In September 1933, within their first Hinchliffe season, the New York Black Yankees played the Philadelphia Stars here in the Colored Championship of the Nation. They lost the championship, but not their momentum, opening the following season with an eight-game winning streak! The streak-ending ninth game with the Pittsburgh Crawfords came on July 28, 1934, a face-off that saw Hall-of-Famers Josh Gibson, Judy Johnson, James "Cool Papa" Bell, and Oscar Charleston all play in regular-season battle.
Rain disappointingly ended the game after 7 1/2 innings, but not before Crawfords' star Gibson and Yankee Bob Clark had both hit powerful home runs, Gibson's contributing to his League championship home-run record for that year.
On July 13, 1935, Elmer McDuffy pitched an 8-0 no-hitter at Hinchliffe Stadium against the House of David. According to the Paterson Evening News, it was "the first time such a feat had ever been turned in by by the Negro club in this territory."
Paterson's favorite son, Hall-of-Famer Larry Doby, was to be picked up by the Cleveland Indians in 1947 and break the American League color barrier. But what hometown fan can resist imagining that for the five years he was an Eagle, maybe-just maybe-he faced off at least once against the Black Yankees at Hinchliffe?