October 5, 2009

In the days of segregated sports, the Claybrook Tigers from the town of Claybrook (Crittenden County), a black semi-professional team, gave African Americans an opportunity to play the game of baseball. The team, founded and owned by one of the most successful Black businessmen in northeast Arkansas, John Claybrook, won the Negro Southern League championship in both 1935 and 1936. The promotional ad shown here appeared about a year before the team folded after the 1937 season.