Baseball

African Americans have been involved in baseball, or "base ball" as it was first known, since its earliest days. Some enslaved blacks on southern plantations played baseball during their time off from work, and there were scattered African-American amateur baseball players in the Northeast before the Civil War. Games were played in Brooklyn between the Colored Union Club and the Unknown Club in 1860 and also between the Unknown Club and the Monitors in 1862. African Americans also played for the Philadelphia Pythians, founded in 1867 by civil rights activist Octavius Catto and businessman and educator Jacob C. White, Jr. The Pythians sought admission to the National Association of Base Ball Players, but the nominating committee unanimously voted to exclude "any club which may be composed of one or more colored persons."

In the nineteenth century, black teams, which mainly had middle class members, competed with black and sometimes white teams. In 1869, the Pythians played and defeated the white Philadelphia City Items in a series of games, while the Brooklyn Uniques and the Philadelphia Excelsiors were matched for the "Championship of Colored Clubs." There were even interracial contests in New Orleans, where thirteen black clubs played in a tournament in 1875. By the late 1870s, a number of blacks played for white college nines, including Oberlin's Fleet and Weldy Walker, Marietta College's John L. Harrison, and Dartmouth's Julius P. Haynes. In the 1890s, James Francis Gregory served as captain for Amherst's nine, while his brother Eugene pitched for Harvard.

Early Professional Baseball

The National Association of Professional Baseball Players, established in 1871, never formally banned black teams and players, but it and its successor, the National League, formed in 1876, adhered to a tacit prohibition. Seventy-three African Americans competed at various levels of minor-league play during the nineteenth century. John "Bud" Fowler was probably the first black professional ballplayer, pitching for Lynn, Massachusetts in the International Association in 1878. Six years later he played for Stillwater, Minnesota, of the Northwestern League. In 1885 Fowler played for Keokuk, Iowa, in the Western League, and for Topeka of the same league one year later. He was released after pressure from white players led to the exclusion of blacks from that league. Writing of Fowler's predicament, Sporting Life commented: "He is one of the best general players in the country, and if he had a white face would be playing with the best of them … the poor fellow's color is against him. With his splendid abilities he would long ago have been on some good club had his color been white instead of black. Those who know say there is no better second baseman in the country."

In 1883, the Toledo, Ohio, team of the Northwestern League hired catcher Moses Fleetwood "Fleet" Walker. Walker, a minister's son from Steubenville, Ohio, had attended college at Oberlin and Michigan. That season, Adrian "Cap" Anson, player-manager of the National League's Chicago White Stockings, threatened to cancel an exhibition game with Toledo if Walker played, but owner Albert G. Spalding wanted the guaranteed money, so the game was played. The next year, Toledo joined the American Association, a rival of the National League, and Fleet Walker became the first black major leaguer.

Walker faced enormous obstacles. Pitcher Tony Mullane later admitted that Walker "was the best catcher I ever worked with, but I disliked a Negro and whenever I had to pitch to him I used anything I wanted without looking at his signals." In Richmond, Virginia, six fans (using pseudonyms) wrote a letter threatening him with a beating by a mob of seventy-five men if he played. Walker was no longer on the team by then, and the threat went unchallenged. In fifty-one games, Walker batted .263, and he was praised for his catching. At the end of the season, brother Weldy Walker joined Toledo for five games. The two Walkers were the only African-Americans known to have played in the majors before Jackie Robinson.

In 1885 Fleet Walker played for Cleveland in the Western League and then Waterbury in the Eastern League. Two years later he joined Newark of the International League (IL), then just one step below the majors. There were seven African Americans in the IL, playing on six of the league's ten teams. The most notable of these players were pitcher George Stovey of Newark, who set an all-time IL record with 34 wins, and second baseman Frank Grant of Buffalo, considered the best black player of the nineteenth century. Grant batted .366 in 1887, leading the league in doubles, triples, and home runs.

However, black players in the IL faced widespread abuse from racist white players, management, and fans. Ballplayers feared that the presence of blacks would lower the status of their occupation and lower salary levels. They threw balls at African American players, and often spiked them on the base paths. Frank Grant allegedly developed wooden shin guards to protect his legs from injury by white base runners. White teammates gave wrong advice to blacks and shunned them off the field. Some white players even refused to pose with black teammates for pictures. The media reinforced the derogatory public image of black players. Pictures in Harper's Weekly depicted them as lazy and stupid, and The Official Baseball Record referred to them as "coons." In July 1887, the IL league's team owners bowed to pressure from white players, agreeing not to sign additional black players and limiting the active black players to two per team. There were no African Americans in the IL after 1889.

