The Chicago Unions were a professional, black baseball

Baseball

Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...

 team that played in the late 19th century, prior to the formation of the Negro Leagues.

Founding

Organized as the Unions in 1887, the club was led by Abe Jones 1887 to 1889 and by W.S. Peters 1890 to 1900. In 1899 they lost a series for the western championship to the Columbia Giants, also based in Chicago.

Merge

During and 1902, Frank Leland

Frank Leland

Frank C. Leland was an African-American baseball player, field manager and club owner in the Negro Leagues.Leland was born in Memphis, Tennessee...

 created the Chicago Union Giants by hiring many players from the Chicago Unions and Columbia Giants. The Union Giants "were recognized as the top team in the West, but lost a challenge playoff to the Algona Brownies

Algona Brownies

The Algona Brownies were an independent interracial baseball team that played in the 1902 and 1903 seasons. They were based in Algona, Iowa, and was primarily made up of former members of the Chicago Unions, Columbia Giants, and Chicago Union Giants teams...

 in 1903 for the western championship" (Riley 168). The Union Giants were renamed Leland Giants

Leland Giants

The Chicago Union Giants, the top black baseball team in the Midwest or West in the first decade of the 20th century, changed its name in 1905 to the Leland Giants, after manager and owner Frank Leland....

in .