Discovering the unknown history of Montgomery County’s ballparks
County aims to highlight Black baseball, softball history through new initiatives and programs
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Danny Chung-A-FungJune 19, 2026 11:36 a.m. | Updated: June 19, 2026 11:44 a.m.
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If you are a local lover of baseball, chances are you know about James Wood, the Nationals’ homerun phenom with Montgomery County roots.
You might also know about Clarence “Pint” Israel, one of the greatest Negro league players of the 1940s, who was raised in Rockville and was active in promoting local youth baseball. Israel played in sandlot and semiprofessional leagues in Rockville during the 1930s, then played in the Negro leagues including for the 1946 Negro League World Series champion Homestead Grays, according to the Montgomery County Sports Hall of Fame.
But how about the Maryland Heartbreakers, a Black women’s softball team that played games in Montgomery County in the 1960s and 70s?
This month, Montgomery Parks wants to highlight all of these players, by putting the spotlight on the history of Black baseball and softball in the county.
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Elena Guarinello, program manager of untold stories for Montgomery Parks, said that these efforts to focus on these sports came out of the work they were doing at Johnson’s Local Park at 18000 Washington Grove Lane in Gaithersburg.
The park’s namesake, African American businessman Edward Johnson, did more than just purchase the property in 1947, according to Guarinello. Johnson made it a place for the African American community to come together, especially during the time of segregation.
“It’s where everybody went pretty much after church on Sundays,” Guarinello said.
“It was an outlet during times when Jim Crow laws really curtailed people’s movements and options throughout the county.”
Johnson’s Park also featured an open-air dance pavilion where musical acts would perform. But the main attraction was the baseball field, which was built in 1948 and hosted Negro league games.
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“It was really one of the premier fields in the county,” Guarinello said. “There were lights, a grandstand, concessions.”
Bruce Adams, 78, is the founder and president of the Bethesda Big Train, a collegiate baseball team. He grew up in Potomac, and while he has been a lifelong baseball fan, he had no idea of the history of the Negro league baseball teams that played in his own backyard.
“I was a baseball crazy kid,” Adams said. “My dad loved baseball … and there were Negro league teams playing 15 minutes from where I grew up and I knew nothing about it.”
Adams said his friend, the Rev. Timothy Warner, who serves as the pastor at Emory Grove United Methodist Church in Gaithersburg, told him that if Black history in Montgomery County is not preserved, “our history is gonna die.”
“I just thought, Well, we gotta do more,” Adams said. “So that’s what led to our creating the classic.”
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The Clarence “Pint” Israel Juneteenth Classic is an annual baseball game sponsored by the Bethesda Big Train.
This year’s classic will be at 6 p.m. Friday when the Big Train takes on
the Gaithersburg Giants. Friday also is the federal holiday of Juneteenth, which commemorates the official end of slavery in the United States.
During the game, the Big Train players will wear jerseys to honor the Scotland Eagles, an all-black baseball team that played in Montgomery County. The Eagles, according to Adams, were the Black Sandlot team closest to Shirley Povich Field in Rockville, where the Big Train plays its home games. While the intention was to play the classic at Johnson’s Park given its deep history, its all-dirt infield makes it much more suitable for softball than baseball.
And Black softball also has a deep history in the county.
During this year’s Pint Israel Classic, the Big Train plans to honor the Maryland Heartbreakers, a Black women’s softball team that played in the 1960s and ’70s. T-shirts will be given out at the game with a photo of the Heartbreakers on the front and the names of all the players on the back.
“We’re going to get [the T-shirts] out and then people are going to wear them and then people are going to go, ‘What’s that?’ ” Adams said. “And that’s going to keep the history alive.”
And the efforts to keep this history alive will go well beyond the final out of the ball game.
Through the end of the month, Montgomery Parks is inviting county residents to participate in a survey that asks how familiar they are with the history of baseball and how they would like it to be recognized in parks around the county.
“We really see sports history [as] an exciting hook to get people … to learn… more… about the history of these communities in the county,” Guarinello said. “It’s never just about the stats or who the best players were.”
And Bruce Adams is determined to not let other lifelong Montgomery County residents be unaware of the deep African American history in the county, baseball or otherwise.
“Some people should grow up knowing how special the place they live in is.”
Former Bethesda Today reporter Dan Schere contributed to this story.
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Originally published at Bethesdamagazine