Several all-black professional teams were formed in the early 1880s, including the Philadelphia Orions and the St. Louis Black Stockings. The best of these clubs was the Cuban Giants, founded in 1885 by Frank Thompson, headwaiter at Babylon, N.Y.'s Argyle Hotel and his partner and team manager, S. K. McGovern, a headwaiter and journalist. The club, composed originally of hotel staff, called itself "Cuban" to alleviate prejudice (which was often less pronounced in the case of dark-skinned foreigners) and "Giants" after New York's National League team. The nickname became a common one among black teams, with ball clubs such as the Philadelphia Giants, the (New York) Lincoln Giants, and the Chicago Giants. In 1886 white businessmen Walter Cook and J. M. Bright owned the Cuban Giants. Players earned wages of $48 to $72 per month depending on their position (pitchers and catchers made the most, outfielders the least), good wages in comparison to what other black workers earned. The Cuban Giants played black teams, college squads, and even major league clubs, although the American Association champion St. Louis Browns backed out of a scheduled contest in 1887. In 1889, the Cuban Giants and another black team, the New York Gothams, were members of the otherwise all-white Middle States League. The creation of the six-team Southern League of Colored Baseballists in 1886 marked the first effort to form a black baseball league, but the arrangement lasted only a few games. The nine-team League of Colored Baseball Clubs was organized one year later, but disbanded after only one week.

In 1887, the same year the International League restricted blacks, "Cap" Anson refused to schedule a game with the Newark team of the International League if Stovey played. Newark complied, benching Stovey. At the time, conventional wisdom held that Anson was primarily responsible for pushing blacks out of organized baseball. However, it seems clear that Anson's actions merely reflected widespread white opinion. As Sporting News commented in 1889, "Race prejudice exists in professional baseball to a marked degree, and the unfortunate son of Africa who makes his living as a member of a team of white professionals has a rocky road to travel." That season the Cuban Giants and the Gothams of New York played in the otherwise all white-Middle States League. The last all-black team to play in a white League was the Acme Colored Giants of Celeron, N.Y. in the white Iron and Coal League in 1898. Overall seventy African Americans played in the white leagues in the nineteenth century. The last was Bill Galloway, who played five games in the Canadian League in 1899.

Black Baseball in the Early Twentieth Century

African Americans were big baseball fans and countless black youths played baseball at the turn of the century.

Prominent blacks ranging from activist Ida B. Wells to poet James Weldon Johnson were players or fans. It is not known if any African Americans passed for white and played in organized baseball. In 1901 Baltimore Orioles manager John McGraw tried to pass Charlie Grant as white during spring training, but his ruse was discovered, and Grant was released. Ten years later the Cincinnati Reds signed two Cubans, allegedly "Castilian," though one was dark skinned; and a few years later, the Reds hired another Cuban whose brother played on a Negro team. In 1916 pitcher Jimmy Claxton, of mixed black and Indian ancestry, played two games for the Oakland Oaks of the Pacific Coast League before being released.

Chicago established itself as a leading center of black ball with several fine semipro teams, most notably the Leland Giants, the best team in the otherwise all-white City League in the late 1800s. There were several black army teams, including a squad from the all-black 25th Infantry (later famous for its involvement in the Brownsville, Texas incident of 1906), which beat all comers in the Philippines. Collegiate ball clubs existed at Howard University and elsewhere since the era of Reconstruction. In the 1890s, Atlanta became a center of college baseball, with competing teams from local black colleges, including Atlanta Baptist Seminary (now Morehouse College), Atlanta University, Clark University, and Morris Brown College.

