the plaque unveiling.
Harding added that the 1934 team continues to provide inspiration to young baseball players in Chatham-Kent and beyond.
“These guys played for passion and that’s what’s important. It’s not about dollars,” said Harding. “It means you can do anything you set your heart to, but you’re going to have to be better and try harder, and you’re going to have to do it with class and dignity.”
Dorothy Wallace, the board president of the Chatham-Kent Black Historical Society, also spoke at the unveiling and said it is an honour to share the municipality’s heroes with the rest of the world.
Also recognized on the plaque is Archie Stirling, the park’s namesake. Stirling served as the mayor of Chatham and was instrumental in helping the Chatham Coloured All-Stars join the city league. He is also credited with helping to create Chatham’s first minor baseball league.
This plaque at Stirling Park was paid for by families of the Chatham Coloured All-Stars, as well as the municipality and the Hydro One Community Grant Program. It is the first of several historic plaques to be erected around the municipality over the next several years honoring different pieces of the community’s history.
