A teacher’s quest to mark every Pittsburgh Negro League grave
It’s getting late within the day and shadows are descending on North Braddock’s Monongahela Cemetery — making the place really feel barely extra eerie than typical. But Vince Ciaramella would not thoughts. He’s there for a great cause. He’s there to shed some gentle on a small nook of the grassy darkness.
Ciaramella, together with his spouse, Erika, and 7-year-old son, Enzo, takes out a map of Monongahela and begins wanting round, measuring what he sees on the paper to what’s proper in entrance of him. The metropolis of Pittsburgh lies sprawled out within the background. He finds the place he ought to be wanting and peeks as much as see a flag planted right into a speck of land in between just a few different gravestones.
There it’s. That’s the spot.
He hurriedly walks over together with his household and has his son stand on the unmarked plot for a photograph. Ciaramella pins the realm to his GPS so he is aware of the place it’s for subsequent time.
There’s no marker (but), however laid to relaxation underneath the dust is former Black baseball participant and profitable native businessman Ernest “Pud” Gooden. The infielder as soon as performed for the historic Pittsburgh Keystones and confronted off in opposition to the nice Rube Foster. Ciaramella will work to have his headstone put in by Memorial Day Weekend. It would be the first of many extra to return.
“A lot of these guys were marginalized, and in death they were forgotten,” Ciaramella, a Pittsburgh native and social research trainer, informed me in a Zoom name. “We’re trying to right the wrongs of the past and hopefully get them some attention.”
Growing up in Pittsburgh, Ciaramella has at all times been an enormous fan of baseball, baseball historical past and Negro League baseball historical past. It’s all so ingrained within the Steel City that it is inconceivable to get away from.
“When you’re living in Pittsburgh, man, it’s like if you live in Gettysburg, right? You can’t escape Gettysburg,” Ciaramella mentioned. “You’ve got Pirates history, Grays history, Crawfords history — you can’t escape it. You’re born knowing who Josh Gibson is. You know who Honus Wagner is. That’s just the way it goes.”
Ciaramella actually grew to become fascinated by Pittsburgh’s wealthy Black baseball historical past within the mid-Nineteen Nineties, when he stumbled upon an article about Dave and Willie Pope. He realized the 2 brothers used to play baseball on a area subsequent to his grandparents’ home. Willie went on to throw a no-hitter for the New York Cubans in 1947 and star for the Grays on their championship workforce in ’48. Dave grew to become one of many first Black gamers to play within the Majors when he debuted for Cleveland in 1952. The outfielder almost upstaged Willie Mays’ well-known Catch when he nearly robbed Dusty Rhodes of his game-winning, Tenth-inning homer in that very same sport.
Fast ahead 25 years later to 2020: Ciaramella and his household — like a variety of us — began happening lengthy walks through the Covid pandemic. Most of the time, as a result of they discovered it safer than parks, these walks had been in graveyards. He admits which will sound bizarre, however Ciaramella made it enjoyable — tracing his family tree after which discovering Major Leaguers who had been buried in plots in and round Allegheny County. His household even wrote a couple books about their journey via baseball’s previous. But one discovering did not sit effectively with Ciaramella.
“My wife and I found over 50 graves of Negro League players just in Allegheny County,” Ciaramella informed me. “And when I was putting pictures together for the second volume of ‘Greats in the Graveyard,’ I was like, ‘Man, there’s a lot of empty space. There aren’t a lot of grave markers.’ When all’s told, there are 17 unmarked graves in Allegheny County for Negro League players. But there could be as many as 25-26.”
The subject of unmarked graves amongst Negro League gamers has been a difficulty organizations have labored to rectify for years. Ciaramella is hoping to do his half in Pittsburgh. Starting with Gooden, Ciaramella’s purpose is to mark the primary 17 after which any and the entire others that he can discover.
How does the method work? The first step is to seek for the participant’s title on Ancestry.com and discover his dying certificates. Most deaths previous to 1970 can be listed. At the underside of the certificates can be a be aware the place the particular person was buried or interred. The subsequent step is to name that particular graveyard and see if they’ve them.
“With Gooden, they said, ‘Yes, we have him.’ I said, ‘OK, is there a marker?’ They said, ‘No,'” Ciaramella defined. “I said, ‘OK what section is he in? They said, ‘Section 10. Here’s a little map of the cemetery and we’ll put a little dot here of more or less where he’s at.'”
The cemetery additionally put a flag within the floor the place Gooden was laid to relaxation so Ciaramella and his household might simply discover it.
Then comes the headstone. Ciaramella has been working with the Josh Gibson Foundation to sponsor the headstones — a company that is run by Josh’s great-grandson, Sean. The Foundation won’t solely pay for the marker to be put within the floor, however there additionally can be one thing referred to as a microsite. It’s a cool, little addition that’ll make the spot stand out and educate folks to who this particular person was.
“When you go to the grave, there’s gonna be a wooden sign on a stake with a QR code,” Ciaramella mentioned. “So when you walk up to the sign, you can scan the QR code with your phone and it’ll bring up his biography. That way it’s a more interactive experience.”
Although Ciaramella already is aware of the unmarked areas of the 17 Negro Leaguers, he says this course of will take years. It’s all primarily based on donations to the Gibson basis. He’s hoping to perhaps get two or three finished each 12 months. The time it takes issues little to the worth it offers.
“The Ernest Goodens, the Lefty Williamses — who remembers them?” Ciaramella informed me. “But they added something to the game. They need to get the recognition they deserve.”
Ciaramella additionally hopes his mission will unfold and tempt future generations to take extra of an curiosity on this big, however usually ignored, piece of baseball historical past. Even children in his personal classroom at Insight Pennsylvania.
“I’ve asked students, but nobody’s really taken the bait yet,” Ciaramella informed me. “I’d like to get some of them involved eventually. If not directly with me, at least show them how to do it. Say they live in Philadelphia or Harrisburg or wherever, they can do it on their end. Maybe it’ll just catch on like wildfire …”
