CAIRO, OH (WLIO) -Â After three years of research and fundraising, the Village of Cairo has memorialized a historic baseball game that took place in their town during the civil rights era.
The historical marker dedicated on Main Street Cairo Saturday reads "More Than Just a Game." In 1961, the nationally famous all-black baseball team, the Kansas City Monarchs, played against the Cairo Merchant All-Stars, a team made up of different players from the Lima Area's former Metro League. The Monarchs used their stardom not only to raise money for the ballpark in Cairo but to promote unity between races during a time of inequality and prejudice.
"Martin Luther King Jr. and his marches and stuff hadn't taken place yet and so this was at the very beginning. For this Monarch baseball team to come out here and reach out their hand to be brothers was very significant to awakening us that we need to put aside racial differences," explained Bruce Painter, a Cairo city councilman on the planning committee for getting the marker.
Gail Altstaetter was the one who pitched the idea to the city council back in 2020 and helped with the research needed to apply for an official historical marker from the Ohio History Connection. He attended the historic game when he was eleven years old. Though he had to look through records to find the date that it happened, he does remember the excitement and respect everyone had for the talent that came to town.
"It was a very exciting atmosphere because it was a big crowd, and when you grow up in a small town, you don't see big crowds in a small town. But to stand next to these professional baseball players, then one of my friends said 'Hey, let's get his autograph.' So, we got the autograph of Satchel Paige and a couple other players," he recalled.
Monarch player Leroy "Satchel" Paige was the biggest star in that exhibition game. Inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1971, Paige left his mark not only on the community of Cairo but the history of baseball.
"He was one of the famous baseball players that came out of the Negro leagues in the 30s and 40s. He was one of the more famous players because he pitched in, he was the first black player to pitch in the world series, and he did that for the Cleveland Indians in the late 40s. And so, many people knew who Satchel Paige was," Altstaetter continued.
Though the score of the game is lost to history, the story of the day an all-black baseball team thrilled a crowd in a small Ohio town has been brought back to life.
