There was a wonderful story that popped up recently, then was quickly buried under the deluge of pandemic, election, and other news. Major League Baseball formally acknowledged Negro League players and teams as Major League players and teams, and incorporated Negro League stats into the MLB recordbooks. I remember learning about the Negro Leagues as a kid- my brother and I even had some Negro League posters up in our room, though I can’t remember now where we got them. It did not introduce me to historic discrimination, but it did provide food for thought. These days we see a disturbing amount of headlines about various continued strategies of racial discrimination. This is great, because it means that this ongoing problem is at the forefront of the national conversation. But the volume of discussion about how far we have to go can sometimes obscure how far we’ve already come. Additionally, the narrative of the Negro League as a story of discrimination obscures the story of the Black community in America adapting to the constraints placed on it by White society, and creating something amazing in spite of efforts to hold them back.
All Black baseball teams began not long after White teams, though it would take longer for them to organize into leagues. One of the earliest successful leagues was the Southern League of Colored Base Ballists, begun in 1886. Baseball itself took off just before the Civil War, in the 1850s. The National Association of Base Ball Players formed in 1857, and 10 years later, just after the Civil War, it banned Black members. Black teams played primarily exhibition games before regional leagues began to form in the late nineteenth century. Often, Black teams would play White semi pro teams.
Financial difficulties forced nearly every early Black team and league to fail, a fate also experienced by many White teams. Black baseball stayed alive in the form of barnstorming teams, who would travel around, playing against any team that would take them in exhibition matches. The golden age of Negro baseball began in 1920, when eight teams joined to form the Negro National League. These included some of the best known teams, such as the Kansas City Monarchs. It competed with the Eastern Colored League, and the two combined for an annual World Series several times in the 1920s.
The perseverance required to make these teams and leagues successful is inspiring. Though they occasionally played White teams, Black teams’ fans were primarily Black, and in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Blacks in America had little disposable income to spend on a sports team. The players themselves never had any sort of financial security, since teams and leagues endlessly formed and folded. The Negro National League folded with the start of the Great Depression, and throughout the 1930s, any attempts to create leagues failed. Nevertheless, the players continued to play, in whatever venue they could.
Despite the financial failure of Negro Leagues, Black baseball players demonstrated that they were just as talented as Whites, sometimes more so. Owners of Major League franchises saw the Negro Leagues as a huge pool of untapped talent. World War II, and the involvement of Black soldiers, began to change viewpoints toward integration. With the 1944 death of avid segregationist commissioner Kennesaw M. Landis, Major League Baseball began a path to integration. At this point, the well known story of Branch Rickey recruiting Jackie Robinson begins. Robinson signed in 1945, even though integration was still two years away. Four more players were signed shortly thereafter, though none made the same splash as Robinson. Jackie Robinson debuted for the Brooklyn Dodgers in April 1947, despite fierce opposition from the owners of most of the teams in the league.
Integration was the end of the Negro Leagues. Major League teams began mining Negro League teams for talent, and it did not take long for the best Black players to move to the Majors. Already a dubious financial investment at best, Black teams and leagues disappeared by 1954, unable to maintain a following.
The importance of the Negro Leagues to the development of baseball was recognized in a variety of ways. Stars such as Ted Williams advocated for the inclusion of Negro League stars in the Hall of Fame. A separate (but equal) display was planned, but the uproar was sufficient that in 1971 the Hall of Fame relented, and the first Black player admitted was Satchel Paige, a star of the Negro Leagues. Further recognition included honorary inductions into the Hall of Fame, and a postage stamp series. While it may seem like a small adjustment to some very old record books, perhaps the greatest step in recognizing the role of the Negro Leagues was the recent inclusion of Negro League players in Major League record books, officially removing the last barrier between the Negro Leagues and Major Leagues, completing the integration of baseball.