What impressed me most: Satchel Paige and the Trujillo Nine

By Alex Riggins

The Boston Red Sox may have been the first Major League Baseball team to come back from three-games down in a best-of-seven playoff series against the New York Yankees in 2004, but they certainly weren’t the first baseball team of any league to accomplish the feat.

The Trujillo Nine, as they were known, was a team of 20 Negro League players that were recruited by Dominican Republic Dictator Rafael Trujillo to play in Ciudad Trujillo, Dominican Repuublic. The players left their Negro League team in the middle of the season to play in the Caribbean. In a politically charged Dominican Republic World Series, Ciudad Trujillo came back from down 3-0 in a best-of-seven series in 1937.   

The Trujillo Nine included legendary Negro League players like Satchel Paige and Cool Papa Bell. According to the placard in the museum, they feared for their lives when they were down 3-0 in the series. Had they been swept, the players didn’t know what the dictator Trujillo may have done to them. Playing with the pressure of knowing that their lives were in danger should they lose, the Negro League players playing for Ciudad Trujillo won the next three games to even the series and force a seventh game.

After winning the seventh game, Trujillo threw the team a party that is said to rival any modern day World Series celebration. But even the championship and ensuing celebration wasn’t enough to keep them in the Dominican Republic, and they all returned to the United States.

Upon their return, Satchel Paige and others were banned from the Negro National League for abandoning their team mid-season the year prior – so Paige started his own team and toured the country, regularly outdrawing the league teams in attendance. 

Obscure and mostly untold stories such as Paige and the Trujillo Nine is what impressed me the most about the Negro Leagues Museum. I could have probably spent the entire day reading the stories, and that still may not have been enough time. The Negro League Museum deserves a full day of visitation to read and understand all of the great stories. 

The thought that so many interesting stories from the Negro leagues have most likely been lost to history is a shame, but at the same time it intrigues me because I’m sure there are good stories yet to be told that can still be researched and told well, and be new and fresh stories to most readers.