The Negro Leagues

A Wheel Within a Wheel: The Negro Leagues
By F. R. Penn

Although many aspects of the early days of baseball have been well documented, historians are just beginning to chronicle the major role that Black athletes played in making professional baseball popular. Black ball players have played the game for about as many years as White players. Players of color, both Black and Hispanic, were on mostly White ball clubs in the first days of amateur ball, but when the majors started to become popular in the early 1900’s, an unwritten barbaric rule went into effect that kept players of color out of professional baseball.

At that time, segregation was the poison that had drained our society of its full potential. In baseball, it robbed us of the opportunity to witness some of the greatest athletes of all time on an even playing field. It was a time when legends such as Ty Cobb, Shoeless Joe Jackson, and Cy Young came to light. What would be our perception of those legends if segregation had not skewed our vision?

Minority players who might have achieved greatness in the majors were relegated to the minor leagues or, as they were called, the Negro Leagues. Life was tough for the Black ball player in those days. There were many sordid incidents, including clashes with the Klan, spitting on players from the stands, and the throwing of rocks at team buses. Yes there was definitely a "color barrier," not only for baseball but for America.

Many of the statistics and numbers from the Negro Leagues are unknown, and the talking points about greatness in the league cannot be verified because the games, events and incidents were not documented properly.

Until Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947, much of the history of players of color was forgotten and lost. Mostly, all we have as a resource are the stories of the players that played in the Negro Leagues.