Players on the semipro black teams played well over 100 games, and earned up to $100 a month. They played on Sundays in their home city, and on other days "barnstormed," touring out of town, playing other black teams, college squads, town nines, and semipros. They played occasional post-season games against major leaguers and wintered in California. The top clubs included the Cuban Giants, Philadelphia's Cuban X Giants, and the Leland Giants, who went 110–10 in 1907 and vied for "The Colored Championship of the World." In 1911 star pitcher Andrew "Rube" Foster, nicknamed for outpitching New York Giants star Rube Marquard in an exhibition game, founded the outstanding Chicago American Giants with his white partner John Schorling. Three years later, J. K. Wilkinson, a white man, put together the powerful All-Nations team, which included African Americans, whites, Latinos, and Native Americans. In 1920, Wilkinson combined players from the All-Nations team with members of the black 25th Infantry Squad Army team to form the famous Kansas City Monarchs. Top players then included John Henry Lloyd, a shortstop for the Indianapolis ABC's who was dubbed "the Black Honus Wagner," and "Rube" Foster, who one year went 54–1 pitching for the Cuban X-Giants. Another star of that era was "Smokey Joe" Williams of the Lincoln Giants, who compiled a 6–4–2 record against white major leaguers in exhibition games, including a three-hit shutout against the National League champion Philadelphia Phillies in 1915.

The Negro Leagues

There were a couple of unsuccessful efforts to form a black league in the early 1900s. Then in 1920, Rube Foster, who had built the Chicago American Giants into a financially successful enterprise, formed the National Association of Professional Baseball Clubs (popularly known as the Negro National League). Foster's organizational genius and astute understanding of the promotional possibilities inherent in league play, plus his desire to wrest economic power and leadership over black baseball from white booking agents, led him to put together the first lasting Negro league. The league was composed of six teams located in midwestern cities with significant black populations. The association was intended to be entirely black-owned, but the popular appeal of Wilkinson's Kansas City Monarchs led Foster to include that club also. The new league was an almost immediate success, with outfielders like Oscar Charleston of Indianapolis ("the Black Babe Ruth") and John Lloyd, and pitchers like "Smokey Joe" Williams and Wilbur "Bullet" Rogan of the Kansas City Monarchs.

The Negro National League (NNL) was challenged in 1923 by white booking agent Nat Strong, who created the Eastern Colored League with six teams, four white-owned, in eastern cities. After a period of mutual bad feeling and raids on each other's players, the two leagues observed a truce and organized a structure similar to that of white leagues, with champions of the two leagues competing in a black World Series. However, since ball clubs sometimes preferred lucrative barnstorming exhibitions to scheduled league games, teams played uneven numbers of games, so league standings were hard to determine. There was also a third league for black players in the 1920s, the short-lived Southern Negro League, which could not compete financially with the others. A few independent teams, notably Pittsburgh's Homestead Grays, refused to join the Negro Leagues but played exhibition games with league teams. The Eastern Colored League folded in 1928, and some teams were absorbed into the NNL.

The Great Depression took a heavy toll on black baseball. The NNL, already weakened by Rube Foster's 1926 breakdown and his subsequent death in 1930, was unable to meet its debts and folded in 1931. During the following two years, teams disbanded or survived precariously as local semipro or touring barnstorming teams depended on white bookers for survival. Some players went to play in the Caribbean or Mexico.

In 1933, a new Negro National League, containing six teams (later eight), was reformed under the guidance of Gus Greenlee, a prosperous "numbers" (an illegal lottery) king in Pittsburgh who sought a legitimate investment for his money. Greenlee owned the Pittsburgh Crawfords and most of the other teams in the league were also owned by black numbers operators. Starting in 1934 the NNL played two half-seasons, and the winners of each half-season met in the Negro World Series. The Crawfords dominated at first, as the free-spending Greenlee recruited LeRoy "Satchel" Paige, Josh Gibson, Oscar Charleston, James "Cool Papa" Bell, and Judy Johnson, all future Hall-of-Famers, to play on his team, but other clubs eventually evened the balance of power within the leagues. In 1937, the six-team Negro American League (NAL) was organized. The NAL was mainly white-owned and included the Kansas City Monarchs, who had previously declined to join the revamped NNL. The NNL concentrated on eastern teams, with the NAL operating in the west. The respective league champions met each other in the Colored World Series. However, the biggest event in black baseball in the 1930s was not the Colored World Series but the East–West All-Star game, first played in Chicago in 1933, shortly after Major League Baseball held its first All-Star Game, also in Chicago at Comiskey Park. The annual event routinely attracted crowds of 30,000 to 40,000. This showcase event was covered nationally in the black press, especially the Chicago Defender and the Pittsburgh Courier, which featured extensive coverage of black baseball. The East–West game became a national social event for black Americans.

