 |
| Rube Foster, the mastermind behind the creation of the Negro Leagues |
Jackie Robinson joining the
Brooklyn Dodgers broke the colour barrier for Major League Baseball. It ushered
in a new era of talented ball players who had never had the opportunity to
display their skills in the best baseball league in the world. Or was it?
While racism and prejudices had
kept both the American and National Leagues as white as snow, black players had
been able to display their talents in a variety of Negro Professional Leagues
well before the start of the twentieth century. But for the most part, the
early leagues were doomed to failure from the beginning. Lack of co-operation
amongst owners and players, underfinanced and mis-managed teams would come and
go, leaving the players as nomads, not knowing from one year to the next (and
sometimes one month to the next) where, or even if they would be playing.
Enter Andrew “Rube” Foster who
would oversee the operation of the first Negro National League, founded in
1920. And while the NNL would meet its demise after only 11 years, it paved the
way for the more commonly know NNL that would begin operations in 1933 and last
several years after black players integrated into the Major Leagues. Four years
after the formation of the second NNL, in 1937 the Negro American League would
come into existence and last until the end of 1962.
Originally, my plan for
celebrating the history of the Negro Leagues in honour of the 70th
anniversary of Jackie Robinson joining the Brooklyn Dodgers, was to begin with
a five-part series outlining the leagues from beginning to end. Alas, my
intention was good, but futile. There is just too much information about the
history of Black baseball to even begin to try to condense it into five
500-word blog posts.
Instead, we will forgo that part
and instead focus on the fifteen most popular Negro League teams of the era and
follow that with the top 25 All-time Negro League Players.
And as for the history of the
Leagues, I will recommend two books that I read to prepare myself for this
project. Both books I will review later in the year, but if you wanted to read
for yourself an important and integral piece of baseball history, both can be
found on Amazon.ca in various formats. I will leave links on the right hand
side of my blog for the next several weeks.
The first is “Shades of Glory:
The Negro Leagues & the Story of African-American Baseball” written by
Lawrence D. Hogan and Jules Tygiel, published in 2006. The second book is “The
Negro Leagues, 1869-1960” by Leslie A. Heaphy, published in 2013.
Other books that were helpful in
my research were (and I will also do book reviews on these later in the year as
well): “Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend” (Larry Tye, 2010),
“Campy: The Two Lives of Roy Campanella” (Neil Lanctot, 2012) and “I Was Right
On Time” (David Conrads and Buck O’Neil, 1997). All three are highly
entertaining and enjoyable reads.
Follow us on Twitter at @topofthethird
No comments:
Post a Comment