GRETNA, La. - Nearly 50 years after he was buried in an unmarked grave in a Gretna cemetery, New Orleans African-American baseball legend Wesley Barrow is receiving a more proper tribute.
Though his name is best known for Barrow Stadium, which was named in his honor in Pontchartrain Park, former athletes and community members longed to have a permanent tribute at his gravesite. After his death on Christmas Eve 1965, Barrow is buried in Gretna's New Hope Baptist Church Cemetery, in an unmarked grave. On Saturday at 2 p.m., a grave marker will be dedicated at the gravesite.
The longtime player and manager enjoyed a 40-plus-year career in baseball. He worked for numerous local African-American sandlot, semipro and professional teams during the era of baseball segregation and beyond.
Barrow's talent for discovering and developing young players earned him the nickname "the Skipper" and stints with teams across the country as well, including the Baltimore Black Sox and Portland Rosebuds, according to Ryan Whirty, a local Negro Leagues baseball researcher who helped lead the effort to honor Barrow,
Barrow's burial spot remained anonymous until this year, when Gretna City Councilman Milton Crosby, who played for Barrow on the New Orleans Black Pelicans, worked with Whirty to raise money to purchase a marker for Barrow's grave.
"Wesley was one of the reasons I got a scholarship to Grambling," Crosby said in a news release. "He taught me all I knew about baseball, and he was a fun guy, too."
One of the primary donors in the purchase of the headstone was Rodney Page, the son of local sports promoter, owner and entrepreneur Allen Page, who was a close friend of Barrow's.
Saturday's dedication ceremony at the cemetery, which is located at Westbank Expressway & Lafayette Street, will include a prayer by New Hope Baptist Church pastor Rev. Warren E. Johnson, as well as remarks by Crosby, Page and other men who played for Wesley Barrow.
