¶ … Legacy of the Negro Leagues
The history of the Negro League in baseball has recently received new interest after a half a century of benign neglect. Baseball fans realize that Blacks played baseball before 1974, of course, because they know that Jackie Robinson moved out of the Negro Leagues to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers, thus integrating what most people thought of as "major league baseball." The history of the teams that created Robinson and thousands of other talented athletes deserves more attention.
EARLY HISTORY OF BASEBALL
Baseball began as a "gentleman's game." Men of means joined athletic clubs and formed teams. These clubs played each other for the fun of it. After the Civil War, interest in baseball broadened to all levels of society. It crossed ethnic and color lines, which is one reason it was eventually described as "the national pastime." (Riley, 2002). It was still a game for amateurs only, with no professional ball clubs created. During this time there were both all-Black ball clubs and integrated ones. (Riley, 2002)
However, these clubs organized into the National Association of Baseball Players, and in 1868 this group voted to exclude any integrated teams. This was the first time segregation was imposed on baseball, but not the last. (Riley, 2002)
The following year (1869), professional teams were organized. They were not bound by amateur rules, and again both all-Black and integrated teams emerged. (Riley, 2002) Presumably the integrated teams overlooked color for the sake of getting the best players available. However, these were very troubled times for race relations, and by 1900, no Blacks played on professional teams. (Riley, 2002)
But Blacks didn't stop playing ball. They didn't even stop playing professional ball. Some Black players played for teams in other countries, such as the "Cuban Giants" (Riley, 2002), and in 1920, Black ball players organized the first professional league of baseball teams. (Riley, 2002).
These Black players were every bit as dedicated to the game as the more famous white players. They were respected in their communities, often well-educated including college, and they played with skill, enthusiasm, humor and showmanship. In fact, Black baseball became a thriving financial enterprise that drew many astute white investors. The Negro League ball clubs were an important part of the communities they were a part of. (Emerge, 1997).
Because the games weren't typically covered by the mainstream press of the day, people outside the Black community didn't realize how talented many of these athletes were. Riley (2002) quotes Satchl Paige, one of the most famous of the Black ball players, as saying "There were many Satchels, many Joshs..." (referring to Josh Gibson, another outstanding Black ball player.)Today's historians believe that many of these players would have belonged in mainstream major league baseball well before Jackie Robinson made that leap if it had not been for the color barrier. (Conrads, 1999; Riley, 2002).
GOLDEN YEARS OF THE NEGRO LEAGUE
Three years after Rube Foster founded the Negro National League, the Eastern Colored League was founded by Ed Bolden. (Riley, 2002). These two leagues operated for several years along with other Leagues of teams that would survive for a while and then collapse financially. These teams were consolidated into the Negro National League in 1933. Four years later the Negro American League was formed. (Riley, 2002).
Kram (1994) quowrote about what life was like on the road when playing for the Negro League. He talked about not doing it for widespread fame:
But if you were black and played baseball, well, look for your name only in the lineup before each game, or else you might not even see it there if you kept on dreamin'. Black baseball was a stone-hard gig. It was three games a day, sometimes in three different towns miles apart. It was the heat and fumes and bounces from buses that moved your stomach up to your throat and it was greasy meals at fly-papered diners at three a.m. And uniforms that were seldom off your back. "We slept with 'em on sometimes," says Papa, "but there never was enough sleep. We got so we could sleep standin' up."
Conrads (1999) quoted the autobiography of Walter "Buck" Leonard, the famous first baseman, about the rigors of baseball:
Black baseball was tough. We'd play our way into shape. We didn't have time for somebody to teach us fundamentals and inside baseball like the major leaguers did in the spring. As for backup plays,...
It took almost 50 years to finally allow blacks to become a part of the National league when Brooklyn Dodgers signed Jackie Robinson in 1946. "Many of the men who played in the Negro Leagues were of major league caliber. After all, when black teams competed against white ones, & #8230;the black ball players won most of the time… but financially the Negro Leagues were precarious, undercapitalized endeavors, often
") When Johnson defeated Jeffries, however, it unleashed white violence against blacks nationwide. "In Washington, D.C., the Washington Bee reported, 'White ruffians showed their teeth and attacked almost every colored person they saw upon the public streets'." Similar events occurred in New York City and tiny towns in the deep South. By the time Jackie Robinson left the Negro Leagues, the backlash was not nearly so pronounced. Arguably, the Negro Leagues kept
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