The Charles J. Muth Museum, which was built as part of the Hinchliffe Stadium renovation in Paterson, N.J., opened last year. The stadium which it is attached to is part of the Great Falls National Historical Park. Built in 1932, it is one of the few remaining stadiums that hosted Negro League baseball.

The museum is a single gallery exhibit that commemorates the Negro Leagues, Paterson’s baseball legacy and the stadium itself. It is operated by Montclair State University. Its public hours are limited but it is open to patrons of the minor league baseball team that now plays at Hinchliffe for a hour before game time.

Two Negro League teams called Hinchliffe Stadium home: the New York Black Yankees and the New York Cubans. The latter featured players not just from Cuba but from other Latin American and Caribbean countries. (They also started the tradition of housing teams in New Jersey while calling them “New York,” as in the NFL’s Giants and Jets.)

Any discussion of baseball in Paterson starts with Larry Doby. Doby was a three-sport  star at Paterson’s Eastside High School (football, basketball and baseball). Upon graduation, the color barrier had yet to be broken in Major League Baseball. He joined the Newark Eagles in 1942 and continued playing with them until 1946, interrupted by a stint in the U.S. Navy during World War II. 

In 1947, Bill Veeck, the owner of the Cleveland Indians and a man who had long supported the integration of baseball, bought Doby’s contract from Effa Manley of the Eagles. Doby became the second Black major leaguer and the first in the American League. He would go on to become a seven-time all-star and be elected to the Hall of Fame.

Here’s Veeck and Doby shaking hands.

Hinchliffe Stadium would by the 1990’s be shutdown as it had been neglected and seriously deteriorated. Eventually the stands surrounding the playing field were condemned. I took this picture in 2014.

The stadium’s inclusion as part of the national park helped pave the way for a $100+ million renovation. It now looks like this.

During its heyday, mini race cars like this one at the Muth Museum were popular attractions.

And it was not just Paterson ball players who drew crowds to Hinchliffe. Patersonian Lou Costello (right) and his partner Bud Abbott performed their “Who’s on First” routine there.