Something monumental happened in the baseball world in 2024, besides the Tigers making it to the postseason. The athletes who played for the Negro Leagues, the professional system first formed during segregation in the 1920s, finally had their statistics added into the MLB’s database. You’ll now find that Josh Gibson is Major League Baseball’s all-time leader in three categories, above players like Babe Ruth and Ted Williams, and an updated version of the database was published in February of this year.
Among the Detroiters in the database, you’ll find the great Detroit Stars slugger Norman “Turkey” Stearnes — a top 10 hitter in three categories — and Ron Teasley, who at age 98 is one of the two remaining former Negro League players alive today.
This recognition for the Negro League players is the result of years of dedication and lobbying from historians, statisticians, journalists, baseball fanatics, and, importantly, the family members of former Negro League players. To honor these players’ legacies and commemorate the Detroit Tigers’ 29th annual Negro League tribute game on June 14, we spoke to Teasley, as well as members of Stearnes’s family.
Ron “Schoolboy” Teasley
When you ask Ron Teasley how it feels to be formally recognized as a major league player, he simply says, “We always thought we were major. We played so many games against [the white major leaguers], and we were friends with a lot of them, too.”
He got his start at 11 or 12, when he got to know a group of baseball players that included former Negro Leaguers. They practiced in a field adjacent to the original Kronk Recreation Center at McGraw and Junction. Eventually, they allowed him to join in.
“[The players] always encouraged me: ‘Be sure to get your education,’” Teasley recalls. “That’s how I got the name ‘Schoolboy.’”
One day, when a player didn’t show up, they put 13-year-old Teasley in right field.
From there, he moved up to playing exhibition games and traveling with the players. At 15 or 16, he faced off against Hall of Fame pitcher Satchel Paige at Dequindre Park — and, he recalls, hit a triple against him. This was all while he was attending Northwestern High School.
Teasley has a lot of memories, and he’s quick to recount them as we speak on the phone in mid-April.
He tells of the time when he played for the Toledo Cubs in his late teens. The team would travel by car to the South for matches, a considerable risk for a group of Black men in an area dominated by Jim Crow laws. The players warned him about getting pulled over by police officers, to ensure every sentence he uttered ended with “sir.”
“They wanted to put me in the trunk of the car because they were so afraid that I might say something that would create a problem,” he says.
Then there were the occasions he got to meet four-time Olympic gold medalist Jesse Owens while on the road. Teasley even challenged Owens to a race, twice: once in Louisville, Kentucky, once in Memphis, Tennessee. They tied the second time, though Teasley had a bit of a head start, he points out.
When he was at Wayne University (now Wayne State University) on an athletic scholarship, he set five season records for the Tartars baseball team in his first year, before his studies were paused for a tour with the U.S. Navy.
The year Teasley returned to Wayne, in 1947, Jackie Robinson started at first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers, making history as the first Black baseball player to enter the major leagues in the modern era. It was the beginning of the end for the Negro Leagues.
Not long after, Teasley received a letter from the Dodgers asking if he’d be interested in trying out for the team. In 1948, Teasley signed with the team, making him the eighth Black player to join the major leagues. However, he was never allowed to play for the team — instead, he played for the Olean Oilers, the Dodgers’ minor league affiliate, before being released that summer.
“I was very disappointed with the Dodgers,” he says. “I sometimes wonder why they even signed us.”
Although Robinson had just broken the color barrier, discrimination was still prevalent in the major leagues.
“When you look back at the history of major sports, there has been a gentleman’s agreement, a quota system,” says author Vanessa Ivy Rose, Turkey Stearnes’s granddaughter. “They didn’t want to have an entire roster of Black players.”
Afterward, Teasley joined the New York Cubans for the remainder of the 1948 season and played with several minor league teams in the ManDak (Manitoba-Dakota) League before going back to school in 1951. In 1955, he earned a bachelor’s degree in physical education. He returned to Northwestern High as a teacher and worked 35 years for Detroit Public Schools, coaching baseball, basketball, and golf. During that time, he mentored several students who went on to play professionally for the MLB and NBA.
“I think the thing I’ve enjoyed most was coaching, when it comes right down to it,” Teasley says.
Norman “Turkey” Stearnes
“Grandpa Turkey” — as Norman “Turkey” Stearnes’s granddaughter Vanessa Ivy Rose affectionately calls him — had a legendary career in the Negro Leagues from 1923 to 1940. He played for the Detroit Stars, Chicago American Giants, and Kansas City Monarchs and was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2000.
