The Tulsa Drillers will celebrate the “T” Town Clowns this weekend by wearing special-edition jerseys and caps for the Thursday, Friday and Saturday games.
In this open field, that’s a stone’s throw from Booker T Washington High School ….
If you listen past the cars zipping by on Highway 75…
You can still hear a piece of Tulsa’s sports history…
“It’s a very unassuming historical marker.”
In the 1940’s, this plot of land was home to Virgin Street Park, the 1st home of the T-Town Clowns, a semi-professional African American baseball team. A team that got its name from the way they entertained fans.
“There was a first baseman by the name of Troy Driver, who, at times, caught from a rocking chair at first base,” says cultural historian Jake Cornwell.
But Clowns weren’t just entertaining, they were good.
“Some of these people are arguable Major League talent, but for different reasons, never got to make it to The Show,” says Cornwell.
Alphonzo Williams, an entrepreneur who also owned a gas station, bar, and apartment complex on the strip of land…noticed that a local semi-pro team was starting to turn some heads, so he built them a state-of-the art ballpark.
“It’s probably the only black-ran, black operated, black-owned ballpark in Oklahoma,” adds Cornwell.
Barnstorming teams from around the area came to play at Virgin Street Park, and gamedays against the Clowns became an event.
“This was an integral part of the community, for sure. You had people who would dress up to come watch them. If you made an error, they’d sure rag on you,” says Cornwell.
After playing at Virgin Street Park for about a decade, the city of Tulsa took over the ballpark, forcing the Clowns to move to their second home, Lincoln Park, known today as Lacy Park.
“There’s a lot of history here. They played before they became the T-Town Clowns, sometimes filling in games here,” says Cornwell. “And then when they no longer played at Virgin Street Park, they finished out the rest of their tenure here. So there’s a lot of history on this very dirt where we stand today.”
The Clowns would call Lincoln Park home for a decade. As desegregation trickled down through baseball, and other sports stared to grow, the run of the Clowns came to an end.
“By the time you get to the late 50’s, certainly like into 1962, it’s becoming more sporadic. It’s not covered in the newspaper like it was. So it just eventually peters out,” says Cornwell.
The story of the T-Town Clowns almost fell through the cracks of history….until the Tulsa Drillers stepped in in 2011.
“We moved into the Greenwood District, and we thought that would be a nice way to honor the clowns, and our Negro League history here in Tulsa. And this is a part of our history. And so it was great,” says Tulsa Drillers General Manager Mike Melega. “And then you start getting a lot of people interested about it and educating them about it. Because so many hadn’t heard about it. So it’s just been really a blessing to be able to celebrate that.”
And once again, the Drillers are bringing the Clowns back into the limelight this weekend. The team will wear special edition “T-Town Clowns” jerseys and hats.
“We’re able to tie it into Juneteenth, which also when we moved into the new ballpark we started to celebrate Juneteenth,” says Melega. “And most people didn’t know what Juneteenth was too.”
And as more and more people learn about the history of the Clowns, they learn about a piece of not just baseball history, but American history.
“Culturally speaking, it’s important because what they didn’t think of as important at the time, has now become immensely important. And to celebrate that. If we don’t remember these things, they could disappear from us,” says Cornwell.
