So, it turns out the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum won't have new competition from Baltimore after all.
A story in the Baltimore Sun this week detailing "the first East Coast museum devoted to Negro League baseball teams and players" caused concern around Kansas City from some about how much the project would compete with the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum here.
Donald Curry, who is involved in a cafe that's part of the project, called the article "misleading." The Baltimore project will not compete with the Negro Leagues Museum in Kansas City, he said.
David Thomas is vice president for the Baltimore-based BALL Association -- Black Athletes and Lost Legends -- which is in charge of the project, and said there won't be much overlap with Kansas City's museum.
The Baltimore project will have some Negro Leagues focus, but also include other sports with a Baltimore lean.
"I really don't see it as competition," Thomas said. "In terms of competiting with Kansas City, I don't think that will be possible. They're the first, the original. People will still recognize Kansas City as the Negro Leagues Museum. We'll be focusing on blacks in baseball in Baltimore, blacks in softball, the first blacks who've done significant things in sports. We'll have a multitude of different areas we'll be focusing on."
The project is part of a revitalization effort for a historic location at the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Bloom Street in Baltimore.
The $4.1 million project has been approved by the Baltimore mayor* and is set to open in 2011 with a cafe, carry-out restaurant, outdoor dining and entertainment area, and the museum.
The museum in Kansas City cannot have a monopoly on telling the story of the Negro Leagues, but it does carry a Congressional distinction and owns the names of several Negro Leagues teams.
* You think there's political drama in Kansas City? Mayor Funkhouser's time here is one long Tuesday staff meeting compared to Baltimore mayor Sheila Dixon.
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