Organized Professional Baseball (OPB) in the nineteenth century consisted of five leagues made up of 90 franchises beginning with the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players
. Of these franchises. Only the Richmond Virginians of the 1884 American Association were based in the old Confederacy. The “Baseball Belt,” a string of seven contiguous states were home to 62 of these teams. Per the 1880 U.S. Census, the Baseball Belt made up 43% of the U.S. population, but the Black population in those seven states was just 2.2% which limited the number of Black players who would have the opportunity to play.
On October 1, 1868, Francisco de Lersundi, General Captain of Cuba, passed a law banning baseball as “an anti-Spanish game with insurrection tendencies, opposed to the language and favored the lack of affection to Spain….” As such, baseball became symbolic of freedom and egalitarianism to the Cuban people, a symbol of support of the revolution while bullfighting became closely identified with continued Spanish occupation. While the war failed in its immediate aims of independence from Spain and ending slavery, it was important in that it united both Black and White Cubans which would within a generation have significant implications for baseball.
Many teams were successful in employing this style of play, but none more so than the Philadelphia Giants in the first decade of the 20th century. The Giants were founded in 1902 when Black sportswriter, Harry A. Smith and White sportswriter, H. Walter Schlichter got together to organize the team. The Philadelphia Giants would play their home games at Columbia Park when Connie Mack’s, Philadelphia A’s were on the road. The smartest thing they did was put Hall of Famer Sol White in charge of the outfit. White was immediately installed as the field manager, shortstop, and put in charge of player recruitment.
In Organized Baseball, 1914 saw the Federal League challenge the National and American Leagues. At the outset of the season, Foster expressed optimism that the creation of the new league would force the baseball magnates to integrate their leagues. “[W]hen they let the black men in, just watch how many present-day stars lose their positions,” he told the Seattle Post- Intelligencer. The Federal League’s challenge to Organized Baseball did not result in integration. Nor did Chicago’s Federal League entry, the Whales, agree to a series against the American Giants, despite pleas from Foster. This must have been especially frustrating to Foster after the success he had had in the California Winter League against White teams.
With a substantial boost from the nationally distributed Chicago Defender newspaper, Foster published eight pieces from November 1919 to January 1920 in the Defender advocating the formation of a new league. The newspaper’s role in the founding and promotion of the Negro Leagues was crucial. In the words of the paper’s biographer, the Defender was “a newspaper that would carry the cause of liberation all the way through the twentieth century.”
The House of David swept through the Denver Post Tournament winning all seven of their games. In the championship, the House of David beat Chet Brewer and the Monarchs 2-0 to bring home the first-place prize money of $6,400 or $400 each, a large sum for two weeks work at the depths of the Great Depression. Satchel Paige also brought home a percolator set, the award given for “Leading Pitcher” for his three-win performance while striking out 44 in 28 innings. He also demonstrated his showmanship in the House of David’s first game of the DPT waving his outfielders in to stand just behind the infield dirt as he retired the side in order in his first inning of work.
During the first week of the White major leagues’ 1931 season (May 12 – May 18), the stock market as measured by the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) was down 30% from its September 3, 1929 peak of 381.17. Unemployment had risen from 0.91% in September 1929 to 3.39% in May 1930 with the worst yet to come. The DJIA’s nadir of 41.22 came on July 8, 1932, an 89.2% drop from its 1929 peak. By the time the 1929 peak was achieved again on November 23, 1954, World War II had ended and the Negro Leagues had ceased to exist.
Greenlee hired Harold “Hooks” Tinker as manager in 1927. A year later, Tinker happened to watch an Industrial League all-star game at Ammon Field, and Josh Gibson’s life changed forever. “I had two of my Crawford players on that all-star team. … Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been there. And that’s when I saw Josh. He was playin’ third base, and he was very mature in his actions; you wouldn’t think he was only 16 years old.” “He was built like sheet metal. If you ran into him, it was like you ran into a wall.” Tinker later recounted: “I signed (him). I brought Josh Gibson into the semipro picture.”
