Exhibit marks centennial of Negro Leagues baseball team in Detroit

Detroit – A new exhibit celebrates the centennial anniversary of a Negro Leagues professional baseball team and Detroit’s black baseball history.

“Detroit Stars & The Negro Leagues” opens Saturday at the Detroit Historical Museum. A reception is scheduled to include remarks by Joyce Stearnes Thompson, daughter of Stars’ outfielder Norman “Turkey” Stearnes, who was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2000.

The exhibition includes graphic display panels, including a life-sized painting of Stearnes, as well as artifacts and a timeline of black baseball in the city. A display also chronicles the history of women in black baseball.

The Stars were among three Negro Leagues teams to play at Hamtramck Stadium. Built in the Detroit enclave of Hamtramck, it’s one of the few remaining ballparks used by the league before Major League Baseball integrated in 1947.

The exhibit runs through Sept. 29.