Focusing on the Negro American League Buckeyes, this detailed history describes the effects of major league integration on blackball in Cleveland, as well as the cont-roversial role that the local black press played in the transformation. Included are historical photos, rosters for all Cleveland Negro League teams, and a list of the city's players in the annual East-West All-Star game.

At the outset of summer break in 1959, Texas Tech senior Jerry Craft had no more enticing options than to stay home and help on the family ranch¿so the telephoned offer to play for a semipro baseball club he¿d never heard of came as a welcome surprise. But Craft was in for an even bigger surprise when he reported for tryout and discovered he¿d been recruited for the West Texas Colored League. Wichita Falls/Graham Stars manager Carl Sedberry persuaded Craft to put aside his misgivings and pitch for the Stars. Despite the derision of black teammates, fans, and opponents, and his own trepidation, ¿that white boy¿ took the mound to close a rousing victory in his first game. At home and on the road in segregated Texas, Craft saw discrimination firsthand and from every side. Yet out of his two seasons with the Stars comes an unlikely story of respect, character, humor, and ultimately friendship as the teammates pulled together to succeed in a game they loved.

This book continues the riches of two highly praised previous volumes, Voices from the Negro Leagues "interesting...solid"--MultiCultural Review) and The Negro Leagues Revisited ("wonderful"--Booklist/RBB; "voluminous...top-notch"--Public Library Quarterly). The players interviewed in this new book of interviews are Bill Bethea, John "Scoop" Brown, Paul Casanova, Jim Colzie, Bunny Davis, Ross Davis, Clifford DuBose, Lionel Evelyn, Hubert Glenn, Herald "Beebop" Gordon, Raymond Haggins, J.C. Hartman, Joe Henry, Carl Holden, Vernell Jackson, Clarence Jenkins, Ernest Johnson, Thomas Johnson, Marvin Jones, Ezell King, Willie Lee, Larry LeGrande, William Little, Nathaniel McClinic, John Mitchell, Grady Montgomery, Bob Motley, Charley Pride, Mack Pride, Bill "Sonny" Randall, Henry Saverson, Eugene Scruggs, Willie Sheelor, Sam Taylor, Ron Teasley, James Way, Sam Williams, Walter Williams, and Willie Young. Photographs of the players and their teammates and complete-as-possible statistics supplement the interviews.

Before Jackie Robinson integrated major league baseball in 1947, black and white ballplayers had been playing against one another for decades—even, on rare occasions, playing with each other. Interracial contests took place during the off-season, when major leaguers and Negro Leaguers alike fattened their wallets by playing exhibitions in cities and towns across America. These barnstorming tours reached new heights, however, when Satchel Paige and other African- American stars took on white teams headlined by the irrepressible Dizzy Dean. Lippy and funny, a born showman, the native Arkansan saw no reason why he shouldn’t pitch against Negro Leaguers. Paige, who feared no one and chased a buck harder than any player alive, instantly recognized the box-office appeal of competing against Dizzy Dean’s "All-Stars." Paige and Dean both featured soaring leg kicks and loved to mimic each other’s style to amuse fans. Skin color aside, the dirt-poor Southern pitchers had much in common.Historian Timothy M. Gay has unearthed long-forgotten exhibitions where Paige and Dean dueled, and he tells the story of their pioneering escapades in this engaging book. Long before they ever heard of Robinson or Larry Doby, baseball fans from Brooklyn to Enid, Oklahoma, watched black and white players battle on the same diamond. With such Hall of Fame teammates as Josh Gibson, Turkey Stearnes, Mule Suttles, Oscar Charleston, Cool Papa Bell, and Bullet Joe Rogan, Paige often had the upper hand against Diz. After arm troubles sidelined Dean, a new pitching phenom, Bob Feller—Rapid Robert—assembled his own teams to face Paige and other blackballers. By the time Paige became Feller’s teammate on the Cleveland Indians in 1948, a rookie at age forty-two, Satch and Feller had barnstormed against each other for more than a decade.These often obscure contests helped hasten the end of Jim Crow baseball, paving the way for the game’s integration. Satchel Paige, Dizzy Dean, and Bob Feller never set out to make social history—but that’s precisely what happened. Tim Gay has brought this era to vivid and colorful life in a book that every baseball fan will embrace.