THEY CALLED US CORNFIELD BOYS
Black Baseball, Hertford County, NC 1940-1955
Ahoskie War Hawks, Ahoskie, North Carolina; Chowan Bees, Winton, North Carolina; Como Eagles, Como, North Carolina
By Raymond Whitehead & E. Frank Stephenson, Jr.

Cover Photograph: David Collin "Ran" Jordan, of The Como Eagles

DAVID AND GOLIATH

If there ever was a true-life David and Goliath story, the record of three virtually unknown black baseball teams from tiny Hertford County, North Carolina versus teams from the Negro American and National major leagues is it.

Negro major league teams such as the Homestead Grays, the New York Cubans, the New York Black Yankees, the Baltimore Elite Giants, the Philadelphia Stars, the Indianapolis Clowns, the Newark Eagles, the Birmingham Black Barons, and the Atlanta Black Crackers more than met their match when they took on the Ahoskie War Hawks, the Chowan Bees and the Como Eagles in the Hertford County, North Carolina towns of Ahoskie, Winton and Como respectively in the 1940s and early 1950s.

Who would have ever believed that the three local teams would stand any chance at all when they played the best of the best from the Negro major leagues. The fact of the matter is that the three local rarely ever lost even if their competition included the World Champions from the Negro major leagues.

In 1947 when Jackie Robinson broke the color line and joined the Brooklyn Dodgers, he was the center of the baseball world. But was he and the Brooklyn Dodgers really the center of the baseball world? Perhaps not because six hundred miles south in Hertford County, North Carolina in the small towns of Ahoskie, Como and Winton there existed an entirely different baseball world composed of teams whose starters were field hands, logwood cutters and sawmill workers that were just as strong and just as good.

The record of the Ahoskie War Hawks, the Chowan Bees and the Como Eagles against major league competition and all others gives credence to the belief that even Jackie Robinson and the Brooklyn Dodgers would have suffered the same fate should they have taken the field against any of the three Hertford County teams. The level of play, talent, and raw power on the three Hertford County teams was just that good!