I’ve been in touch with McDonald Williams, the son of Alexander McDonald Williams, Barbadian immigrant, founder of the Negro National League’s Pittsburgh Keystones, and builder and owner of their home, Central Baseball Park.  Mr. Williams has been trying for several years, since before I started writing about the Keystones and Central Park, to get a state marker placed on the location of his father’s ballpark, which preceded Greenlee Field as a purpose-built park for black professional baseball by more than a decade.

Mr. Williams sent me a photograph of the Negro National League annual meeting held in Chicago on January 28, 1922, a picture I don’t think I’ve seen anywhere else.

Neither Mr. Williams nor I can identify everybody in the photo yet, but here are some IDs for sure:

Back row, far left: Ira Lewis, a Pittsburgh Courier editor and secretary of the Pittsburgh Keystones.

Back row, sixth from left: Alexander Williams, Mr. Williams’s father, builder of Central Park and founder and president of the Pittsburgh Keystones.

Middle row, far left: Joe Green, owner/manager of the Chicago Giants.

Front row, far left: J. L. Wilkinson, owner of the Kansas City Monarchs.

Front row, third and fourth from left: Rube Foster and C. I. Taylor.

Based on photos from the Chicago Defender and Cleveland Gazette, I’ll hazard a couple of further guesses:

Back row, fourth from left: Sam Shepard, part of the St. Louis Stars’ ownership group (who were there fighting with representatives of the old St. Louis Giants for the league’s St. Louis franchise).

Back row, seventh from left (second from right, next to Alexander Williams): George J. Tate, owner of the Cleveland Tate Stars, and proprietor of another black-owned, purpose-built Negro league park, Tate Field.

Any additions to this list are welcome.

UPDATE 4/4/2011 Sadly, C. I. Taylor would be dead less than a month after this photo was taken (he passed away in Indianapolis on February 23).  He had just turned 47 on January 20.