The Chatham Coloured All-Stars are officially being inducted into the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame.
The organization announced its latest inductees on Monday, naming the All-Stars alongside the Jays Care Foundation and nine individuals.
The trailblazing team made history in 1934 as the first Black team to win an Ontario Baseball Amateur Association championship.
Blake Harding, whose father, Wilfred "Boomer" Harding, was on the winning team, told CK News Today it's amazing that their story continues to be told.
"[Ninety] years ago, they had to play for everything they got on the diamond and off the diamond," he said.
Harding remembers being told many stories about the team, some of which were hard to hear. One story that stuck with his father until he passed was the time six and seven-year-old kids gathered around the team and started spitting on them and throwing rocks.
"Wherever they played, if they won, they had to get out of town right after. If they lost, they got ridiculed," added Harding.
Overall, what he remembers most are stories about how much the group loved playing baseball.
The Ontario Sports Hall of Fame is the fourth Canadian Hall of Fame to induct the Coloured All-Stars. It joins the Chatham Sports Hall of Fame, the Ontario Baseball Association Hall of Fame, and Canada's Sports Hall of Fame.
One Hall of Fame that still hasn't inducted the team is the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in St. Marys. Harding said it doesn't make any sense to him why it hasn't happened.
"If they can get into the Canada Sport Hall of Fame, in a Negro Hall of Fame in Philadelphia, (now) the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame... it just shows what the St. Marys [selection committee] is comprised of," he added.
Harding added that even if the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame changes its mind, it wouldn't feel special for him anymore.