What came to be recognized as the jazz music genre quickly emerged from the Harlem Renaissance and moved to Negro League capitals like Philadelphia, Chicago, and Kansas City. The liberated music easily fused with Black baseball in a cultural explosion. Famous musicians like Louis Armstrong, who formed his Raggedy Nine baseball squad, as well as Count Basie and Duke Ellington and others, sponsored touring baseball teams. As jazz helped nurture the integration of the entertainment industry, and World War II forced Black and White into the same perils on the battlefields, the early 1940s experienced a collision of forces that would, just a few years later, allow Jackie Robinson to step on to the field with the Brooklyn Dodgers and forever change sport and the nation.
Robinson’s success was not without some second-guessing, however. As he began his Dodger career, he was hurriedly and proficiently learning a new position – first base, and at times appeared to be pressing at the plate. As such, his performance early on was up-and-down. While all of this was going on, let us not forget he was the target of racial epithets from opposing players, coaches, managers, and fans, of flying cleats from baserunners, of hate letters and death threats, of pitchers throwing at his head and legs as well as catchers spitting on his shoes. At the same time, off the field, he was being subjected to the “Jim Crow” laws, segregation, prejudice, and discrimination faced in team hotels, restaurants, and transportation.
The re-integration story obviously began with Robinson and Doby, but it continued with stars of equal and even greater magnitude. By the end of 1953 season, only eight of the 16 National and American League teams had Black or Latino players on their rosters. During this seven-year period, the National League added Blacks at the rate of three every two years and the American League with just one every two years. Some clubs did not add any. And it took until July 21, 1959, 14 years after Robinson and Doby’s debut, for the final team, the Boston Red Sox, to add Elijah “Pumpsie” Green to the team. It is believed by some that there was even an unwritten limit on the number of Black players on a team roster, as well as on the field at a given time.
Organized Professional Baseball (OPB) in the nineteenth century consisted of five leagues made up of 90 franchises beginning with the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players. Of these franchises. Only the Richmond Virginians of the 1884 American Association were based in the old Confederacy. The “Baseball Belt,” a string of seven contiguous states were home to 62 of these teams. Per the 1880 U.S. Census, the Baseball Belt made up 43% of the U.S. population, but the Black population in those seven states was just 2.2% which limited the number of Black players who would have the opportunity to play.
On October 1, 1868, Francisco de Lersundi, General Captain of Cuba, passed a law banning baseball as “an anti-Spanish game with insurrection tendencies, opposed to the language and favored the lack of affection to Spain….” As such, baseball became symbolic of freedom and egalitarianism to the Cuban people, a symbol of support of the revolution while bullfighting became closely identified with continued Spanish occupation. While the war failed in its immediate aims of independence from Spain and ending slavery, it was important in that it united both Black and White Cubans which would within a generation have significant implications for baseball
Many teams were successful in employing this style of play, but none more so than the Philadelphia Giants in the first decade of the 20th century. The Giants were founded in 1902 when Black sportswriter, Harry A. Smith and White sportswriter, H. Walter Schlichter got together to organize the team. The Philadelphia Giants would play their home games at Columbia Park when Connie Mack’s, Philadelphia A’s were on the road. The smartest thing they did was put Hall of Famer Sol White in charge of the outfit. White was immediately installed as the field manager, shortstop, and put in charge of player recruitment.
In Organized Baseball, 1914 saw the Federal League challenge the National and American Leagues. At the outset of the season, Foster expressed optimism that the creation of the new league would force the baseball magnates to integrate their leagues. “[W]hen they let the black men in, just watch how many present-day stars lose their positions,” he told the Seattle Post- Intelligencer. The Federal League’s challenge to Organized Baseball did not result in integration. Nor did Chicago’s Federal League entry, the Whales, agree to a series against the American Giants, despite pleas from Foster. This must have been especially frustrating to Foster after the success he had had in the California Winter League against White teams.