In the 1930s, the NNL season began in the south with a brief spring training, followed by barnstorming tours as clubs traveled north. The exhibition games furthered team development and strategy, were a necessary source of revenue, and helped cement the relationship between players and the local black populations. In April or May the teams arrived in their home cities and commenced league play. Black urban populations were not large enough to sustain more than a 70 game season, and the high unemployment rate during the Depression further hurt the gate. Black teams had to be innovative, and around 1932, the Kansas City Monarchs became one of the first teams to use portable lights for night baseball. Night games encouraged a larger black working class audience, appealing to many laborers who could attend games in the evening after work. League games were usually on the weekends, but teams traveled extensively during the week to bolster incomes with exhibitions throughout the season, sometimes playing three or four games per day. Clubs usually traveled by bus or in a caravan of cars, often over bad rural roads. Few black nines owned their own field, which created scheduling problems (although when business picked up in the 1940s, several teams were able to rent major or minor league ballparks.) When the season ended in September, or after the Colored World Series, the better Negro Leagues players went on to play in winter leagues in Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and California.

The Negro Leagues had a hard time surviving the poverty created by the Depression, and problems were exacerbated by mismanagement and poor planning. During the late 1930s the average player made $100 to $150 a month. Since they commonly played without formal contracts, players often jumped teams in search of better pay. In 1937 Gibson, Paige and Bell all left their teams to play in the Dominican Republic for the team sponsored by dictator Rafael Trujillo.

The Negro Leagues games were exciting to watch. While there were power hitters, most notably Josh Gibson of the Pittsburgh Crawfords and Homestead Grays, runs

were often hard to come by. Games depended, more than in white leagues, on pitching, defense, and speed. Pitchers like "Satchel" Paige of the Kansas City Monarchs worked frequently and were reliant not only on speed but also on trick pitches to beat opposing teams. There was little money for equipment, so scuffed and loaded balls remained in play. The spitball and similar pitches, banned in the major leagues in 1920, remained legal in the Negro Leagues. Speed was also emphasized in Negro League play, and bunts, stolen bases, and hit-and-run plays were common strategies.

Another difference between white and black baseball was showmanship. Black players were conscious of their role as entertainers. Batters might begin their at-bat with their back to home plate, and then turn around to hit the ball. Satchel Paige was known to occasionally call in the outfielders, and then proceed to strike out the side. Paige was so popular that the Kansas City Monarchs raised revenue by loaning out Paige, who earned $37,000 in 1941, to other teams. The Indianapolis Clowns (previously the Ethiopian Clowns), an independent black team whose players clowned and pulled trick plays in the manner of basketball's Harlem Globetrotters, were such a financial attraction that despite their unserious reputation, they were invited to join the Negro American League in 1938.

By the 1940s, Negro League baseball was one of the most successful black businesses of the Jim Crow era. Good players could earn $300 a month, while superstar Josh Gibson got $1,000. The teams were profitable, earning about $5,000–$15,000 each in 1943, and boosted the business of related black-owned enterprises. As a cultural institution, Negro League baseball was ubiquitous throughout black America. The games provided an important source of recreation and local pride, and were choice social events. The barnstorming tradition meant that teams played wherever there was a sizeable black population, and indeed in many places, such as in the Dakotas or the Canadian prairie provinces, the local populace's only contact with blacks was via the black teams that came to town every summer.

Despite the hard life and the rigorous travel and playing schedules that ballplayers had to endure, the leagues had a certain glamour. The players were popular heroes of the first magnitude in northern black communities. Black fans especially idolized them because of their victories over white players in exhibition games. They were also a particularly cosmopolitan group, akin to other black entertainers of the period. These celebrities were equally at home in the small-town rural world of the Deep South, staying in homes of local community members when they visited southern towns, and in the big cities of the North with their vibrant social and cultural life. Also, the many darker-skinned Latinos, such as Martin Dihigo and Luis Tiant, Sr., who played in the leagues gave them an international flavor, buttressed by the sojourns of Negro League stars in Latin America, where they mingled freely with the political and economic leadership of those countries like other celebrities.

