New Orleans sports legend ‘Creole Pete’ to receive historic marker
6th December 2021 · 0 Comments
By Ryan Whirty
Contributing Writer
On Feb. 10, 1980, Peter “Creole” Robertson, a former restaurateur who became a major figure in the Harlem community for nearly 20 years, died at Nassau Medical Center in East Meadow, NY., on Long Island at the age of 75.
According to an obituary in Newsday, Robertson arrived in New York City in 1938 and five years later opened his wildly popular, 24-7 restaurant at 7th Avenue and 129th Street in Harlem. They noted that the food joint “attracted many celebrities, including Louis Armstrong, Nipsey Russell and Redd Foxx, with its creole [sic] gumbo and other creole [sic] specialties.”
An article in the Baltimore Afro-American added that Robertson also “promoted many dance and sporting events in the city.”
Robertson’s funeral was held at Bethel AME Church on Long Island, but, despite his fame and influence in New York City and Long Island, he was buried in an unmarked grave in Pinelawn Cemetery in Farmingdale, NY.
However, tracing back the years, rewinding the tale of Roberston’s life, his story, and his fame, first blossomed in New Orleans. Born in Natchez, Miss., Robertson came to the Big Easy at the age of roughly 18 – at the behest of Tom Wilson, a Memphis-based baseball magnate, who pegged Robertson as an ambitious rising talent – and eventually built a small empire as a baseball impresario.
Starting as a slugging catcher for the New Orleans Black Pelicans of the Negro Southern League in the 1920s – he reportedly served as the backstop for none other than Satchel Paige, although there’s no concrete proof that Paige actually played for the Black Pels – Robertson grew in stature and influence in the bustling hive of Black baseball activity in New Orleans.
He eventually managed and owned multiple semi-pro and professional teams, including the powerful Crescent Stars in the early 1930s, and became a prime force in the construction of Crescent City Park, which became Black New Orleans’ premier baseball grounds for much of the 1930s and beyond. Creole Pete also helped draw top-level Negro League teams from the North and Midwest for exhibitions and other hardball events in New Orleans.
His goal, according to local media, was to replicate the success of the legendary Rube Foster of Chicago, the founder of the first Negro National League and eventual National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.
“Peter Robertson lives baseball,” stated the July 15, 1933, issue of The Louisiana Weekly. “Has lived it for years. His chief ambition ever since the day he drew on a catcher’s mitt and decided to play the game was to become a second Rube Foster.”
It’s for those reasons, for his towering influence over 1920s and 1930s Negro League baseball in New Orleans – that his unmarked grave on Long Island, about 1,200 miles from his roots in the Big Easy, is in the process of receiving a stone marker, courtesy of the nationally recognized Negro League Baseball Grave Marker Project.
Created by Jeremy Krock, an anesthesiologist in Peoria, Ill., in 2004, the NLBGMP has raised money and worked to successfully purchase and place headstones or markers at the graves of dozens of Black baseball legends whose careers largely took place during the tragic era of segregation. The Grave Marker Project works with the Society of American Baseball Research to achieve its goal, and author Larry Lester, the co-founder and chairman of SABR’s Negro Leagues Committee, lauded Krock and the NLBGMP for their ongoing efforts.
“The Grave Marker project continues to build momentum and recognition as more unmarked graves are discovered and eventually honored with custom-made headstones, courtesy of Dr. Krock’s commitment in recognizing these forgotten legends of the game,” Lester said.
Lester added that Creole Pete is a perfect candidate for a marker.
“Because of his wide-range of skills, professions and his place in the communities, I think he truly deserves a headstone,” Lester said.
According to Krock, the Robertson effort began when another SABR member, Ralph Carhart of New York City, gave a lecture at the New York State Cemetery Association in 2017. Following the lecture, representatives from Pinelawn Cemetery reached out to Carhart about whether any ballplayers might be buried in unmarked graves in the cemetery, and, using the SABR Negro Leagues Committee’s databases, Krock and Carhart discovered Robertson’s grave.
Krock said that Pinelawn continues to work with SABR and the NLBGMP to install a stone at Creole Pete’s burial site. The design of the marker has already been OK’ed, and it features a portrait of an older, smiling Robertson in a batting pose with a bat over his shoulder.
Krock credited Pinelawn Cemetery with taking the reins of the effort to find funds and move ahead with the stone, which is currently on order.
“The cemetery kind of took it upon themselves to do it and purchase the marker,” he said.
Krock said that SABR and the NLBGMP are working with the cemetery to possibly identify more unmarked graves of baseball figures at Pinelawn.
“[The Robertson effort] was just luck that the owner of the cemetery heard Ralph speak and reached out to us. It’s a wonderful opportunity.
“This is how a lot of our projects go,” he added. “If we hadn’t done this, no one would have.”
And beyond the Robertson project and any other individual NLBGMP efforts, Krock said all baseball figures, and all people, deserve dignity in death.
“As far as we’re concerned,” he said, “there’s no one who’s not worthy of a grave marker. It’s just a matter of identifying the graves and raising the money for a marker.”
Regarding Robertson in particular, Krock added that the process of delving into Robertson’s career made it obvious that Robertson was an ideal candidate for the NLBGMP. “It was fascinating researching how his career went as a player, manager and owner,” he said. “He did all of those, and we’re proud to be a part of this project. He had a fascinating life.”
But even with the parade of stars as friends, the accolades for his tasty gumbo at his bustling Harlem restaurant, and his social and political influence, Robertson never lost the love of the national pastime that he nurtured in New Orleans.
He served on committees that planned and raised money for Jackie Robinson Day and Roy Campanella Day, which honored two of the earliest integrators of baseball and Brooklyn Dodgers Stars, as well as a similar celebration for the New York Giants’ Monte Irvin.
In 1948, the Amsterdam News reported that Robertson was “rated the best baseball authority in Harlem,” and in 1950 the New York Age stated that Robertson was ecstatic “over his two kids who are big enough to dig baseball.”
Robertson’s vast knowledge of and passion for baseball led to him being one of several Harlemites interviewed by the Amsterdam News in 1949 about how Negro League Baseball could survive after all the Black game’s best players had been plucked by the Majors.
In his comments, Robertson said schools and other community institutions should start growing their amateur baseball programs, and he proffered that existing Negro League teams should entire “Organized Ball” as whole entities, which he theorized would help white America learn about Black baseball.
Ultimately, he said, the Negro Leagues still retained the potential to thrive.
“With proper handling, the [Negro] league could definitely be improved,” he said. “There is more interest in the game today than there was formerly and this is one of the main factors which would help the sport, which should have a place in the national sport picture. The Negro leagues [sic] cradled the boys who are in there now and gave them the chance to be seen.”
But although he left the Crescent City in the 1930s and became a big wheel in Harlem and on Long Island, Robertson remained a New Orleanian and a Louisiana man through and through – as a baseball player, owner and lifelong fan, and as a man with culinary expertise and an eccentric, extroverted personality.
In a 1974 article in Black Sports magazine, Creole Pete extolled the virtues and excitement of the city where he forged his career and began his incredible life.
“…Creole food is a certain type of food that [Creoles] create. I’m not a Creole, but I know how famous the food is. Everybody who’s been to New Orleans and had Creole food always wants to get it again. And I could really fix it.”
But when it comes to creating something New Orleanians love, Robertson was, for 20 years, a master of the Crescent City baseball scene. He loved food, and he loved baseball, and he always approached the latter, just like Creole cooking, with zeal.
This article originally published in the December 6, 2021 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