With a substantial boost from the nationally distributed Chicago Defender newspaper, Foster published eight pieces from November 1919 to January 1920 in the Defender advocating the formation of a new league. The newspaper’s role in the founding and promotion of the Negro Leagues was crucial. In the words of the paper’s biographer, the Defender was “a newspaper that would carry the cause of liberation all the way through the twentieth century.”
The House of David swept through the Denver Post Tournament winning all seven of their games. In the championship, the House of David beat Chet Brewer and the Monarchs 2-0 to bring home the first-place prize money of $6,400 or $400 each, a large sum for two weeks work at the depths of the Great Depression. Satchel Paige also brought home a percolator set, the award given for “Leading Pitcher” for his three-win performance while striking out 44 in 28 innings. He also demonstrated his showmanship in the House of David’s first game of the DPT waving his outfielders in to stand just behind the infield dirt as he retired the side in order in his first inning of work.
During the first week of the White major leagues’ 1931 season (May 12 – May 18), the stock market as measured by the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) was down 30% from its September 3, 1929 peak of 381.17. Unemployment had risen from 0.91% in September 1929 to 3.39% in May 1930 with the worst yet to come. The DJIA’s nadir of 41.22 came on July 8, 1932, an 89.2% drop from its 1929 peak. By the time the 1929 peak was achieved again on November 23, 1954, World War II had ended and the Negro Leagues had ceased to exist.
Greenlee hired Harold “Hooks” Tinker as manager in 1927. A year later, Tinker happened to watch an Industrial League all-star game at Ammon Field, and Josh Gibson’s life changed forever. “I had two of my Crawford players on that all-star team. … Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been there. And that’s when I saw Josh. He was playin’ third base, and he was very mature in his actions; you wouldn’t think he was only 16 years old.” “He was built like sheet metal. If you ran into him, it was like you ran into a wall.” Tinker later recounted: “I signed (him). I brought Josh Gibson into the semipro picture.”
What came to be recognized as the jazz music genre quickly emerged from the Harlem Renaissance and moved to Negro League capitals like Philadelphia, Chicago, and Kansas City. The liberated music easily fused with Black baseball in a cultural explosion. Famous musicians like Louis Armstrong, who formed his Raggedy Nine baseball squad, as well as Count Basie and Duke Ellington and others, sponsored touring baseball teams. As jazz helped nurture the integration of the entertainment industry, and World War II forced Black and White into the same perils on the battlefields, the early 1940’s experienced a collision of forces that would, just a few years later, allow Jackie Robinson to step on to the field with the Brooklyn Dodgers and forever change sport and the nation.
Robinson’s success was not without some second-guessing, however. As he began his Dodger career, he was hurriedly and proficiently learning a new position – first base, and at times appeared to be pressing at the plate. As such, his performance early on was up-and-down. While all of this was going on, let us not forget he was the target of racial epithets from opposing players, coaches, managers, and fans, of flying cleats from baserunners, of hate letters and death threats, of pitchers throwing at his head and legs as well as catchers spitting on his shoes. At the same time, off the field, he was being subjected to the “Jim Crow” laws, segregation, prejudice, and discrimination faced in team hotels, restaurants, and transportation.
The re-integration story obviously began with Robinson and Doby, but it continued with stars of equal and even greater magnitude. By the end of 1953 season, only eight of the 16 National and American League teams had Black or Latino players on their rosters. During this seven-year period, the National League added Blacks at the rate of three every two years and the American League with just one every two years. Some clubs did not add any. And it took until July 21, 1959, 14 years after Robinson and Doby’s debut, for the final team, the Boston Red Sox, to add Elijah “Pumpsie” Green to the team. It is believed by some that there was even an unwritten limit on the number of Black players on a team roster, as well as on the field at a given time.