The integration of professional baseball, beginning with Jackie Robinson in 1946, plus the coming of televised games, spelled the end of the Negro Leagues. Black fans made it clear that they preferred seeing their heroes compete in the newly integrated major leagues rather than in all-black leagues. As early as 1947, the Negro League teams on the eastern seaboard ("Jackie Robinson country") suffered severe financial losses as black fans deserted the Negro National League. The last East–West classic was played in 1950, and the NNL folded after the following season. The Negro American League, whose franchises tended to be in midwestern states, further from major league ball clubs, continued to play on a reduced schedule. In a move to increase attention in 1953, the NAL's Indianapolis Clowns signed a woman, Toni Stone, who played 50 games at second base and hit .253. During the 1950s, major league teams moved west and NAL teams could not compete financially for talented players. The NAL folded in 1960, and the Indianapolis Clowns returned to their independent status, touring small towns and playing semi-pro teams through the 1980s.

During the 1970s, African American and white interest in the Negro Leagues was awakened, partly by the book and documentary film Only the Ball Was White (1969). The Baseball Hall of Fame created a Negro League Committee, and 24 players out of an estimated 2,600 who played in the Negro Leagues have been inducted, including: Rube Foster, Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell, Judy Johnson, Buck Leonard, Oscar Charleston, Monte Irvin, Martin Dihigo, Ray Dandridge, and John Henry Lloyd. In 1990, the Negro League Baseball Museum was created in Kansas City, Missouri, and the Negro Leagues Players Association was established in New York.

Integration

By the 1930s, major leaguers and baseball experts recognized the skill of Negro Leaguers, especially in exhibition contests against major league baseball players. A movement began in that decade to secure integration, promoted particularly by baseball writers. White journalists West-brook Pegler, Jimmy Powers, and Shirley Povich recognized black prowess in baseball and the accomplishments of other black sportsmen such as Joe Louis and Jesse Owens, and called for integration. Black colleagues, including Wendell Smith of the Pittsburgh Courier, Sam Lacy of the Baltimore Afro-American, and Joe Bostic of the People's Voice (Harlem) were ardent advocates for integration. Communist writers, notably Lester Rodney, the white sports editor of the Daily Worker, also played a role in publicizing the issue. Civil rights activists demanded tryouts for Negro Leaguers, collected petitions, and picketed ballparks.

The Lords of Baseball did not support integration. Commissioner Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, a Midwesterner who served from 1920 to 1944, disingenuously maintained that there was no rule against blacks in organized baseball. He was long criticized as an ardent foe of integration, but recent scholarship has suggested that he was not a major factor in blocking integration, which was prevented primarily because of team owners. The baseball magnates worried that fans would lose interest in organized baseball if there was integration, that black players would be opposed by their white colleagues (while some players were racist, a poll of major leaguers in the late 1930s indicated that 80 percent did not object to integration), and that severe social problems would emerge, especially during spring training in the South. Furthermore, in 1943, Larry MacPhail, president of the Brooklyn Dodgers, claimed that integration would kill off the Negro Leagues, a valuable source of ballpark rental fees for many major league teams. This assertion was challenged by white Newark Eagles owner Effa Manley, the only female owner in the Negro Leagues, but many other Negro League owners opposed integration, fearing rightly that it would destroy their business.

In 1943, at the annual baseball meetings, African Americans led by Paul Robeson were granted the opportunity to speak to owners about integration, but made no headway. That year, entrepreneur Bill Veeck tried unsuccessfully to purchase the Philadelphia Phillies, and later claimed he would have stocked the team with black players but that Landis had blocked the sale. However, recent scholarship disputes Veeck's assertion.

Ultimately, World War II tipped the balance, causing Americans to reevaluate the meaning of democracy. It was difficult to fight for freedom overseas while neglecting the same principles at home. Furthermore, when the major leagues, faced with a shortage of players, contracted players who would not normally be given a chance to compete, such as teenagers and handicapped players like one-armed Pete Gray, the exclusion of blacks seemed more glaring. Judge Landis's death in December 1944 removed an important obstacle to integration. The new commissioner, former Kentucky governor and senator Albert "Happy" Chandler, was subjected to pressure for integration from labor unions, civil rights leaders, and politicians. On opening day in 1945, one banner outside Yankee Stadium read, "If We Can Stop Bullets, Why Not Balls?" The demonstrations led to several tryouts for black players but no jobs. In Boston, Alderman Isadore Muchnick threatened to block the Red Sox's Sunday baseball license unless they held tryouts for black players. The tryouts were held, but were a sham.

