Greeley's baseball history runs deep

Greeley’s baseball history runs deep

By Adam Ide

      Greeley has a long history of baseball, beginning in 1925.

      That’s the year the Spanish Colony of Greeley, a baseball team consisting of only Latino players, was formed. That name stood until 1938, when the team became the Greeley Grays. They’ve been the Grays ever since.

      Gabe and Jody Lopez have co-written two books: “White Gold Laborers,” a 2007 book about the Spanish Colony and the workers in the sugar beet fields; and “From Sugar to Diamonds,” a 2009 book about the Grays.

      Gabe and Jody were both raised in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and came to Greeley in 1996. Gabe has been the team’s photographer since 2005, and Jody is the team’s business manager.

The men and boys working the beet fields found recreation in baseball. Teams were formed and traveled to nearby towns to play. Thus, the Rocky Mountain League was formed.

Teams would play on Sundays, and quickly gained a reputation for having high-caliber players.

      “They became a formidable team,” Gabe said. “Everyone tried to beat the Grays, and it was hard. They said when they beat the Grays, they won the World Series.”

      In the beginning, the team just had raw talent. They didn’t have a coach or a manager to tell them to rest their pitchers, instead of having them throw two full double-headers or three consecutive days.

      “They had nobody to teach them,” he said. “They learned on their own and helped each other. They became so powerful that they won 90 percent of their games.”

      They learned a lot, like how to throw a curve ball, by watching their opponents.

      The players knew so little about baseball that they didn’t use signs to steal bases.

      “The third base coach would yell at the runner on first base to steal second,” Jody said. “The other team didn’t believe they’d do it. When they did, they were shocked.”

      Nobody was ever turned away by the Grays.

      “Anybody that knew how to hold a bat and put a glove on was allowed to play,” she said. “If you did something wrong, they didn’t yell or scream at you. They helped you.”

      Gabe and Jody gave a presentation in 2014 at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York.

       “It was amazing,” Gabe said. “It was one of our highlights of all of this. It was something we never even thought about doing. We used a lot of the information we gained from our research. They didn’t know the Rocky Mountains even had baseball.”

      There is a possibility of a permanent display for the Grays in Cooperstown within the next few years.

      “It’s still up in the air,” he said. “We were slated to do it in 2016, but by 2015 they had changed the whole regime.”

      The couple was told not to give up hope.

      “They’re working on it,” Jody said. “They have all our research in the archives and the libraries.”

      The couple was also recently honored by the Smithsonian American History Museum.

      “They accepted all our research and we’re helping them with a 2018 traveling exhibit,” Gabe said.

      The couple interviewed numerous former players while writing their book.

      “The one that really stood out was Frank Carbajal,” Jody said. “He gave a lot of amazing stories and examples of how they learned and how talented they were.”

      Carbajal began playing for the Grays in 1952 when he was 16 years old.

      “He would tell us how they didn’t really learn until the college kids came in 1959,” she said. “The coaches would send them there to play for the Rocky Mountain League.”

      So many University of Northern Colorado baseball players joined the team that they had to form another team, the Rocky Grays.

      “The talent they were playing was so great,” Gabe said. “The kids developed themselves during the summer, and were ready to play college ball when they went back. A lot of the students will remember the Grays more so than their college teams.”

      In the early days, it wasn’t always easy. The Grays played in towns that had a prejudice against Latino players.

      “As far as discrimination, there was plenty,” Jody said. “One time they played Eaton and beat them pretty bad. They had to have the sheriff escort them all the way to Cheyenne.”

      The team became like a family, and was often protected by other teams.

      “When they would go out to eat, the other team would step forward and protect them,” she said. “If they were threatened, they would surround them and say ‘you have to go through us before you get to the Grays.’”

      The Grays consisted of all Latino players until 1941.

      “We had our first African-American playing for us in 1941,” Jody said. “We also had Anglo players, so it wasn’t all Mexican. We integrated quite early.”

      The team created a life-long bond.

      “In 2003 when we did the reunion, we couldn’t get anything done because they were holding each other, crying and telling stories,” Gabe said. “Some of them hadn’t seen each other for 40 years.”

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