America From Apple Pie to Ziegfeld Follies Book 3 Things

"N: Negro Leagues (p. 79-80)

In modern professional baseball a player is recognized for his playing ability not his race. Every team has a mixture of black, white and Hispanic players. But baseball was not always so integrated. From its beginnings in 1845 until the late 1940s, no black players were allowed in Major League baseball. Because of this, black Americans formed the Negro Baseball Leagues. Walter Brown organized the League of Colored Baseball Clubs in 1887 and held a successful opening game on May 6 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. But financial problems forced the league to fold after just three weeks.

The only recourse for the black players was to travel around the country, independently, and play other teams anywhere, anytime and for any amount. This was called barnstorming. The Cuban Giants, based in Trenton, New Jersey, were the first professional black team. Their reputation as a quality team grew with each win. They even beat the National League’s Cincinnati Red Stockings in an exhibition game in 1887. By 1888 the Cuban Giants were the most respected independent team in the country. Their success inspired other black teams to organize and tour the countryside playing baseball. By the early 1900s the barnstorming black teams began to fall apart because of bad management or a lack of money.

The black teams desperately needed someone to organize them. Andrew ""Rube"" Foster was the man who finally took on the challenge of pulling together the players and resources necessary to form the Negro National League (NNL). In February of 1920, Foster and the owners of eight teams met for several days at a YMCA in Kansas City, Missouri. The result was a successful season of black baseball that summer. There were lots of mistakes and still plenty of kinks to work out, but the NNL had already lasted longer than any other black professional baseball organization before it.

The success of Foster’s NNL spawned other Negro Leagues, most notably the Eastern Colored League (ECL) in 1923. Nat Strong, owner of the Brooklyn Royal Giants, served as that league’s president and booking agent. Foster and Strong agreed to have a series at the end of the 1924 season. The leagues’ two pennant winners would face each other in a ""Negro Leagues World Series."" The NNL’s Kansas City Monarchs beat the ECL’s team in an exciting series played before large and enthusiastic crowds.

The Negro Leagues continued to play for about twenty more years, until the late forties, and produced some famous players like Leroy ""Satchel"" Paige, Thomas Bell, Josh Gibson, Buck Leonard and ""Smoky"" Joe Williams. Eventually, the Major Leagues gave in to public pressure and in 1945 Jackie Robinson became the first black player to sign a contract and play in the allwhite Major Leagues. Soon afterwards other clubs followed suit and black players like Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Roy Campanella and Ernie Banks crossed the color line to be recognized as great baseball players by all Americans."