In the summer of 1945, the crucial first step toward integration was taken by President Branch Rickey of the Brooklyn Dodgers. He secretly investigated Negro League talent under the guise of scouting for a new Brooklyn Brown Dodgers Negro League team. Rickey knew that the first African American in the majors had to be an excellent all-around athlete who could maintain a high level of performance despite certain abuse and pressure, and decided that the best candidate was Jackie Robinson of the Kansas City Monarchs, a good player though hardly a star. Robinson grew up in an interracial community in California, where he had been an outstanding all-around athlete and an All-American football player at UCLA. Furthermore, he had been an officer in the Army, and was married. After a stressful interview with Rickey, in which he promised not to challenge racist attacks, Robinson was signed on October 33, 1945. Rickey's action was unanimously opposed by other club owners.

In 1946, Robinson played professional baseball for the Montreal Royals, the Dodgers' top farm team. Spring training in Florida proved a trying experience, as Robinson had difficulty finding meals and accommodation and was once even ordered off the field by a local sheriff, but when the club moved north conditions eased. For a time, he was joined by John Wright and Roy Partlow, Negro League veterans, but they were eventually demoted to Trois Rivières, Quebec (Class C). Robinson was enormously successful, leading the Class AAA International League with a .349 batting average and in runs scored with 119. The Dodgers also had two other African-American minor leaguers, catcher Roy Campanella and pitcher Don Newcombe, who played for Nashua, N.H. (Class B).

In 1947, Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers following spring training in Cuba, where race relations were less hostile than in Florida. He encountered discrimination from teammates, who originally petitioned to keep him out. Rickey offered to trade any player who did not wish to play alongside Robinson. Opponents, particularly members of the Philadelphia Phillies and St. Louis Cardinals, threatened to strike, but were warned by Commissioner Chandler that any player who protested in that manner would be suspended. Robinson turned out to be a great gate attraction, and had a superb first year, despite being moved to an unfamiliar position, first base. He led the Dodgers to the National League pennant and won the first Rookie of the Year Award. A handful of other blacks also played that year, including pitcher Dan Bank-head for the Dodgers. Larry Doby, one of the Negro Leagues' top prospects, became the first African American in the American League when Cleveland Indians' owner Bill Veeck purchased his contract for $10,000 from the Newark Eagles in the summer of 1947. This purchase was an exception to the general pattern of uncompensated raids that major league clubs were beginning to make on Negro League teams, whose players had no reserve clause binding them to their teams. Later in the season, Henry Thompson and Willard Brown were briefly brought up by the St. Louis Browns to increase attendance, but neither did well and they were demoted after a month.

In 1948, the Dodgers called up Roy Campanella, and late in the season, the Cleveland Indians added forty-two year old pitcher Satchel Paige, a twenty-two year veteran of the Negro Leagues. Paige, like most other black players, took a substantial salary cut to compete in the major leagues. His contribution, however, was less significant than that of Doby, who batted .301 and helped lead the Indians to the World Championship.

The following year, Don Newcombe of the Dodgers was named Rookie of the Year, Jackie Robinson was named National League Most Valuable Player, and he, Doby, and Campanella made the All-Star teams. However, the major leagues had room only for stars and were not

interested in older players, with the exception of Paige. There were blacks in every Class AAA and A league that year. However, many, including Ray Dandridge, an all-time Negro League star who hit .364 for Minneapolis (of the Class AAA American Association), started in leagues beneath their ability.

Within the next few years, lower minor leagues and other areas of organized baseball outside the South also integrated. Even the All-American Girls Baseball League discussed integrating its teams in the years before its demise in 1954. The integration of southern teams in the minors (there were no major league teams in the deep South until 1965) began in 1952 in Florida, the Upper South, and the Southwest, because of blacks' superior play and their ability to attract crowds. A major breakthrough occurred in 1953 when the Class A South Atlantic (Sally) League, which had teams in Florida, Georgia, and Alabama, integrated with three blacks, including Henry "Hank" Aaron with Jacksonville. The Cotton States League integrated in 1954, with blacks playing for Hot Springs, Arkansas, and Meridian, Mississippi. After the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas decision in 1954, race relations became more hostile in the South, and integrated baseball became a threat to white supremacy. Integration continued, however, though at a slower pace. By 1955, the only high-level minor league without blacks was the Southern Association (AA). Nat Peeples, who appeared in two games for Atlanta, was the only African American to play in the league, which disbanded in 1961. In 1957 Texas League nines were barred by Louisiana law from playing their black players in Shreveport. African-American fans responded by boycotting the league, with the result that the league dropped the Louisiana franchise.

