Chicago Unions


The Chicago Unions were a professional, black baseball team that played in the late 19th century, prior to the formation of the Negro leagues.

Founding

Organized as the Unions in 1887, the club was led by Abe Jones and by W.S. Peters. In 1899 they lost a series for the western championship to the Columbia Giants, also based in Chicago.
The Unions, along with the Cuban Giants, are the only Negro teams to survive the political and economic crisis that eventually lead to the Panic of 1893. Every other significant Negro team which operated prior to the Panic ultimately ceased to exist.

Merge

During and 1902, Frank Leland created the Chicago Union Giants by hiring many players from the Chicago Unions and Columbia Giants. The Union Giants "were recognized as the top team in the West, but lost a challenge playoff to the Algona Brownies in 1903 for the western championship". The Union Giants were renamed Leland Giants in.

Franchise continuum


DateFormat = yyyy
ImageSize = width:800 height:100
PlotArea = left:20 right:50 bottom:20 top:20
Colors =
id:majorGridColor value:rgb
id:lineColor value:gray
id:nl1 value:gray
id:inactive value:gray
id:gold value:rgb
id:brown value:rgb
id:vegasgold value:rgb
id:green value:rgb
id:darkgreen value:rgb
id:orange value:rgb
id:redorange value:rgb
id:red value:rgb
id:red2 value:rgb
id:darkred value:rgb
id:iceblue value:rgb
id:lgray value:gray
id:gray value:gray
id:gray2 value:gray
id:sand value:rgb
id:navy value:rgb
id:teal value:rgb
id:teal2 value:rgb
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:
Define $Left = anchor:from align:right shift:
Define $Right = anchor:till align:left shift:
Define $Right2 = anchor:till align:right shift:
Define $Down = shift:
Define $UpLeft = anchor:from align:right shift:
Define $UpLeft2 = anchor:from align:left shift:
Define $UpRight2 = anchor:till align:right shift:
Define $UpRight = anchor:till align:left shift:
Define $DownRight = anchor:till align:left shift:
Define $DownLeft = anchor:from align:left shift:
Define $UpUpRight = anchor:till align:left shift:
PlotData =
color:inactive
textcolor:black
width:20
fontsize:S
mark:
anchor:middle # other options are anchor:from anchor:till
align:center # other options are align:left align:right
shift:
  1. 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 "
bar:COL from:1899 till:1901 color:skyblue text:"Chicago Columbia Giants" $Right2
bar:COL from:1910 till:1952 color:gold text:"Leland Giants / Chicago American Giants" $Right2

The Chicago Unions and the Chicago Columbia Giants merged for the 1901 season creating the Chicago Union Giants, who later changed their name to the Leland Giants. The Leland Giants then split into two teams for the 1910 season creating the Chicago Giants and the new Leland Giants, who later changed their name to the Chicago American Giants.