As the Civil war drew to an end, it brought about the dawn of the game that would eventually be referred to as America’s “National Pastime.” According to the Baraboo Daily News, by 1867 baseball was pretty much organized and in full swing in the town of Baraboo, WI with much of the credit owed to the enthusiastic father of the game, George Dodd. Baseball literally became the heart of little Baraboo,...
Race and Baseball during the Civil War When you think of the first African American baseball player, who comes to your mind? For most people, it’s Jackie Robinson back in 1947 with the Brooklyn Dodgers. What if I told you that African Americans had been playing baseball for more than 100 years before that? Back in the 1840’s through the 1850’s, African Americans...
Baseball fans across the U.S have heard of players such as David Ortiz, Satchel Paige, or even Bo Jackson. They are some of the greatest African Americans to step foot on a baseball field. Some refer to them as “freaks of nature” because of their playing abilities. Today in Major League Baseball, about 8.5 % of the players on opening day rosters are African Americans. We all know that there was...
Women in Baseball “There’s no crying in baseball.” These famous words were spoken by Tom Hanks in the movie A League of Their Own. In 1992, Director Penny Marshall brought the true story of women in baseball to movie theatres across the world. At a time when America was at the forefront of brutal World War II, the future of Major League baseball was unknown. The...
In the New York Times article entitled, “Rickey Takes Slap at Negro Leagues”, Branch Rickey, the president of the Brooklyn Dodgers faced a hailstorm of critics as he announced his decision to sign Jackie Robinson to the previously all white Brooklyn Dodgers farm team. Facing the press, he dispelled the rumors that he had been forced into making the deal, that the Negro leagues had...
The difference between the North and South in the United States has been similar to that of night and day. During the period between the 1870s and the 1970s, the South is generally viewed by outsiders as a backward, ultra-racist region, and the North is seen as tolerant and progressive. Only a year apart, Birmingham, Alabama praises its successful Negro League Baseball team, while New York...
A pair of “big league” Negro baseball teams, the Homestead Grays of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and the Newark, New Jersey, Dodgers played in Wilson, North Carolina, in 1935. The teams were members of the Negro National League. Buck Leonard, a Rocky Mount, N.C. native, was first baseman and captain of the Grays. Leonard stated, “this league is the only way for ‘us’ to play baseball. ...
Lying, cheating, and gambling. Do these sound like actions that men who were respected and looked upon with admiration would commit? The fans who supported the Chicago White Sox in 1919 never thought the players they adored would do such things. However, these fans were wrong. In September 1920, just as playoffs were about to begin, eight beloved players from the White Sox were charged with...
During the 1930s, J.T. White was a man living and working in hard times. He did what he could to heal the pains of Birmingham. White served as the organizer for the Tennessee Coal Industry (T.C.I.) intramural baseball team. White may not have made a dent in the ailing economy of the United States, but he did manage to boost the morale of the people around him. White wrote to a Mr....