Separate But Equal on the Diamond

The integration of Major League Baseball in 1947 did more than break the color barrier that long excluded African Americans from assuming their rightful place in the national pastime. When Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers and Larry Doby the Cleveland Indians, the Civil Rights Movement’s battle for inclusion got a boost. But the fight for equality was far from over. Even today, the Old Boys Network has let few blacks crack the game’s managerial-front office ranks.

Ironically, blacks’ emergence in MLB marked the end of what had been the showcase for their extraordinary abilities -- the Negro Leagues, where sheer athleticism, skill and showmanship ruled the day. Robinson, Doby and many other future MLB stars, including Monte Irvin, Roy Campanella, Don Newcombe, Willie Mays and Hank Aaron, played in the Negro Leagues, which served, however belatedly, as blacks’ ticket to The Show.

For most stars of the Negro Leagues, whose hey day was from the 1920s-1940s, progress came too late to benefit them. They never got a chance to shine on the national stage. Then, as the best post-war talent was siphoned-off by the majors, fan interest waned and teams folded. By the ‘60s, this rich tradition in black communities died and, with it, a legacy of greatness passed into legend and myth.

Far more than an avenue for organized pro ball, the Negro Leagues constituted a cultural institution that inspired black pride and generated black commerce. The exhibiiton “A league of our own” showcases paintings, photographs, posters, and interpretive panels that charts the history of the Negro Leagues and puts into perspective the accomplishments of its players.

The Negro Leagues are often described as a “parallel” baseball experience, albeit one relegated to the back pages of newspapers and to the shadows of history. These leagues featured comparable talent as the majors and, as the exhibit highlights, offered many innovations, such as night baseball, that were years ahead of the bigs. Also documented is the fact Negro League teams often beat major league all-star teams in exhibitions. One only imagines how the record books would be rewritten had greats like “Cool Papa” Bell, Judy Johnson, Buck Leonard and Josh Gibson played in the majors. Or, if pitching genius Satchel Paige made it to the bigs in his prime rather than on the tail end of his career. As it was, the blacks that did play made an immediate impact. From the inception of the Rookie of the Year Award in 1949, seven of the first 10 winners were black. From 1949 to 1959, nine of 11 National League MVPs were former Negro Leaguers.

On a symbolic level, the leagues represented a shameful reminder -- decried by some journalists and leaders at the time -- of the unwritten racial ban that major league owners and commissioners enforced. Just as blacks’ participation in baseball goes back to the sport’s earliest days, so do attempts to exclude them from organized play. A “gentleman’s agreement” barred men of color from the first professional league formed shortly after the Civil War. Still, some blacks did play in otherwise white leagues and in short-lived interracial leagues. A few even made it as far as the major leagues of the late 1800s-early 1900s. Then, in an era when the Ku Klux Klan ran rampant, new color lines were brokered. The few attempts at jumping the line, including then-Baltimore Orioles manager John McGraw’s ruse to pass a black ballplayer as a Cherokee Indian, failed.

With MLB’s lines drawn and ranks closed, blacks made necessity the mother of invention. In 1920, Andrew “Rube” Foster -- “the father of black baseball” -- started a league of their own with the Negro National League. The first Colored World Series was held in 1924. New leagues followed. The boom was from 1933 to 1947, with teams from Kansas City, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Birmingham, Memphis, Baltimore, New York, et cetera.

The leagues reached beyond their home towns. Individual clubs and all-star teams played exhibitions in cities like Omaha. Omaha’s own Bob Gibson was offered a contract by the Kansas City Monarchs but with the majors already integrated by then, he instead played baseball and basketball at Creighton University before embarking on his Hall of Fame pitching career with the St. Louis Cardinals.

