Omaha Exploration

Omaha has been the home to several independent Negro League baseball teams throughout the years. They included the Omaha Giants (1911-1915), Omaha Black Tigers, Omaha Monarchs and the Omaha Rockets (1947-1949).

While Major League Baseball billed the game between the Kansas City Royals and Detroit Tigers at Omaha’s TD Ameritrade Park in 2019 as its first ever regular season game in Nebraska, that likely changed when it elevated the seven different Negro League teams to Major League status in 2020.

That decision meant that a game played in the Oxford, Nebraska rodeo grounds in 1948 may have been the first MLB game in Nebraska. Full of excitement, the residents of Oxford and nearby communities packed the grandstands to watch the Kansas City Monarchs take on the Memphis Red Sox. Unfortunately, no box score for that game has been found. But the KC Monarchs would actually go on to play several other games in Oxford including one in which they faced Dizzy Dean who was playing for another barnstorming team.

The Rockets were a barnstorming team that played in Nebraska, South Dakota, Kansas, Iowa, Colorado, Minnesota and elsewhere. The independent team played in the Pioneer Nite League as well as the Nebraska Independent League.

Its teams would leave their home communities and play wherever they could make money. When it was in Omaha, it played on a variety of fields including Creighton University, Levi Carter Park and Council Bluffs. The team stayed in the Calhoun Hotel at 2423 Lake Street which was owned by Will Calhoun who was also team owner and manager. He payed for the team’s bus fare, uniforms, baseballs, bats and even a portion of their salaries. To start its inaugural season in 1947 he managed to arrange an exhibition with the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro National League.

Among the team’s star players were Jewell Day, Syl Murphy, Dedee Saunders, future Major League Baseball Hall of Famer Satchel Paige, Gene Collins, Mickey Stubblefield and future NFL Hall of Famer Dick “Night Train” Lane. It’s been said that Bob Gibson, despite not having appeared on the roster, played for the Omaha Rockets after graduating from Technical High School.

While the Omaha Rockets became a farm team for the Monarchs, Omaha continued its association with professional baseball as a minor league affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals, Los Angeles Dodgers and Kansas City Royals.

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