On the 100th Anniversary of the Negro Leagues, a Look Back at What Was Lost
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During the half-century that baseball was divided by a color line, Black America created a sporting world of its own.
Black teams played on city sandlots and country fields, .
A century ago, on Feb. 13, 1920, teams from eight cities formally created the Negro National League. Three decades of stellar play followed, as the league affirmed Black competence and grace on the field, while forging a collective identity that brought together Northern-born Blacks and their Southern brethren. And though Major League Baseball was segregated from the 1890s until 1947, in communities across the nation.
After World War II, Jackie Robinson hurdled baseball鈥檚 racial divide. But while integration鈥攂aseball鈥檚 great experiment鈥攚as a resounding success on the field, at the gates and in changing racial attitudes, Negro League teams soon lost all of their stars and struggled to retain fans. The teams hung on for a bit before eventually folding.
Years ago, when I worked on , I was struck by how many of the interviewees looked back longingly on the leagues鈥� heyday. While there was the understanding that integration needed to happen, there was also the recognition that something special was forever lost.
A league of their own
Given the injustices of the 1890s鈥攕harecropping, lynchings, disenfranchisement and the Supreme Court鈥檚 sanctioning of segregation in Plessy v. Ferguson鈥攅xclusion from Major League Baseball was hardly the most grievous injury African Americans suffered. But it mattered. Their absence denied them the chance to participate in a very visible arena that .
While the sons of White immigrants鈥擩ohn McGraw, Honus Wagner, Joe DiMaggio鈥攂ecame major leaguers lionized by their nationalities, Blacks didn鈥檛 have that opportunity. Most Whites assumed that was because they weren鈥檛 good enough. Their absence reinforced that African Americans were inherently inferior鈥攁thletically and intellectually鈥攚ith weak abdominal muscles, little endurance, and prone to cracking under pressure.
The Negro Leagues gave Black ballplayers their own platform to prove otherwise. On Feb. 13, 1920, Chicago American Giants owner Rube Foster in Kansas City to organize the Negro National League. A Texas-born pitcher, Foster envisioned a Black alternative to the major leagues.
Northern Black communities , and Foster saw the league鈥檚 potential. Teams such as the American Giants and the Kansas City Monarchs regularly competed against White teams, drew large crowds, and turned profits. Players than most Black workers, while Black newspapers trumpeted their exploits, as did some White papers.
Other leagues cropped up; the Negro National League was soon joined by the and the . Some years, the Negro National and Negro American Leagues played a Negro League World Series. The leagues also sent their best players to , an annual exhibition game in Chicago.
But the Negro National League鈥檚 ascent was stunted after Foster , nearly died, and suffered permanent brain damage. Absent his leadership and hammered by the Great Depression, the league disbanded in 1931.
A proving ground
Gus Greenlee, who ran the popular lottery known as the numbers game, in Pittsburgh in 1933 after a sandlot club called the Crawfords, which included the young slugger , approached him for support. He agreed to pay them salaries and reinforced their roster with the addition of flamethrower .
Greenlee went on to build the finest Black-owned ballpark in the country, , while headquartering the Negro National League on the floor above the Crawford Grill, his renowned jazz club in Pittsburgh鈥檚 Hill District.
Pittsburgh soon became the mecca of Black baseball. Sitting along America鈥檚 East-West rail lines, the city was a requisite stop for Black entertainers, leaders and ball clubs, . Its two teams, the Homestead Grays and Pittsburgh Crawfords, won a dozen titles. Seven of the first 11 Negro Leaguers eventually inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame鈥攕tars such as Cool Papa Bell, Oscar Charleston, Josh Gibson, Buck Leonard and Satchel Paige鈥攑layed for one or both squads.
The sport, meanwhile, became a major source of Black pride.
鈥淭he very best,鈥� Pittsburgh-born author John Wideman , 鈥渘ot only competed among themselves and put on a good show, but [also] would go out and compete against their White contemporaries and beat the stuffing out of them.鈥�
Satchel Paige and the Crawfords famously defeated St. Louis Cardinals ace Dizzy Dean 鈥攋ust two weeks after the Cardinals had won the 1934 World Series. Overall, Negro League teams .
鈥淭here was so much [negativity] living over [us] which we had no control [over],鈥� Mal Goode, the first Black national network correspondent, . 鈥淪o anything you could hold on to from the standpoint of pride, it was there and it showed.鈥�
Sacrificed on integration鈥檚 altar
For Major League Baseball, no moment was more transformative than the arrival of Jackie Robinson, who, in 1947, paved the way for African Americans and darker-skinned Latinos .
But integration destroyed the Negro Leagues, plucking its young stars鈥擶illie Mays, Henry Aaron, Roy Campanella, and Ernie Banks鈥攚ho brought their fans with them. The big leagues never considered folding in some of the best Black teams, and the Negro National League owners鈥� proposal to become a high minor league.
Like many Black papers, colleges, and businesses, the Negro National League paid a price for integration: extinction. The league ceased play after the 1948 season. Black owners, general managers and managers soon disappeared, and it would be decades before a Black manager .
Major League Baseball benefited from talent cultivated in the Negro Leagues and on , especially in inner cities. But when those leagues crumbled, prospective Black pros were relegated to minor league teams, . Many Negro League regulars simply hung up their cleats or played in the Caribbean.
The playwright August Wilson set his play, 鈥�,鈥� which tells the story of an ex-Negro Leaguer who becomes a garbageman in Pittsburgh.
鈥淏aseball gave you a sense of belonging,鈥� Wilson . At those Negro League games, he added, 鈥淭he umpire ain鈥檛 White. It鈥檚 a Black umpire. The owner ain鈥檛 White. Nobody鈥檚 White. This is our thing 鈥� and we have our everything鈥攗ntil integration, and then we don鈥檛 have our nothing.鈥�
The story of African Americans in baseball has long been portrayed as a tale of their shameful segregation and redemptive integration. Segregation was certainly shameful, especially for a sport invested in its own rhetoric of democracy.
But for African Americans, integration was also painful. Although long overdue and an important catalyst for social change, it cost them control over their sporting lives.
It changed the meaning of the sport鈥攚hat it symbolized and what it meant for their communities鈥攁nd not necessarily for the better.
This story originally appeared in . It has been edited for 猫咪社区! Media.
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Rob Ruck
is a professor of history at the University of Pittsburgh. He鈥檚 the author of Sandlot Seasons: Sport in Black Pittsburgh and produced the film Kings on the Hill: Baseball鈥檚 Forgotten Men.
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