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They were arguably the greatest team in baseball history, one so good it might have been the best professional team in any sport ever.
The pitcher was the dominant player of his lifetime. The catcher hit the longest home runs of all time. The center fielder-manager was so good that rather than being compared to Ty Cobb, Cobb was compared to him. Two other Hall of Famers rounded out the lineup.
How good were they? They frequently didn't reach double-digit losses until June. They so devastated major leaguers on post-season barnstorming tours that even the incomparable Babe Ruth often refused to oppose them. They called Pittsburgh home, but were such a popular gate attraction they won games and fans in virtually every state in the union.
They had only one strike against them: they were black men playing a white man's game in the 1930s. That solitary strike was a life sentence because it barred many of the great black ballplayers from the major leagues forever.
Now, 60 years later, the 1933-36 Pittsburgh Crawfords must rely on colorblind historians and the fading memories of their dwindling fandom to keep their memories alive. They must hope that history doesn't forget that not only did they equal the 1927 Yankees and the 1970s Reds and 1940s-50s Yankees, they almost certainly were better.
"It was the best team that was ever put together in any country-the best team, Negro or white," a rather biased Satchel Paige wrote in his 1962 autobiography. "We played everywhere, in every ball park you could find, and we won like we invented the game."
They did, too. The Crawfords, who gave Pittsburgh's largely black Hill District a national identity and self-respect decades before...