The Negro Leagues Ring
GET THAT 'NEGRO' OFF THE FIELD!
Baseball is America's National pastime- although it is played worldwide, its immense popularity since its inception around 1840 has placed it in the forefront of all American sport activities. The game itself is simple enough, basically consisting of a bat, a ball and some open space, allowing it to be quickly and deeply ingrained into American culture. The baseball field, with its broad green expanses, recalls for some the pastoral America of our founding myths and lore. The baseball diamond represents the ultimate democratic arena - a place where a man (not a person ) is judged on his skill and performance alone.
Baseball is the democratic sport - where fresh-faced rookies wrest positions from grizzled veterans, where every batter gets three strikes,where the individual can shine and put himself above the rest. It is in this capacity that baseball, even more so than basketball or football, is a mirror for American culture and society. In Baseball, America's opportunities and hopes, as well as our ironies and prejudices, are reflected.
Baseball has been lionized in the arts - songs such as 'Take me out to the ballgame', poems such as 'Casey at bat', books such as 'Bang the drum slowly' and 'Boys of summer', and countless paintings and sculptures attest to its centrality in the National consciousness. It has traditionally been the favorite son of the sports media, and enthusiasm for it can reach tumultuous proportions. It has spawned multi-million dollar industries in game presentation and merchandising which serve to perpetuate its embeddedness in American culture.
Like most organized sports in American society before the second World War, baseball was racially segregated. In special instances blacks participated as team players in the post-emancipation period, but to a large degree baseball remained segregated, especially in the period between 1900 and 1945. Like American society at large, Baseball was segregated primarily by custom, secondarily by law. If one wonders how significant baseball is to American culture one need only reflect on this: baseball was desegregated in 1947, the public education system in 1954.
Just as in American society in general, baseball lost or ignored many brilliant achievements and contributions of African-American citizens because of its racist structures and traditions. And as America has since reluctantly discovered and reveled in its newfound participants and their achievements, so too has baseball. Although African-Americans have made phenomenal strides in baseball and in society at large, discrimination persists.
I. BLACK BASEBALL HISTORY
It is important to distinguish between baseball's historical eras: Baseball's history includes not only the integrated post-World War II history but two pre-war histories, one white and one black. Just how and how much those histories were recorded tells a lot about our society as well; black pre-war baseball was rarely recorded, its stars and even its existence are relatively unknown. There are few books written on the subject, and most of the information has come through informal sources such as veteran recollections and interviews or rare and sketchy firsthand recorded volumes. In contrast, pre-war white baseball was recorded beginning in the late 1870's. Names such as Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Cy Young (etc.) are still household names, and a great amount of books, songs, movies and shows have been written on that period of baseball.
The first black professional ballplayer played second base for an all-white team in New Castle, Pennslyvania. That player, John W. (Bud) Fowler, was born in 1854 to freedmen parents.Ironically, he was born in Cooperstown, New York, where professional baseball has its museum and Hall of Fame. Fowler was the first of more than thirty black players in the white leagues before 1900, and like his journeymen brethen he played whatever position he could on whatever field would allow him to play. Although he was recognized by the white media as one of the best second basemen of his day, he never got the chance to play in the Major Leagues.
In fact, the first black major league player was a student-athlete named Moses Fleetwood Walker.Walker was born in Ohio in 1857 and by 1877 was studying at Oberlin College. There he played two years of baseball with the school team, and spent the last two playing with Michigan at Ann Arbor. In 1883 he joined the Toledo club of the North Western league, and when Toledo entered the American Association a year later Walker became the first black Major leaguer. He was apparently well received, even applauded in some places, except in two games in thesouthern cities, Louisville and Richmond, where he was threatened and harassed.
In 1885 Fowler and Walker were the only two blacks in the organized white leagues. 1886-1887 saw the emergence of nearly twenty black ballplayers, most notably pitchers George Stovey and Robert Higgins and fielders Sol White, whose, 1907 book provided much of our knowledge of the 1887-1900 black baseball period and Frank Grant, whose light skin allowed him to be signed as a 'spaniard'. All of these players performed credibly; Stovey was 33-14 and Higgins 20-7 (2nd best in the league), Fowler hit .350, White batted .381 and Grant hit at .366, topping his club as well as the league in all power categories.
It would seem that these stellar performances would lead to more black players in the leagues; indeed, that was the hope. But unfortunately as society went, so went baseball. At that time, Booker T. Washington (who called for self-sufficiency and meritocracy) was finding out the same thing these ballplayers painfully realized: that whites hated a successful 'negro' more than one that failed.
