Disappointment and frustration threaten Chatham-Kent after the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in St. PetersburgJohn’s Marys, Ontario, will announce the members of the Class of 2024 this week, once again omitting the Chatham stars.
The historic team went to the polls for the first time in 2017 and failed to get the votes needed for the election, despite an extensive multi-year crusade that accompanied the group.
“It hurts,” said Blake Harding, whose father and two uncles were members of the team, which was the first black team to win an Ontario Baseball Association championship in 1934.
“It breaks my core to see that St. John’s. Marys doesn’t have them all this time. Give me a reason. Just tell me why,” he said.
Harding noted that the All Stars were inducted into the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame in 2022, but outside the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame, with little explanation.
Harding said the team members were pioneers on and off the field, achieving things never done before, suggesting their legacy is still felt in Chatham-Kent, as many of the team’s descendants still paint and live there.
Blake Harding on February 9, 2024. (Chris Campbell/CTV News Windsor)
“There are a lot of positive consequences of this team that go far beyond baseball,” Harding said. “And in this community, Chatham, Windsor, in Southern Ontario, they opened so many doors and played with dignity and that’s it. they wanted, dignity and respect. “
Harding said he’s excited to have the team’s history taught in Ontario schools, along with teaching Black history, starting in September 2025. He said efforts would continue to gain that recognition, and urged his followers not to get angry.
“There are other people in the network who are bitter. There are other people who have written to St. Marys with nasty letters and I told them I would not allow them in. That’s not the case,” Harding said.
“Let’s keep the same front that the All Stars presented, which is to ask for respect. We’re here, we’re not leaving. We ask for respect,” Harding told CTV News. “If St. Marys doesn’t need us, it’s their downfall. You know, it just provides credibility to the establishment that they represent.
“It just doesn’t make sense,” said Michelle Robbins, a descendant and curator at the Buxton Museum and National Historic Site.
Robbins said: “It’s very disappointing not to honor those players and their families and this goes on every year, every year, every year, every year. And now, it’s almost a part of them, but what’s that?
“After receiving the Order of Sport, I think, for a lot of those family members, that was a turning point for them and they were honoured in such an amazing way. But now, they’re still being snubbed by the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame where they should have been honoured years and years and years ago,” said Robbins.
Robbins continued, “There are so many descendants, all those players who broke so many barriers for so many other people, and being descendants of those players, it’s time for them to be revered as they deserve to be. “
The Chatham Coloured All-Stars. (Chris Campbell/CTV News Windsor)
“I just can’t get it,” said Jay Smith, a Chatham resident and big baseball fan. “It’s a story that wants to be told, that deserves to be told, and we’re telling it over and over again and this popularity needs to be recognized, because this story needs to be told across the country. “
Smith said, “The fact that it takes place each and every year with the Hall of Fame and the Canadian Baseball Museum presenting their nominees in February, every year Black History Month, there’s a smart way to move forward and, in my fair opinion, they’ve tried to limit the pain of years beyond and still don’t.
“I feel like the Hall of Fame is failing,” Smith said, “it’s gaining ground with this story. There’s no disrespect to this year’s nominees, or to the nominees of later years. I love baseball first and foremost, and “It is what it is. It’s a baseball story, but so much more,” Smith said.
CTV News reached out to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame for a response, but officials could not be reached for comment prior to publication.
Former Toronto Blue Jays Russell Martin and Jimmy Key will headline the class of 2024 on June 15.
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