Asheville Blues coast to victory again

The Asheville Tourists morphed into the the Asheville Blues on Friday night, and cruised to a 6-1 victory over the Winston-Salem Dash in front of a sellout crowd at McCormick Field.

It was a familiar result for the Blues, who were one of the most successful professional Black baseball teams operating outside of the acknowledged Black major leagues for more than a decade in the 1940s and 1950s. The Blues won back-to-back Negro Southern League championships in 1946 and 1947, regularly playing -- and frequently besting -- clubs from the Negro National and Negro American leagues.

The tribute to the Blues was part of MLB's The Nine initiative. In addition to donning the Blues uniforms, Asheville flew a commemorative Championship flag above McCormick Field to honor those Negro League titles by the Blues and premiered a re-creation of the Blues logo, as well as a specially designed cap for the event.

The redesign is a modern take of the logo that appeared on the original Blues uniforms and was created with the intention to honor the Blues players who made history in the face of racial segregation and exclusion. The logo appeared on Asheville's uniforms on Friday, and it will be the only time this season that the club wears them.

Tonight's the night. Join us this evening in commemorating the 1946 and 1947 Negro Southern League Champions.

Don't forget, you can bid on an Asheville Blues player-worn jersey! https://t.co/xJojw0gKGZ
Gates - 5:30
First Pitch - 6:35 pic.twitter.com/pWqM37Uho9

— Asheville Tourists (@GoTourists) July 14, 2023

The Asheville Blues were a member of the Negro Southern League in the 1940s and played their home games at McCormick Field through the mid-1950s. The Blues were founded by Clarence L. Moore, who purchased the franchise in 1944. For the first two years of the team's existence, the Blues were Asheville’s only professional baseball team.

Moore, a tireless promoter of Black baseball in the region, helped organize or administer three minor leagues in the Jim Crow South and established working relationships with both black and white Major League clubs.

How did the Asheville Blues get their name? We're so glad you asked...

Just two more days until Asheville Blues night at McCormick Field! pic.twitter.com/Y7LEr7ybFw

— Asheville Tourists (@GoTourists) July 12, 2023

Moore quickly built the Blues into one of the most talented teams in the region. The Asheville Blues won the Negro Southern League Championship in 1946 and '47, and nearly pulled off a three-peat, but finished as league runners-up in '48 -- despite winning over 80 percent of their games.

According to journalist Jim Baker, the Blues averaged over 1,500 fans per game from 1945-'47. During those three seasons, the club played 30 league games and assorted exhibitions. There are 28 accounts in the Asheville Times and Asheville Citizen newspapers with reported crowds of 2,000 or more in the middle and late 1940s, numbers comparable to the white Asheville Tourists and their Tri-State League opponents.

According to an excerpt from Pamela Mitchem's "Wonder Team of the Carolinas:"

"The team owned its own means of transportation, a blue bus called "The Goose," and the Blues generally slept on the bus, in a local black YMCA (in the bigger towns), or stayed in black hotels, many of which Moore had identified over years of touring. The team gave players a food and hotel allowance apart from their monthly paycheck, but as Clarence Moore, Jr. recalls, there were few places African Americans could stop and eat or even buy food while traveling. In order to get groceries while on the road, the team would often stop the bus just out of sight of a store and send one or two of their lighter-skinned players to go buy the food."