The pace of integration in the major leagues was slow, and as late as September 1953, only six teams had black players. Many whites undoubtedly agreed with St. Louis Cardinals owner Sam Breadon, who in the late 1940s expressed his belief that only a handful of black players could be talented enough to make the major leagues. Teams avoided hiring veteran black ballplayers, and sought only young men with star potential and a clean image. Players considered too proud or "uppity," like Yankee minor leaguer Vic Power, faced great difficulties. Between September 1953 and early 1954, six more teams integrated, but the champion New York Yankees refused to integrate until 1955, when catcher Elston Howard joined the team, and it was not until July 21, 1959, that the last holdout, the Boston Red Sox, brought Elijah "Pumpsie" Green to the majors. Once teams were integrated, they did not go out of their way to assure their black players service at restaurants and hotels. Players of different races were rarely roommates, and teams with more than one African-American player always roomed blacks together.

African Americans in Major League Baseball after 1960

In the years since integration, African Americans have starred in major league baseball. In the National League, the first of the two major leagues to integrate, African Americans soon won five straight Rookie of the Year Awards (1949–1953) and seven straight Most Valuable Player (MVP) Awards (1953–1959). Blacks and Latinos, most of whom had been too dark-skinned for the major leagues before integration, soon revolutionized the game, introducing an emphasis on speed and base running in addition to power hitting. Between 1949 and 2004, white players led the NL in stolen bases just four times, and in the AL only three from 1951–2004. Maury Wills broke Ty Cobb's record by stealing 104 bases in 1962, before his total was exceeded by Lou Brock, who stole 118 in 1974 and a record 938 during his career, which included 3,023 hits. Brock's records were exceeded in turn by Rickey Henderson, who set the single-season mark with 130 steals in 1982 and 1,406 total for his career.

Black African Americans and Black Latinos have won scores of batting titles, home run championships, and MVP awards. They have included four of the top five lifetime home run leaders: Henry Aaron, the all-time leader in home runs (755), runs batted in (2,297), and extra-base hits (1,477); Barry Bonds, seven time MVP, Willie Mays, and Frank Robinson, a Triple Crown Winner (1966) and the first player to win the Most Valuable Player award in both leagues. Among pitchers, in 1968 Bob Gibson attained a 1.12 ERA, by far the lowest since World War I, and is second all-time in World Series wins and strikeouts (holding the single-game World Series strikeout record of 17). Ferguson Jenkins won 284 games and amassed 3,192 strikeouts. By 2005, more than forty players of color had been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Among North American blacks, representation in the major leagues reached its proportionate share of the national population in the late 1950s (12 percent). The first all-black starting team played for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1967. The percentage of black Americans in the major leagues peaked at 27 percent in 1975. By 1995, blacks were down to 19 percent, and in 2002 were just 10 percent of all major leaguers. The waning African-American presence in baseball reflects reduced black interest in the sport.

Baseball, like other sports, has been an avenue of African-American social mobility. A study made during the late 1980s of major leaguers born since 1940 found that five-sixths of blacks (83.3 percent) had blue-collar backgrounds while three-fourths of white players came from white-collar backgrounds. Until the 1970s, black players generally earned less than white players of equal ability. By the mid-1980s, African-American players made more money per capita than white players, and race was no longer considered a factor in their compensation.

However, discrimination has continued in many areas. Blacks have long complained of informal team quotas and the fact that mediocre black players were removed from teams, while white nonstarters were retained. Blacks have also been slotted by position. Black pitchers and catchers (positions which are often considered centers of leadership and intellectual challenge) have been disproportionately rare.

Many blacks still consider racism prevalent in the baseball world. In the early 1970s, when Henry Aaron was challenging Babe Ruth's home run record, he received hate mail and racial threats. In the 1980s, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found that Boston Red Sox coach Tommy Harper was fired after he complained that the Florida country club, which served as the team's spring training headquarters, excluded blacks. In 1993 Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott was suspended for racial slurs. During the summer of 1998, when new season home run records were set, many blacks questioned whether the achievements of Chicago Cubs slugger Sammy Sosa, a dark-skinned Dominican, were being ignored by Americans due to racial factors.

