Pittsburgh Crawfords

Resident families included black migrants from the South and European immigrants, all of whom were attracted to industrial jobs in the city.

By late that year, Greenlee signed many of the top African-American stars to his team, most notably Satchel Paige.

The next year, in 1932, Greenlee hired Hall of Famer Oscar Charleston as playing manager, and added Hall of Famers Josh Gibson, Judy Johnson, and Cool Papa Bell, along with other notable players such as William Bell, Jimmie Crutchfield, Rap Dixon, Sam Bankhead, and Ted Radcliffe.

[3] The Crawfords played in the new Greenlee Field, named after the owner and builder; this was one of the few parks to be built and owned by a Negro League team.

[4] Paige and Gibson often unwound at the Crawford Grill, one of black Pittsburgh's favorite night spots, where the likes of singers Lena Horne and Bill "Bojangles" Robinson entertained.

Despite his absence, the Crawfords took the first-half title with a 26–6 record, then defeated the New York Cubans in a close seven-game series for their only undisputed NNL pennant.

In retrospect, many historians consider this edition of the Crawfords to be the greatest Negro league team of all time, featuring the four Hall of Famers, plus left-handed pitcher Leroy Matlock, who won 18 games without a defeat.

[3] In 1937, Paige led several Crawfords players, including Gibson, Bell, and Bankhead to the Dominican Republic to play for the dictator Rafael Trujillo's team.

They partly recovered the next season, finishing third with a 24–16 record, but, with the exception of the 41-year-old Charleston, whose playing career was nearly over, the heart of the old Crawfords' team—Paige, Gibson, Bell—had all moved on to other teams.

[5] In 1945, Greenlee formed a new, unrelated, Pittsburgh Crawfords in Branch Rickey's new United States League.