Articles:
Fields of Forever—
The Industrial League in D.C.
April 2003
The Industrial Baseball League toils in relative obscurity even though this sandlot unlimited (semi-pro) baseball league has been around in the District, Maryland and Virginia in one form or another since the NABF was established in 1914. Current league teams include Fed Lock, Iron, Herndon Dawgs, Fauquier Blast, Senators, Liberty Tax Services and Majors. The Industrial League website is www.industrialbaseball.com. The league plays its games all over the region from southern Maryland to central Virginia as well as continuing the time honored tradition of barnstorming up and down the eastern seaboard. It has even extended its reach from Cooperstown to Cuba. On any given weekend you might find an Industrial League team playing in a tournament such as the Tallgren Baseball Games for Leukemia in Prince William County, VA. You also might find a team playing under a different name in the Chesapeake Independent Baseball League in southern Maryland, or a team playing at Hagerstown, MD, Greencastle, PA, Shippensburg, PA, or some other small stop on the sandlot exhibition circuit. For more than a decade, some of our teams have banded together for an end of season bash in Cooperstown, NY, at Doubleday Field, playing various semi-pro teams from the central and upstate New York region, while at the same time preparing for the big one, the York Invitational Tournament during Labor Day Weekend. In 1993, our Industrial League All Stars traveled to Cuba and won a Bronze Medal in the “Third, World Club Championships” in Havana and Santiago de Cuba in front of more than 35,000 fans.
The Industrial Baseball League is the premiere showcase for top level unlimited
age talent in the Washington, Metropolitan area. The players are current college,
ex-college and ex-professional players all of whom want to continue to play
at the top of their game. One of our current crop of players is ten year Major
League Veteran, Pete Schourek, who plays for the Senators in the Industrial
League. A couple of the league’s more legendary teams are the Union Printers
(est. 1908) and the Washington Black Sox (est. 1928). The Printers still play
as an Industrial tournament team in the Printers’ National Tournament
in Florida and also play as Charlie Brown’s Charles County Raiders in
the Chesapeake Independent Baseball League on Sundays. The Black Sox last played
in the Industrial League in 1992, but many players continue in the Chesapeake
League today. The Black Sox, led by Doffey Jones, was a team in the Mid-Atlantic
Negro League that barnstormed with the Industrial League as a loose affiliate
from 1928 until 1963 when it became a full time member of the league. The Black
Sox was also a member of the Tri-State League as well as continuing their Chesapeake
League connections. Doffey Jones to this day owns and operates Black Sox Park
(a private field) in southern Maryland. There is also the original Black Sox
Park dedicated in his honor as a historic landmark in Bowie, Maryland
Originally published in The Squibber, the newsletter of the Bob Davids Chapter of SABR.