Although Stearnes passed away four years before Rose was born, she feels deeply connected to him. The author of the book Hall of Fame DNA: The Legacy of Norman “Turkey” Stearnes says his legacy laid the framework for how she lives her life and gives her courage.
“He was living through one of the most horrific times in American history,” says Rose, who also hosted an ABC podcast called Reclaimed: The Forgotten League. “And he was able to not only survive but thrive during that time.”
Even though Stearnes’s achievements are now recognized by the MLB and the Hall of Fame, he, like the majority of Negro Leaguers, never got to enjoy the accolades while he was alive. He died of stomach cancer in 1979, shortly after retiring from nearly 30 years of working at Ford Motor Co.’s Rouge Plant in Dearborn.
While it’s easy to pull up old clips of Ty Cobb or Babe Ruth at bat, there’s currently no known footage of Stearnes playing. “It’s sad for fans all over the world,” Rose says. “We don’t get to see him hitting colossal home runs or flying around the bases to steal home.”
But now, Stearnes is featured in the video game MLB: The Show 25, released March 14. The developers consulted the Stearnes family and added details like his unique batting stance:
open, with his right heel twisted and front toe pointed up. Rose says she’s been hooked.
On any given night, you might find her “blasting home runs with Grandpa” on the team she put him on, which includes Roberto Clemente, Shohei Ohtani, Ted Williams, Hank Greenberg, Derek Jeter, and — for good measure — former Tigers catcher Iván “Pudge” Rodríguez.
“It’s just cool to visualize how my grandpa ran, how he hit the ball, and how he would measure up against the greats that he should have been playing alongside of anyway,” Rose says. “That’s been one of the most phenomenal things that has happened recently.”
Rose’s mother, Joyce Stearnes Thompson, says her family’s mission has been to inspire the next generation.
“My dad exuded greatness; all the Negro Leaguers did,” Stearnes Thompson says. “They were prolific all-around hitters, and they’re role models that children can emulate. History should not be hidden — it should be taught.”
To access the MLB’s database, visit mlb.com/stats.
Field of Dreams
The Stearnes and Teasley families are part of Friends of Historic Hamtramck Stadium. The group was founded by baseball historian Gary Gillette, and oversaw the $2.6 million renovation of the stadium that was once the home field for the Detroit Stars.
Built in 1930, Hamtramck Stadium was abandoned in 1997 and eventually was reduced to an overgrown grandstand in Hamtramck’s Veterans Park. By 2008, it seemed many people forgot about its Negro League history; it was falsely thought to have been demolished long ago. That year, an editorial in the Hamtramck Review called for razing the grandstands. Gillette, who had recently identified that the grandstands were in fact, part of the original Hamtramck Stadium, quickly went to mayor Karen Majewski.
“She asked me to speak to City Council in 2010, and I received a very positive reception — more positive than I thought,” Gillette recalls. “But Hamtramck had no money.”
With the city’s economic development director and a local preservationist, Gillette got to work. In 2012, they got it registered on the National Register of Historic Places; in 2014, a State of Michigan historic marker was installed.
In 2020, after a crowdfunding campaign — matched with a grant from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation — they were able to renovate the field. It reopened in 2022 and was officially renamed the Norman “Turkey” Stearnes Field.
“I hope that it will make a difference going forward, and be an inspiration to children, especially African American youth, to play baseball,” says Turkey’s daughter, Joyce Stearnes Thompson.
The stadium, along with the rest of Veterans Park, is now stewarded by the Hamtramck Parks Conservancy. When I spoke with Gillette in April, he was excited about a new round of improvements that had just begun, thanks to the backing of several funders including the Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Federal Housing and Urban Development, and Wayne County Parks.
Improvements anticipated for the summer include new concession and ticket areas, locker rooms, and guest restrooms. Then, in the fall, a new scoreboard, lighting, and sprinkler system are planned for installation, and the outfield will be regraded.
“We are dedicated to keeping Turkey Stearnes Field and Hamtramck Stadium as premier destination, with a great all-around experience: safe, inviting, the chance for teams and players of all kinds to experience a historic baseball venue and learn Negro League history while playing or visiting,” said Thomas Habitz, executive director of the Hamtramck Parks Conservancy in a statement to Hour Detroit. “Any teams visiting will have the opportunity to arrive early or stay late for a history talk or tour, in our vision.”
Upcoming events include the fourth annual Hamtramck Stadium Juneteenth Celebration, which will feature a tribute game between the 15U and 18U Nike Detroit RBI teams. For more information and a full list of events, visit hamtramckparks.com.
This story originally appeared in the June 2025 issue of Hour Detroit magazine. To read more, pick up a copy of Hour Detroit at a local retail outlet. Click here to get our digital edition.
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