They played to their audience, too, said baseball scholar Dave Ogden, assistant professor in the School of Communication at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. “Shadow Ball” was a popular Negro Leagues warm-up act that saw players engage in a game of catch around the diamond, only with an imaginary ball. The leagues, whose game results were not consistently or completely recorded, are replete with tales of players like Satchel Paige hot dogging it in unabashed style. It was not all fun and games though. Ogden said players faced hardships on the road, where most accommodations were off-limits to them except those in the black sections of towns and, he added, players were often living hand-to-mouth on low salaries from team owners whose clubs were often teetering on financial collapse.

Leo Adam Biga

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Essay for Love’s Jazz and Arts Museum Negro League’s Baseball Display, June 2008

Baseball’s history is intricately woven with that of the United States. The game mirrored the influx of immigrants, with star players emerging from those ethnic neighborhoods and changing the face of Major League Baseball. Michael “King” Kelley became one of baseball’s earliest superstars in the late 19th Century and the pride of Irish-Americans. Honus Wagner became a Hall of Fame shortstop at the dawn of the next century and helped to pave the way for future German Americans entering the game.

But there were no such allowances for people of color. As a result and until late in the 20th Century, spectators at major league games didn’t see some of the nation’s best players. Those spectators didn’t have the opportunity to see the mammoth home runs of Josh Gibson, Wilber “Bullet” Joe Rogan’s arsenal of pitches and the speed of James “Cool Papa” Bell. Yet all are in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY.

The showcase for those players was the Negro Leagues and the barnstorming teams of African American players who often beat their major league counterparts at exhibition games. The Chicago American Giants, the Detroit Stars, the St. Louis Giants, Kansas City Monarchs, and the Indianapolis ABCs were among the teams that formed the nucleus of the Negro National League that Rube Foster organized in the 1920s and later in the 1930s and 1940s (with additional teams such as the Pittsburgh Crawfords, the Homestead Grays, and the Newark Eagles) when Pittsburgh restaurant and night club owner Gus Greenlee resurrected the league. The East-West Game (the Negro Leagues’ version of the All-Star Game) drew as many as 50,000 spectators annually at Chicago’s Comiskey Park. At one time in the early 1940s, Negro Leagues baseball was one of the largest African American business enterprises in the nation, despite the fact that many teams were not owned by African Americans.

The integration of Major League Baseball, beginning in 1947 with the Brooklyn Dodgers’ signing of Jackie Robinson, marked the beginning of the end for Negro Leagues’ baseball and the last team (the Indianapolis Clowns) folded in the early 1960s. But the legends still remain, such as the home run Josh Gibson hit out of Yankee Stadium, and the tale of the fly ball hit so high by Gibson that it landed the next day on a baseball field in a neighboring town where Gibson’s team happened to be playing. The umpire called Gibson out from the previous day, nullifying his 24-hour-old home run.

Satchel Paige was also the subject of Negro Leagues’ lore. In retaliation for some racial epithets from an opposing barnstorming team, Paige is said to have called for his infielders and outfielders to come in and sit on the infield, while he proceeded to strike out the side. These are among the myriad of tales of the hitting and pitching prowess of the Negro Leaguers. Unfortunately, that’s all that’s left of the Negro Leagues and the heritage incumbent in those tales; and that heritage runs the risk of being confined to the musty stacks of baseball history, unless there is a concerted effort to nurture and maintain from generation to generation the rich and glorious history of African Americans in baseball.

Fewer African Americans are playing the game. Research has shown that among players on youth elite teams (which are often called “select” or “travelling” teams), between 3% and 4% are African American. Of the players on the rosters of the 2007 American and National Leagues’ teams, slightly more than 8% were African American, the lowest percentage since the 1950s.

While Major League Baseball has funded and co-sponsored several initiatives to expose youth in the urban core to baseball, the percentage of African Americans advancing to the highest levels of competitive baseball has remained steady or has dwindled. What will it take to restore baseball’s importance to African American culture? It will take a commitment by neighborhoods and communities to re-establish baseball as a major sport option for youth. It will also require mentors who can serve as constant reminders that baseball belongs to African Americans as much as it does to any other racial or ethnic group.

David C. Ogden, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
School of Communication
University of Nebraska at Omaha.

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