Negro Baseball Leagues
Few and chosen : defining negro leagues greatness
Monte Irvin with Phil Pepe.
Chicago, Il. : Triumph Books, 2007.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Ruling over monarchs, giants & stars : umpiring in the Negro leagues & beyond
Bob Motley with Byron Motley.
Champaign, IL : Sports Pub., 2007.
The Kansas City Monarchs. The Chicago American Giants. The St. Louis Stars. The Newark Eagles. The Birmingham Black Barons. The Homestead Grays. The Cuban X Giants. For over 50 years, they were the Yankees, Cardinals, and Red Sox of black baseball in America. And for over a decade beginning in the mid-1940s, umpire Bob Motley called balls and strikes for their games, earning the opportunity to work with such legends as Satchel Paige, Hank Aaron, Ernie Banks, and Willie Mays. Today, Motley is the only living Negro League arbiter, and Ruling Over Monarchs, Giants #38; Stars is his revealing, humorous memoir.
Black baseball and Chicago : essays on the players, teams, and games of the Negro leagues' most important city
edited by Leslie A. Heaphy.
Jefferson, N.C. : McFarland & Co., c2006.
Founded in 1920, the Negro National League originally comprised teams throughout the Midwest, but the league's groundwork was laid in one city?Chicago. This essay collection presents notable papers delivered at the 2005 Jerry Malloy Negro League Conference in Chicago. With contributions from many Negro Leagues experts, the work offers a cohesive history of Chicago's long relationship with black baseball. After an introduction and an overview, sections cover early Chicago baseball from the nineteenth century to the founding of the Negro Leagues; teams in the Negro Leagues after 1920; players, both well-known and obscure, who spent significant time with Chicago clubs; owners and managers; the East-West All Star Game; ballparks; the Great Lakes Naval Team; and the integration of the Cubs and White Sox. Appendices provide a timeline of major black-baseball events in Chicago and player rosters for Chicago?area teams.
The Negro Leagues chronology : events in organized Black baseball, 1920-1948
Christopher Hauser.
Jefferson, N.C. : McFarland & Co., c2006.
With the formation of the Negro National League in 1920, black baseball players forged their own legacy in America's national pastime. For the next nearly three decades, various Negro Leagues operated throughout the country. Black owners and team managers struggled to keep Negro Leagues afloat, faced with difficulties such as creating a balanced league schedule, booking adequate stadiums and enforcing contracts.
In 1920 Rube Foster formed the first official Negro Baseball League, the Negro National League (NNL), in Kansas City.
|
Special games
The National Negro League (NNL) and Eastern Colored League (ECL) inaugurated a World Series in 1924.
In 1933 over 20,000 fans attended the first East-West All-Star game at Chicago's Comiskey Park.
|
| Negro League Baseball Timeline |
During the next 40 years the NNL and other black baseball leagues throughout the country provided Americans with some of the best baseball games and players ever seen on the diamond.
Names of the most successful leagues in addition to the NNL were the Eastern Colored League (formed in 1923), American Negro League (formed in 1929), and Negro American League (formed in 1937).
St. Louis had a team as early as 1922. Originally known at the St. Louis Giants, the team became the the Saint Louis Stars. The Stars played twelve seasons (1922-31, 1937, 1939) winning championships in 1928, 1930, and 1931. Well-known players included speedster James "Cool Papa" Bell, George Scales, George "Mule" Suttles, and Willie "Devil" Wells.
In 1947 Jackie Robinson signed a contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers, becoming the first black baseball player to cross the color barrier. Although the Negro League continued until 1960, Robinson's success marked the beginning of the end for the Negro Baseball League.
Today the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum (Kansas City), Negro League Baseball Players Association and Negro League Baseball.com work to keep alive the history and stories of the men (and yes women) who played in the leagues.
Article by: St. Louis Public Library staff.