Trouble had begun, and incidents involving player refusals to participate with a black player led to a decision by the International League's directors that the secretary approve "no more contracts with colored men". The color line now drawn, one more incident led to over a half-century of the exclusion of black players from the major leagues. The incident involved Adrian "Cap" Anson, the best player of his day and a star of white baseball history (Anson was the first player to collect 3,000 hits). Anson, who had initially refused to play in 1883 with Walker but changed his mind for the money, now refused to play with pitcher George Stovey on the field. He is said to have stated: "get that nigger off the field!" (There is also a terrific book of that tile by A. Rust Jr.) No one ever explained Anson's ignorant attitudes, but Sol White in his History of Colored Baseball pegged Anson as being almost solely responsible for baseball imposing the color barrier. Starting in 1888 all of the black players were put in the reserves, and Jim Crow began in earnest in the National pastime.
If what has just preceded can be called part of integrated baseball history, that which follows is truly black baseball history. As the colorline was being drawn in the major leagues in the late 1880's, there were already a large number of all-black teams all over the East and well into the Deep South. The period of 1880-1900 was marked by their development into sound leagues, and although 90% of the black population still lived in the rural South, in 1910 the best teams were found in the North.
Cuba emerged around 1890 as a lucrative, receptive and viable alternative to American baseball for black ballplayers. The fans were very enthusiastic, the teams were on par with the best the new Negro Leagues could offer, and color-consciousness was minimal (Cuban teams fielded both light and dark Cubans). Cuban teams played in the Negro Leagues well through their heyday in the 30's and 40's and light-skinned Cubans had a considerable degree of mobility. For example, outfielder Armando Marsans, third baseman Rafael Almeida and pitcher Adolpho Luque were Major Leaguers for over ten years from 1911-21. Although their acceptance again raised the hopes of the black press and black players, no really dark players got their chance, be they Cuban or American.
As Booker T. Washington made his famous "Atlanta Compromise speech" at the cotton exposition in 1895 in which he argued that the races could be "as separate as the fingers on the hand" in all things not related to economic progress he expressed the national consensus on the acceptance of social segregation. This was followed by the Plessy v. Ferguson 'separate but equal' decision, which placed post-emancipation segregation into national law. Just as it would in 1947, Baseball had foreshadowed American social issues in general. Baseball for black Americans now meant the formation and growth of the separate and unequal Negro Leagues.
The growth of Negro League baseball between the years 1900 and 1920 is analogous to the demographic changes of the Great Migration: black Americans moved in large numbers to the Northern cities and their urbanization yielded new and varied cultural expressions. Great Negro teams were born such as the Homestead (PA) Grays, The Lincoln Giants (NY), the Indianapolis ABC'S, the Chicago American Giants, and the Baltimore Elite Giants. A few blacks tried to sneak or were snuck onto Major League clubs as 'Indians' or 'Spaniards', but for all intents and purposes the color barrier remained and would remain impenetrable until 1947.
Many humorous but pathetic stories survive of black Americans babbling made-up languages to pass as Spaniards or claiming Native American heritage, such Charlie Grant, nicknamed "Chief Tokohama". Negro League baseball of this time is characterized as much by the greatness of its stars as by the instability of the individual Leagues. Player contracts were apparently non-existent, being generally informal or verbal ones and the Leagues witnessed much shifting and "jumping" of players as teams competed for top players while struggling to stay afloat financially.
These leagues were very popular due to both segregation and the excellence of the Negro League stars. Not only was seating segregated in White Major League ballgames, but especially in places like Harlem its irony was glaring in that Yankee stadium, a white segregated stadium with white players, stood in the middle of an all-black neighborhood.
It was on such fields as the Polo Grounds of New York where the early Negro League stars emerged: fielders such as John Henry Lloyd and Oscar Charleston, and pitchers such as Smokey Joe Williams and Rube Foster.It is largely because of famous players like Lloyd and Foster that pre-integration records seem only half-reported - Lloyd, a shortstop for the Lincoln Giants of 1906-21, was called the "Black Honus Wagner" by the white media. The Pirates Hall of Fame shortstop saw "Pops" Lloyd play and declared: "I am honored that they would call (him) the Black Wagner. It is a privilege to have been compared with him." Likewise Oscar Charleston, (right) called by Negro League veterans one of the greatest outfielders to play the game made the press wonder whether Ty Cobb wasn't "the white Oscar Charleston."
