At Home Plate

Black Diamond: The Story of the Negro Baseball Leagues

Black Diamond: The Story of the Negro Baseball Leagues
By Patricia C. McKissack and Fredrick McKissack
Published by Scholastic Inc.
p. 177

Although written for a younger audience, “Black Diamond” is a historic book of great importance. It’s an easy read, although not overly well focused, but that perhaps is because of the huge scope of this tiny book. In essence, the book serves as an introduction to how the players in the Negro leagues lived. Many of the game’s great players were black, and never achieved the status they deserved because of segregation and discrimination.

Black baseball did not start appreciably later than baseball in general. In the 1860's, organized black baseball games were a huge social event in black communities. During the Civil War, soldiers of all colors played together in the North. Even after the war black players were welcomed by white teams... but only for a while.

For reasons which can only be defined as bigotry, baseball, in all of its disparate leagues and teams, started shutting their doors to black players. Most of these leagues had no formal policy of discrimination, just agreements within their ranks that black ball clubs would not be allowed to join the new associations and that black players would not be allowed on the teams.

Up until 1888, there were still a handful of black professional players on integrated teams, but in 1889 the leagues became exclusively the realm of white players. It stayed that way for over a half century later, until 1947.

It was not just black players who were banned but anyone who was Hispanic, Native American, or dark skinned. Players with a lighter complexion were accepted, and a large number of them assumed another ethnicity in order to play. It was so prevalent that one team, arguably the first all black professional team, called themselves the “Cuban Giants” in the hope of being accepted by the majors... despite the fact that not a single player on the team was Cuban, Hispanic, or could even speak Spanish.

In 1876 the National League was formed, but it was not until 1887 when the first real attempt to form a true “Negro” league occurred. It started well, but only lasted three weeks before failing. Initially, there was some hope for black teams as several were allowed to play in the minor leagues. However, even these teams were banned after the turn of the century.

So black teams formed and lived largely as barnstormers, a traveling team which took on other teams or local groups for a percentage of the gate. Many of the teams earned a decent living doing this, but they had hard lives, often sleeping on buses or the baseball fields where they would play up to four games on the next day. That was life as a black barnstorming team.

Eventually, however, real leagues formed. Just like in the earliest days of baseball, some lived, and some died. Eventually, the strongest - the Negro National League - formed, soon followed by the Negro American League. The Negro American League was the last of the Negro leagues to fold, lasting until 1955.

The book details the struggles and the history of these leagues and teaches us about their stars, teams and about men who truly loved baseball even if their skin was not the Major League approved shade. It’s a great book for kids, and even a wonderful starting point for adults who really want the whole story of the game of baseball.

Give this one 1.5 balls for adults (but 2.5 balls for kids and teens) of 4 balls.

Have you always wanted to be a sportswriter? We did too! We can always use writers, editors, fact checkers, photographers, graphic designers, and web gurus to help us make the site even better. Come chase your dreams with us. Click here for more information

Would you like to Exchange Links? Our links page can be found here: Links

Search Now: