Negro League Baseball

by James Overmyer
|
7 books
Baseball, the National Pastime, was a segregated sport until the mid-1940s. To counter this discrimination Black players, owners, and managers ran their own leagues. Those leagues are now recognized as major leagues, and their players, including stars who are Baseball Hall of Fame members, are recognized as having been major leaguers. This list gives readers interested in both baseball and integration a chance to learn about this now-distant part of American history.
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Only the Ball was White

A History of Legendary Black Players and All-Black Professional Teams
Robert Peterson, 1992
Peterson was a magazine writer in the 1960s who became curious about those Black baseball teams he saw play in the Pennsylvania town where he grew up. He set out with his tape recorder to track down and interview many Negro League figures, and dove into library newspaper collections to find the facts to back up their reminiscences. First published in 1970 and still in print, this is the first comprehensive history of Black professional baseball, the history of which was in serious danger of being lost to modern memory when the Negro Leagues were put out of business in the 1950s following Major League integration. Many of us who write about Black ball read this book first.

If You Were Only White

The Life of Leroy "Satchel" Paige
Donald Spivey, 2012
Don Spivey’s book about the great Satchel Paige is a biography the way it should be written. It treats Paige not only as the legendary ballplayer he was, but also as a fascinating person: a disadvantaged youth who learned to pitch in reform school and a daring individualist in a team game who showcased his superior talents by, for example, calling in his outfielders, then striking out the side. Spivey believes Satchel’s outrageous record of constantly switching teams in search of better pay was not irresponsible – he grew up poor and decided as a man he would not live that way again. Spivey makes another assertion that few other Paige biographers have: Satch’s easy-going manner hid a man whose bosom was “constantly burning and smoldering because of racism in America.”

Baseball's Great Experiment

Jackie Robinson and His Legacy
Jules Tygiel, 1997
The story of the Negro Leagues is not complete without the telling of the story of where their existence led. Shunned by a segregationist “gentlemen’s agreement” among white Major League executives, Black players in the first half of the 20th century competed among themselves, producing individual star players, powerhouse teams, and memorable on-field moments. The signing of Jackie Robinson by the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1946 signaled that the color barrier was finally coming down. Integration today seems so obvious but getting Blacks into the majors was a complex business, fraught with potential pitfalls. Tygiel’s book is the best single telling of this important American story.

Oscar Charleston

The Life and Legend of Baseball's Greatest Forgotten Player
Jeremy Beer, 2021
Charleston is one of the very best to ever play in the Negro Leagues. He entered Black baseball even before the first Negro League was started and played 27 seasons up to World War II. He managed in the Negro Leagues for 15 seasons, his gigs including the Pittsburgh Crawfords of the early 1930s, one of the best professional teams of all time. Beer’s award-winning book tells the whole life of this Hall of Famer and straightens out historical misconceptions, for example showing that his reputation for dirty play and a terrible temper is ill-founded (“While he was happy to join fights in progress, he did not usually start them”).

Negro League Baseball

The Rise and Ruin of a Black Institution
Neil Lanctot, 2011
The Negro Leagues, like all organized sports leagues, were showcases for the stars of the game – Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, Oscar Charleston, and the like. But, like all the other leagues, they were businesses, too. Sports entrepreneurs, most of them African American, invested in all-Black teams that formed a “shadow” alternative to Major League Baseball where the players, and most of the owners, too, were not welcome due to segregation. Lanctot, a history professor comfortable with deep and extensive research, chronicles the successes and failures of the Black leagues, which were almost always existing on a financial knife’s edge, until the integration of pro ball in 1946 spelled their death.

Sandlot Seasons

Sport in Black Pittsburgh
Rob Ruck, 1987
Pittsburgh, thanks to the presence of Negro League owners Cumberland Posey’s Homestead Grays and William “Gus” Greenlee’s Pittsburgh Crawfords, were among the most important cities for Negro League ball. Posey and Greenlee dominated the executive level of Black ball, as the Crawfords, and then the Grays, dominated on the field. Ruck’s book, a major early effort to document African American sports, deals with other sports, also, but devotes much of its space to Black baseball.

We Are the Ship

The Story of Negro League Baseball
Kadir Nelson, 2008
Nelson has written an excellent young adults history of Black baseball, but the highlight of this book is his stunning illustrations of star players and teams from throughout baseball history. His paintings are in major collections, and his illustrations have appeared in publications including “The New Yorker” magazine. One of his Negro League paintings is on a United States Postal Service stamp honoring the Negro Leagues. The title of the book, by the way, is a quote from Negro Leagues founder Andrew “Rube” Foster regarding the importance of a league organization for Blacks.