This text gives readers the chance to experience the unique character and personalities of the African American game of baseball in the United States, starting from the time of slavery, through the Negro Leagues and integration period, and beyond. For 100 years, African Americans were barred from playing in the premier baseball leagues of the United States—where only Caucasians were allowed. Talented black athletes until the 1950s were largely limited to only playing in Negro leagues, or possibly playing against white teams in exhibition, post-season play, or barnstorming contests—if it was deemed profitable for the white hosts. Even so, the people and events of Jim Crow baseball had incredible beauty, richness, and quality of play and character. The deep significance of Negro baseball leagues in establishing the texture of American history is an experience that cannot be allowed to slip away and be forgotten. This book takes readers from the origins of African Americans playing the American game of baseball on southern plantations in the pre-Civil War era through Black baseball and America's long era of Jim Crow segregation to the significance of Black baseball within our modern-day, post-Civil Rights Movement perspective.

Tells the forgotten story of Black star-quality athletes excluded from professional baseball because of the big league's color line.

Taking readers back in time to 1947, an award-winning journalist chronicles an integrated baseball team in Bismarck, North Dakota that rose above a segregated society to become champions, delving into the history of the players, the town and baseball itself.

America and baseball are rediscovering the game played by African Americans before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947. We now know a great deal about the Negro Leagues of 1920 on, and their great stars-Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, and their contemporaries. But what of the pre-1920 black game? From the onset in the 1880s of the "gentleman's agreement" that barred blacks from playing in white leagues, that game is nearly invisible. Financially shaky, with sporadic media coverage even in black newspapers and completely overlooked by the mainstream, Negro teams of this era played on for love of the game and in hopes that their skills would receive their due. In 1907, Sol White, a remarkable African-American ballplayer, successful manager, and baseball loyalist, wrote a small volume on the history of the black game. Part fund-raising effort, advertising brochure, team hype, celebration of black baseball, and throughout an implicit and explicit challenge to racism, Sol White's History of Colored Base Ball is the source of much of what we know of the events in the organized black game of that time. The original was poorly printed, and copies are exceedingly rare (known and rumored copies number only four). This edition republishes the full 1907 edition (with the even rarer supplement), completely reset for legibility, and reproduces all the original's illustrations, including the advertisements that speak volumes on the social world of the day. Fifteen additional documents from 1886 to 1936 augment the picture of the black game and our record of Sol White himself. The work is introduced by Jerry Malloy, a recognized expert on the history of Negro leagues who has spent years inpainstaking research into this vanished world.

From an award-winning writer, the first linked history of African Americans and Latinos in Major League Baseball After peaking at 27 percent of all major leaguers in 1975, African Americans now make up less than one-tenth--a decline unimaginable in other men's pro sports. The number of Latin Americans, by contrast, has exploded to over one-quarter of all major leaguers and roughly half of those playing in the minors. Award-winning historian Rob Ruck not only explains the catalyst for this sea change; he also breaks down the consequences that cut across society. Integration cost black and Caribbean societies control over their own sporting lives, changing the meaning of the sport, but not always for the better. While it channeled black and Latino athletes into major league baseball, integration did little for the communities they left behind. By looking at this history from the vantage point of black America and the Caribbean, a more complex story comes into focus, one largely missing from traditional narratives of baseball's history. Raceball unveils a fresh and stunning truth: baseball has never been stronger as a business, never weaker as a game.

BACK ISSUE Under the guidance of Leslie Heaphy and an editorial board of leading historians, this peer-reviewed, annual book series offers new, authoritative research on all subjects related to black baseball, including the Negro major and minor leagues, teams, and players; pre-Negro League organization and play; barnstorming; segregation and integration; class, gender, and ethnicity; the business of black baseball; and the arts. Prior to Volume 9, Black Ball was published as Black Ball: A Negro Leagues Journal. This is a back issue of that journal.

In fact, not until 1952 was there a rule barring women from being professional players.

This text gives readers the chance to experience the unique character and personalities of the African American game of baseball in the United States, starting from the time of slavery, through the Negro Leagues and integration period, and beyond. For 100 years, African Americans were barred from playing in the premier baseball leagues of the United States—where only Caucasians were allowed. Talented black athletes until the 1950s were largely limited to only playing in Negro leagues, or possibly playing against white teams in exhibition, post-season play, or barnstorming contests—if it was deemed profitable for the white hosts. Even so, the people and events of Jim Crow baseball had incredible beauty, richness, and quality of play and character. The deep significance of Negro baseball leagues in establishing the texture of American history is an experience that cannot be allowed to slip away and be forgotten. This book takes readers from the origins of African Americans playing the American game of baseball on southern plantations in the pre-Civil War era through Black baseball and America's long era of Jim Crow segregation to the significance of Black baseball within our modern-day, post-Civil Rights Movement perspective.

The Black Fives is a groundbreaking, timely history of the largely unknown early days of Black basketball, bringing to life the trailblazing players, teams, and impresarios who pioneered the sport. “For a game that has meant so much to the world, Claude Johnson somehow presents a definitive account for a part of basketball’s history that for so long was kept away from us. Claude is a superhero storyteller, and this book is a bona fide superpower.” —Justin Tinsley, author of It Was All a Dream: Biggie and the World That Made Him From the introduction of the game of basketball to Black communities on a wide scale in 1904 to the racial integration of the NBA in 1950, dozens of African American teams were founded and flourished. This period, known as the Black Fives Era (teams at the time were often called “fives”), was a time of pioneering players and managers. They battled discrimination and marginalization and created culturally rich, socially meaningful events. But despite headline-making rivalries between big-city clubs, barnstorming tours across the country, innovative business models, and undeniably talented players, this period is almost entirely unknown to basketball fans. Claude Johnson has made it his mission to change that. An advocate fiercely committed to our history, for more than two decades Johnson has conducted interviews, mined archives, collected artifacts, and helped to preserve this historically important African American experience that otherwise would have been lost. This essential book is the result of his work, a landmark narrative history that braids together the stories of these forgotten pioneers and rewrites our understanding of the story of basketball.

Offers a history of African American exclusion from baseball, and assesses the changing racial attitudes that led up to Jackie Robinson's acceptance by the Brooklyn Dodgers.