Off-the-field opportunities in baseball have slowly improved. In 1966, Emmett Ashford became the first black umpire in the major leagues. The issue of blacks in management positions got considerable attention in 1987 from an interview with Al Campanis, Los Angeles Dodgers vice president for player personnel, on the ABC-TV show Nightline. Campanis questioned whether blacks had the "necessities" to be managers. The first black manager was Frank Robinson of Cleveland in 1975, who later managed in Baltimore, San Francisco, Montreal, and Washington, D.C. There have been a number of African American managers since, including Cito Gaston, who won the World Series with Toronto in 1992. In 2005 there were four black managers, Willie Randolph of the Mets, Dusty Baker of the Cubs, Robinson of the Expos, and Lloyd McClendon of the Pirates, and one black Latino manager, Felipe Alou of the San Francisco Giants, out of thirty major league baseball teams.

Regarding front office positions, 10 percent of all senior administrators in 2005 were black, including 5 percent of vice presidents. In 1990, Ellen Weddington of the Boston Red Sox became the first black female assistant general manager, and five years later, Bob Watson of the New York Yankees became the first black general manager. Blacks in administration are mainly in community relations (33 percent). The highest ranking black in MLB history was Bill White, president of the National League from 1989 through 1994.

Barry Bonds

Perhaps best known as the holder of Major League Baseball's single season home run record (seventy-three in 2001), Barry Bonds has crafted one of the finest careers baseball has ever seen. A thirteen-time all star with seven Most Valuable Player awards—four more than any other National League player ever—and two batting titles, Bonds also holds the major league record for most consecutive seasons (thirteen) with thirty or more home runs, bested his own single-season records for on-base percentage (.582 in 2002, .609 in 2004) and walks, and surpassed Rickey Henderson as the all-time most-walked player.

In 2004 alone, Bonds drew 232 walks (120 intentional) while still managing to hit forty-five home runs in fewer than 400 at bats. That he hit with such little protection around him in the line up throughout much of his career made it unlikely that he would see many good pitches. Babe Ruth had Lou Gehrig hitting behind him and Mickey Mantle had Roger Maris. To some, this assessment combined with his numbers make Bonds a clear choice as most dominant offensive force in the game.

Some pundits argue that his offensive stats cannot be compared fairly with those of great players past—such as Babe Ruth—because of the allegations of Bonds using steroids in addition to claims of his playing during "the age of the home run." Like Babe Ruth, Bonds's success does not rest solely on one-dimensional talent, however. Bonds's arm and range in the outfield are excellent and he has frequently stolen extra-base hits from opposing teams because of his athleticism and speed. These talents earned him eight Gold Glove awards. Additionally, Bonds surpassed thirty stolen bases nine times in his career, stealing as many as fifty-two in 1990, though the frequency of thefts has declined. His speed on the basepath made him the charter member of the 500-homer/500-steals club. Manufacturing runs (2,070; seventh most all-time) with walks and steals helped his team to victory just as much as the long ball did.

In 1993 Bonds, along with family members, founded the Barry Bonds Family Foundation. Its mission is to promote and fund programs for African-American youth within San Francisco Bay Area communities. Bonds has been a supporter of several charities including, Homepage for the Holidays, which provides toys and gifts to low-income children on Christmas Day. He has also been involved in the Barry Bonds Bone Marrow Campaign to Celebrate Life and The Field O' Dreams Project.

Black interest in baseball has been declining over the last generation. A 1986 survey found that blacks made up just 6.8 percent of baseball spectators, less than either football (7.5 percent) or basketball (17.0 percent), both of which are professional sports with higher average ticket prices, but sports whose players are predominantly African American. Ironically, as African Americans have become dominant in other major sports, their level of participation in the sport that broke most social barriers has fallen dramatically.

See also Aaron, Hank; Great Depression and the New Deal; Howard University; Mays, Willie; Morehouse College; Paige, Satchel; Pittsburgh Courier ; Robeson, Paul; Robinson, Jackie; Related Maps, Graphs, or Tables in Appendix: African-American Members of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Cooperstown, N.Y.; Negro League Teams; Negro League Batting Champions; and First African-Americans Players on Major League Baseball Teams

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donn rogosin (1996)

steven a. riess (1996)
Updated by Riess 2005