Somerset Patriots Negro League Tribute Game - celebrate the history of Black baseball Players in Sports

SSAAM, central New Jersey’s only museum telling the story of African Americans in this region from the time of the transatlantic slave trade to the present day, supports this event honoring the history and legacy of the New York Black Yankees: a Negro League baseball team of the 1930s and ‘40s. At a time when Major League Baseball excluded Black athletes, Negro League teams gave African Americans a path to play professional baseball.
On August 27, the Somerset Patriots will play in special jerseys with the SSAAM logo as well as a newly-designed logo honoring the Black Yankees. These game-worn jerseys will be auctioned off live after the event to benefit SSAAM’s mission and educational programming.

Like Jackie Robinson, Black ball players from the Sourlands got their start in the Negro Leagues. SSAAM co-founder Elaine Buck’s cousin, Roy “Campy” Campanella, was a Hall of Fame Brooklyn Dodger who first played in the Negro Leagues and Mexican Leagues. Buck remembers Campanella visiting her childhood home in a big car with candy for all the children. SSAAM co-founder Beverly Mills’s father William Wallace Smith (known as “Shud”) was a talented player for the Pennington All-Stars in the 1940s. Board member Patricia Payne, who grew up at the True Farmstead—a historically African American Farmstead now part of the SSAAM campus in Skillman—during the 1940s and ‘50s, fondly remembers watching her baseball heroes play in person. Payne attended as many local, New York, and Philadelphia Negro League, American League, and National League games as her baseball-loving uncles would take her to.
Join SSAAM and the Somerset Patriots at this special event celebrating the Black Yankees, Negro league baseball, and the contributions of Black athletes to America's national pastime!
For more information and to purchase your tickets, click the link below!

More News from Raritan

• Walmart Agrees to Pay $1.64 Million Settlement to Resolve Allegations of Unlawful Pricing Practices at Retail Stores Statewide Record Settlement for NJ Office of Weights & Measures Includes $1.61 Million Civil Penalty
• Coding Through Summer - Fun with Mr. Ritcher for CSA Camps This is the second year Mr. Ritcher is holding the wildly popular Coding Camps via CSA