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The Newark Experience

The Newark Indians

Image result for "newark indians" baseball 1913 champion

Newark Eagles

Riverfront Stadium

Former home of the Newark Bears minor league baseball team (1999-2013).

Prudential Center

Prudential Center Arena
Home to the New Jersey Devils National Hockey League team.

Sports in Newark

Maxwell, Sherman Leander (Jocko) 1907-2008
Donna L. Halper IN The Biographical Encyclopedia of American Radio New York, Routledge, 2011, pp.258-259.
Jocko Maxwell may have been the first African American radio sportcaster and was the first African American radio station sports director. Rutgers-restricted Access
Jocko Maxwell
Donna L. Halper. Society for American Baseball Research.
Remembering Jocko Maxwell
Coley Harvey podcast.

Baseball

Newark: A Timeline of Our Baseball History
Baseball in Newark.
Robert Cvornyek. Charleston, S.C., Arcadia Pub., 2003.
Photographic history of baseball in Newark from the 19th century to 2003. Available?
From Sandlot to Stadium: Two Centuries of Newark Baseball
John Zinn and Laura Troiano, presenters. Program sponsored by the Newark History Society and the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, April 20, 2019.
Wiedenmayer's Park (Newark, NJ) Bill Lamb. Society for American Baseball Research, 2020.
History of Wiedenmayer Park, the home ballpark to Newark's minor league baseball in the Eastern and International Leagues of 1902-1918.
The Ball Game.
Thomas A. Edison, Inc. 1898. [Video clip]
Opening Game Eastern League.
Panoramic photo. 1910. Rochester at Newark
Records of Professional Baseball Teams That Have Played in Newark
Major, minor, and Negro league records.
Everybody's Neighborhood Stadium: Memory and Baseball in Newark, NJ
Laura Troiano. Rochester, New York, Northeast Popular Culture Association (NEPCA) Annual Conference, October 27, 2012
Give Me A "Ball Park Figure": Creating Civic Narratives Through Stadium Building in Newark, New Jersey
Laura T. Troiano. (Ph.D. Thesis) Rutgers The State University of New Jersey--Newark. 2017.
"The primary focus of this history is centered on two baseball stadiums in Newark, NJ, Ruppert Stadium, built in 1926 and demolished in 1967 and Bears and Eagles Riverfront Stadium, completed in 1999, sold in 2016, and is now slated to be replaced with mixed use retail space and condominiums...For both stadiums, for over a century, Newark mayors, councilmen, successful businessmen, community organizers, newspaper columnists and reporters, and local citizens all craft, repurpose, and used these civic narratives to further their own varied agendas. It is through these crafted narratives about these stadiums that I explore the competing views of the city and the competing visions for its future."
Newark Baseball Collection (1932 - 1999)
Small (1 box) collection of materials relating to baseball in Newark. Newark Public Library.

The Newark Peppers

In 1915 the Indiana Hoosiers, the 1914 champions of the renegade Federal League, moved to Newark and opened the season as the Newark Peppers--the only major league baseball team ever based in New Jersey.

"The Short Happy Life of the Newark Peppers"
Irwin Chusid. Baseball Research Journal 20, 1991, pp. 44-45.
1915 Newark Peppers
Roster and Photograph.
Newark Peppers Team Ownership History
Bill Lamb. Society for American Baseball Research.
Famous Magnates of the Federal League: Harry Sinclair, Oil Wizard, the Live Wire of the Feds,"
F.C. Lane. Baseball Magazine 15(4), August 1915, pp. 28-32, 106, 108, 110, 112, 114.
Sinclair was the owner of the Newark Peppers.
"Editorials,"
F.C. Lane. Baseball Magazine 15(2), June 1915, p.15.
On Newark's impressive opening day.
Harrison Park (Harrison, NJ)
Bill Lamb. Society for American Baseball Research, 2019
History of Harrison Park, home to the Newark Peppers.

Newark Indians

The Newark Indians were a minor league club that played in the Eastern League from 1908 to 1911, and the International League from 1912-1916.

1913 Newark Indians
Photo of the 1913 International League champs.
Baseball Cards: The Newark Indians
Player cards (1909-1911). Library of Congress.

The Newark Bears

The Newark Bears Randolph Linthurst. SABR Research Journals Archive.
"Beer baron and New York Yankees owner Jacob Ruppert purchased the Newark International League club on November 12, 1931, and over the next seven years some of the best young baseball talent ever assembled would perform in Newark."
"The Newark Bears"
Neil J. Sullivan. The Minors : the Struggles and the Triumph of Baseball's Poor Relation from 1876 to the Present. New York, St. Martin's Press, 1990. pp. 132-148.
1937 Newark Bears: A Baseball Legend.
Ronald A. Mayer. New Brunswick, N.J., Rutgers University Press, 1994. Available?
Newark Bears.
Randolph Linthurst. Trenton, N.J., White Eagle Print, 1978. Available?
Newark Bears: The Middle Years.
Randolph Linthurst. West Trenton, N.J., 1979. Available?
Newark Bears: The Final Years.
Randolph Linthurst. West Trenton, N.J., 1981. Available?
American League Baseball Club of New York Records (1913-1950)
Archival collection at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Includes Newark Bear business and financial records.
Newark Bears Photos (ca. 1937 - 1939)
Newark Bears players and coachers. Newark Public Library.

