Mobile Negro Leagues Museum Wraps National Circuit

The mobile Negro Leagues Museum tour makes its final stop of the baseball season in Chicago this week.

The custom 53-foot double-expandable Roadway Express trailer housing the museum will be parked across from Wrigley Field on North Clark Street when the Chicago Cubs play the St. Louis Cardinals in a three-game series this weekend.

It’s the final stop in the third year of the national “Times of Greatness” tour sponsored by Roadway, a transporter of industrial, commercial and retail goods, and conceived by Chicago-based Revolution.

The 15-city tour is intended to build public awareness for the history of the Negro Baseball Leagues and enable Roadway to build bridges with key customers in those markets.

On Saturday, Roadway will play host to 300 invited customers from the Chicago area for a more private museum viewing and a surrounding baseball carnival complete with batting cages, as it has done in each city the museum has visited. They will then attend the Cubs-Cards game.

“We provide an experience they can’t buy,” said Jeff Gooding, Revolution senior vice president of marketing.

The experience included meeting Negro League veterans or former Major League stars at each stop. Former Cubs pitching ace Ferguson Jenkins will be on hand outside Wrigley Field.

The traveling museum also has Negro Leagues merchandise and books about black baseball on sale in support of the Negro League Museum.

The tour began at the Texas Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, TX, on April 22, and included stops in Phoenix, San Francisco, Cincinnati, Denver, Milwaukee and Baltimore.