Portsmouth Merrimacs
The Portsmouth Merrimacs were a mid-1950’s Minor League Baseball entry from the southeastern Virginia. The Merrimacs replaced the long-running Portsmouth Cubs (1936-1952) club in the Class B Piedmont League, with the name change taking effect in February 1953. The name ‘Merrimacs’ derived from the Merrimac iron clad steam frigate constructed at the Gosport Shipyard in Portsmouth during the American Civil War. In the Merrimacs’ first season, 1953, team owner Frank Lawrence effectively ended the Virginia-based Piedmont League’s 33-year history of racial exclusion. Lawrence signed several black ballplayers, including 45-year old former Negro League star Buck Leonard late in the summer. Leonard’s 10 games with the Merrimacs would be the only games that the future Hall-of-Famer played on an integrated team on American soil.
