Transcript The Story of the Negro Leagues Angelica Robinson & Jim Madern

The Story of the Negro
Leagues
Angelica Robinson & Jim Madern
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Try to imagine post World War II baseball
without the black baseball stars.
Obviously all great black baseball players
were not born after 1947 when Jackie
Robinson re-integrated major league
baseball. They were always there, just
required by custom and circumstance to
play in their own separate leagues.
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This period of separation is remote from
the memory of the majority of the current
populace. Today’s younger generation, as
well as most older generations now, do
not fully understand the sociological
factors which prohibited black and white
baseball players from engaging in
competition together.
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During the half-century of dual baseball
development, over 4,000 men displayed their
talents in the arenas of black baseball, most of
which were of major league caliber.
Many of them possessed skills to have been
first-line players in the major leagues, and the
best of them could have won stardom.
Finally, approximately three dozen of these stars
shone with such magnificence as to have
merited selection to the National Baseball Hall of
Fame.
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Still, the greats and the near-greats and
the not-so-greats where there, unnoticed
by the vast majority of America, until
Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in
1947 and opened the game of Major
League Baseball to all men, regardless of
the color of their skin.
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Baseball was originally a “gentleman’s game”
played by members of rival athletic clubs for
recreation. In the aftermath of the Civil War,
baseball enjoyed a great surge in interest,
activity and growth. Americans of all classes,
creeds and races joined in the game that
became our national pastime.
Baseball was then still an amateur sport and
some black Americans played on all-black ballclubs while others played on integrated teams.
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However, black ballplayers were excluded
from participation by the National
Association of Baseball Players on
December 11, 1868 when the governing
body voted unanimously to bar “any club
which may be composed of one or more
colored persons.” This was the first
appearance of an official “color line” in
baseball.
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When baseball attained professional status the
following season, pro teams were not bound by
the amateur association’s ruling, and during the
19th century black ballplayers appeared on
integrated teams and some black teams played
in integrated leagues.
Two brothers, Moses Fleetwood Walker and
Welday Walker, played in the major leagues in
1884. But gradually, black players began to be
excluded from the white leagues and by the
beginning of the new century, their were no
black players in organized baseball.
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However, black Americans continued to
play baseball. By necessity they played on
all-black teams and eventually in all-black
leagues. The first black professional team
was the Cuban Giants in 1885, but the
teams played as independent ball clubs
until the first black league was organized
in 1920.
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That year Rube Foster, the father of black
baseball, founded the Negro National
League, where he played a prominent
leadership role.
The first successful organized Negro
League was established on February 13,
1920, at a YMCA in Kansas City, Missouri.
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The depression years were especially
difficult times for black baseball. The
Stock Market crash was the cause of the
American Negro League playing it final
season, due to financial pressure.
In 1933, the second Negro National
League was formed, and was the only
black professional league operating until
1937.
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During 1947-1960 the African-American
leagues had less impact on the people
after segregation was dismissed in court.
This and other factors led to the end of
the black major leagues in 1960.
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As in the white major leagues, the Negro
leagues had their own World Series.
The black teams also began an all-star
game competition. The game was known
as the East-West game.
This game was considered more important
than the World Series and annually
attracted between 20,000-50,000 fans.