GREELEY, Colo. — Long before the Rockies played in Colorado, there was the Greeley Grays.
As far back as 1876, they played ball in the farm fields on crudely made diamonds. But they really got going in 1925, when Latino workers came to Colorado to pick sugar beets. The Great Western Sugar Company sponsored the Grays, to give the workers a way to have fun on Sundays.
The Grays players lived in the Spanish Colony in Greeley, which was housing for workers from the Great Western Sugar Company. They formed a league along with other teams in the area – Fort Lupton, Hudson, LaSalle, and even a team from Colorado State Teachers College, now the University of Northern Colorado.
Gabe Lopez’s father and grandfather played for the Greeley Grays. A traveling Smithsonian exhibit now on display at the Greeley History Museum is based largely on research done by Lopez and his wife, Jody.
Museum Manager Dr. Chris Bowles said the huge presence of Latino ballplayers in the major leagues now started with the Grays, who got pretty good.
Other teams, according to Bowles, “didn’t want to face the Greeley Grays. Nobody wanted to face the Greeley Grays. They were just too good."
The museum exhibit includes an early Grays uniform, from after it became a semi-pro team. There are pictures of many teams in the league, including the Luggers, which was owned by the Monfort family. (You may recognize the name.)
The exhibit includes the history of not only the teams, but of life in the Spanish Colony in Greeley, where the field workers lived.
The exhibit "¡Pleibol! In the Barrios and the Big Leagues" will run at the Greeley History Museum until Oct. 5.
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