Pitchers such as Smokey Joe Williams (far left) and Cannonball Dick Redding (left) lived true to their nicknames; their presence was sure to draw crowds wherever they played. Most likely the best Negro Pitcher before Satchel Paige was Andrew "Rube" Foster, so named because he defeated Hall of Fame pitcher Rube Waddell in an exhibition game early in his career. Not only was Foster the most prolific and powerful pitcher of his time, but he was also the brilliant organizer who established the solid Negro National League in 1921.
Foster's prowess as both pitcher and manager was widely known; not only did this draw more fans, but probably gave him the credibility to hold the league together through the tough Depression and pre-WWII era (1920-40) in American History. Foster truly brought stability to Negro baseball - he found and provided material support for struggling teams, he traded players and intervened in conflicts; he created such a strong League that it lasted not only through the Great Depression but well past the integration of baseball into the 1960's.
Negro baseball play was now permanent - it was highlighted by the most popular event, the annual East-West game, as well as the World Series which began in 1924. Play continued in Cuba, and the second era of Negro baseball witnessed the blossoming of Venezuela, the Dominican Republic and most significantly Mexico as new playing field for Negro baseball players and later white major Leaguers in the winter offseason. As the level of play increased, so did the money. This was a significant lure of the Latin ballparks -players could earn $400 to $500 per month, a far cry from the $100 to $200 of the early days of the Negro Leagues (the best white players made well over $10,000 annually.
It was in this fairly secure arena of occasional interracial competition and constant travel that the most legendary and popular players of Negro baseball emerged. This was the era of Satchel Paige, the era of the great Josh Gibson, of the speedy Cool Papa Bell. Players such as these drew huge crowds with their incredible feats and led Negro baseball through the rough years in race relations before World War II. Bell and Paige lived to see the integration: Bell died in 1990, while Paige played in the Majors in 1948 at over forty years of age. Gibson, the man whom the Negro Leaguers swear would have eclipsed Ruth's home run mark before Hank Aaron, died the night before Jackie Robinson signed with Montreal, the triple-A affiliate of the Brooklyn Dodgers.
The effects of the Great Depression as the "equalizer" and the ironies uncovered by the "united" war effort helped create the atmosphere that led to the integration of baseball in 1947. Although it is true that the war against Nazism showed Americans the incongruities of segregation at home, I would argue that economics was the rationale for most of the positive changes that occurred, including the desegregation of baseball.
Labor's desegregation in 1941( specifically the arms industry), was clearly an economic decision, and the desegregation of baseball was as well - the attendance of blacks at home games of Robinson's 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers increased by 400 percent from the previous year and set a League attendance record. With the racist baseball commissioner Judge Landis having died in 1944, the stage was set for Branch Rickey, the enigmatic head of the Brooklyn Dodgers franchise, to desegregate the national pastime. The Negro Leagues were reviewed, but most of the established players, now in their 30's, were overlooked. Rickey chose Jackie Robinson, a UCLA graduate and shortstop for the Kansas City Monarchs. A few teams threatened to withdraw upon his arrival in Brooklyn in 1947, but the National League President Ford Frick stuck with Jackie and tamed the maverick teams.
Robinson, like Monte Irvin of the crosstown New York Giants and their counterpart Larry Doby in the American League, suffered physical and verbal abuse from fans, players, and teammates alike.Their play on the diamond showed that they belonged, however, as Robinson went on to win the Rookie of the Year award in 1948 and Most Valuable Player in 1949. Doby and Irvin played in the same infield with the Newark Eagles as they defeated the Kansas City Monarchs for the Negro League title in 1946. The next year, when the color barrier fell, Irvin signed with the Giants ( but was relegated to the minor leagues for three years ) and Doby with the Indians. Doby (below) shined as a centerfielder for the Indians and hit 253 home runs in a 13 year career.
When Bill Veeck signed Satchel Paige in 1948, the death note of the Negro Leagues was sounded. Satchel had been the most charismatic star of the 1940's, and Negro baseball seemed to expire as fan interest dwindled without the presence of him and players like Robinson or the adored Roy Campanella. As blacks (and more latins) slowly entered the Major Leagues, the Negro Leagues gradually disappeared. By 1950 five Major League teams had black players, by 1953 seven clubs had 20 players, by 1957 fourteen clubs had 36 players.
click here for part II:
THE LEGACY OF SEGREGATED BASEBALL