Industrial League

The Industrial League is a general term for several semi-professional baseball leagues pitting company-sponsored teams made up of employees against each other. Industrial League baseball was an extremely popular past-time in the Birmingham District and is credited with serving as a seed-bed for numerous professional ball-players.

During enforced segregation, separate leagues were organized for Black and white ballplayers. In the context of the Birmingham Amateur Baseball Federation, which sent its champions to play in regional and national tournaments, the term "industrial league" often was used to refer to the Black organizations, which only played for a local championship.

In the heyday of amateur baseball, industrial league games attracted as many or more fans than the professional Birmingham Barons and Birmingham Black Barons, with reports of more than 10,000 spectators for the biggest games between ACIPCO and Stockham Valve at Sloss Field, and an observation by Frank McGowan of The Birmingham News that crowds of 3,000 to 5,000 were fairly common in 1940.

Several of the best players from ACIPCO's team formed the nucleus of Frank Perdue's 1919 Birmingham All-Stars, which continued to play in the Negro Southern League as the Birmingham Black Barons.

1907

In 1907 the Birmingham YMCA organized a four-team amateur baseball league, with each team named for a commercial sponsor:

• Prowell Hardware Co.
• Cotton, Odum & Bowers
• Massey Business College
• Birmingham Railway, Light & Power Co.

1926

In 1926 there was an Industrial League and a City League, each organized into three divisions:

Industrial League

Eastern Division Boyles Continental Gin Chalkville New Castle Pinson Center

Central Division NCIP Co. East Lake L & N Irondale Pan-American Gulf States

Western Division Brookside Mineral Springs Bessie Mines Shades Mountain

City League

Central Division Southern Bell Sloss Acipco Senior Fairfield Avondale Park Thomas

Eastern Division Wahouma North Birmingham Avondale Mills Central Park

Western Division Industrial School Unit Stove Acipco Junior Fire Department Welded Products

1936

By 1936 there were more than 150 company-sponsored teams in more than a dozen leagues across five divisions playing under the umbrella of the Birmingham Amateur Baseball Federation. The Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad Company sponsored two of those leagues and eleven teams.

Notable industrial league players

• Ivy Andrews
• Dan Bankhead
• Sam Byrd
• Ben Chapman
• Willie "Cat" Mays
• Willie Mays
• Nat Pollard
• Harry Salmon
• Joe Sewell
• Mule Suttles
• Dixie Walker
• Artie Wilson

References

• Brasher, Jusin (2006) "The New South and the Sandlot: Company-Sponsored Baseball in Birmingham, AL." The Vulcan Historical Review, Vol. 10, pp. 20–32