The Newark Eagles

database contains streaming videos Newark's Baseball Champions: The Newark Eagles & the Eagles Papers
"[Newark Public Library] Special Collections Associate Greg Guderian gives an introduction to the Newark Eagles professional baseball team, and the papers documenting their 12-year history in the city. The Eagles played in the Negro National League, won the Negro World Series championship in 1946, and produced eight Hall of Famers. Their co-owner, Effa Manley, is the only woman ever to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame."
The Newark Eagles Take Flight: The Story of the 1946 Negro League Champions
Frederick C. Bush, Bill Nowlin, Rich Applegate, and Len Levin. Phoenix, Society for American Baseball Research, 2018. Available?
"African American Stories: The Newark Eagles,"
Jersey Journeys 2000, no. 4 (February 2000).
The Newark Eagles, the outstanding Negro Leagues baseball team, played in Newark from 1937 to 1948. Profile of owner Effa Manley and players Monte Irvin and Larry Doby.
Effa Manley: A Major Force in Negro Baseball
Gai Ingham Berlage. IN Out of the Shadows: African American Baseball From the Cuban Giants to Jackie Robinson. Bill Kirwin, ed. University of Nebraska Press, 2005, pp. 128-146. Rutgers-restricted Access
Queen of the Negro Leagues : Effa Manley and the Newark Eagles.
James Overmyer. Lanham, MD., Scarecrow Press, 1998. Available?
She Loved Baseball: The Effa Manley Story.
Audrey Vernick. New York, HarperCollins, 2010. Available?
The Most Famous Woman in Baseball: Effa Manley and the Negro Leagues.
Bob Luke. Washington, D.C., Potomac Books, 2011. Available?
Effa Manley and the Politics of Passing
Lisa Doris Alexander. Black Ball: A Negro Leagues Journal 1(2), September 1, 2008, pp.83-94.
"This article examines the issue of passing within professional baseball using Manley as an example, discusses the differing implications of Manley passing for white or passing for black and places Manley's racial identities within the greater context of passing within baseball specifically and American culture more broadly." Rutgers-restricted Access
"A Black Woman and Proud": Effa Manley and Racial Self-Identification
Lawrence H. Rushing. Black Ball: A Negro Leagues Journal 4(2), September 1, 2011, pp.17-35.
"This paper explores how Manley viewed her racial identity throughout her lifetime. The larger issue of the paper is to shed light on the meaning and definition of race in American society." Rutgers-restricted Access
From both sides of the plate : Negro league baseball's Effa Manley disrupts the American mythology of race and ethnicity, 1897-1948
Marta Notai Mack-Washington. (Ph.D. Thesis) University of Iowa, 2015.
"This study examines the way Effa Manley performed identity at the boundaries of blackness and whiteness from the turn of the 20th century through 1945."
Racial Attitudes towards Jews in the 'Negro Leagues': The Case of Effa Manley
Rebecca Alpert. IN Beyond Stereotypes: American Jews and Sports Edited by Lisa Ansell, Ari F. Sclar, and Bruce Zuckerman. Purdue University Press, 2014. pp.19-42. Rutgers-restricted Access
Negro Baseball--Before Integration
Effa Manley and Leon Herbert. Haworth, NJ, St. Johann Press, 2006. Available?
A.B. "Happy" Chandler: Desegregation of Major League Baseball Oral History Project
Interviews at the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky Libraries. Digitized interviews including:
The Enemies at the Gate: An Economic Debate about the Denouement of Negro League Baseball
Patricia Vignola. NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture 13(2), 2005, pp. 71-81.
"This study focuses on Negro League Baseball as a microcosm of African American capitalism and society, and how this "alternate" economy failed. Using the Newark Eagles of the second Negro National League as a case study, rather than retelling the American myth of the beneficent Caucasian savior and the naive African American athlete, this discussion will show how it was within the makeup of Major League Baseball to subsume Negro League Baseball." Rutgers-restricted access
Newark Eagles Records, 1935-1946
Newark Public Library has digitized their Newark Eagles Records, [Main N.J. Ref. MG NWK Eagles] including financial records, legal papers on contracts and agreements, etc., team schedules, line-ups, batting averages, press releases, biographical material, correspondence, newspaper clippings, files on Negro Leagues and Newark Cubs, and miscellaneous papers.

Cricket

"American Cricket: Players and Clubs Before the Civil War,"
George B. Kirsch. Journal of Sport History 11(1), Spring 1984, 28-50.
Examines demographic, social and cultural characteristics of cricketers and cricket clubs in Newark and the other major U.S. cricketing centers (New York City, Brooklyn, and Philadelphia) before the Civil War.

Boxing

Brick City Grudge Match: Tony Zale and Rocky Graziano Battle in Newark, 1948
Rod Honecker. Jefferson, North Carolina, McFarland & Company, 2023. Available?

Cycling

The Golden Age of Bicycle Racing in New Jersey.
Michael C. Gabriele. Charleston, History Press, 2011. Available?
Newark, N.J., Started a National Cycling Tradition
Peter Joffre Nye.
Newark: Cradle of Cycling in the Sport's Golden Age
Nat Bodian.

A Bad Spill--Newark, N.J., Velodrome Track [1914 Photograph]

Ice Hockey

The New Jersey Devils
Mark Stewart. Chicago, Ill., Norwood House Press, 2011. Available?
Newark Ice Hockey Game - 1898
Thomas Edison film

Roller Skating

The Rink
DVD. Directed by Sarah Friedland. 2012.
"Branch Brook Park Roller Rink, located in Newark, NJ, is one of the few remaining urban rinks of its kind...This documentary film depicts a space cherished by skaters and a city struggling to move beyond its past and forge a new narrative amidst contemporary social issues." Available?