Chicago Union Giants

Chicago Union Giants, were a Negro league baseball team that competed independently in Illinois and the surrounding states during the first half of the 20th century.^[1]

The team was originally formed in 1901 by Frank Leland via a merge of players from the Chicago Unions and the Chicago Columbia Giants. In 1904, W. S. Peters, the manager of the Chicago Unions and Leland's old teammate and business partner, organized a competing Union Giants team. Leland objected to Peters' use of the name and threatened to take the matter to the courts.^[2] Before the 1905 season however, Leland instead renamed his team the Leland Giants which allowed Peters to use the Union Giants name without opposition.

Starting with the 1905 season, W.S. Peters' team was known as Peters’ Union Giants but more often, were simply called the Chicago Union Giants. Peters, followed by his son, Frank Peters, kept the Chicago Union Giants going until the 1940s.