Alameda Grays

The Alameda Grays, based in the island city of Alameda, California, played in the California League during its 1907 season, when the circuit operated as an independent "outlaw" league outside the bounds of Organized Baseball. Alameda was one of the smaller cities in a league dominated by San Francisco, Oakland, and Sacramento entries, and the Grays lasted a single season before the city was represented by the Alameda Encinals in 1908.

The Grays hold one genuine claim on baseball history: Hall of Famer Harry Hooper signed his first professional contract with Alameda in the fall of 1907, a ten-day deal straight out of Saint Mary's College. Hooper went on to anchor the Boston Red Sox "Million-Dollar Outfield" alongside Tris Speaker, win four World Series, and collect 2,466 major league hits.

In the first half of the 1900s, professional baseball reached into towns of every size across America, with leagues rising and folding year to year as cities looked for entertainment in the era before television. The early California League circuits of 1899-1909 were among the most colorful of these, running independent of the baseball establishment until the Pacific Coast League absorbed the region's best markets.