Papers like Negro Sporting News covered Black baseball teams when other papers did not and advocated for integration of Major League Baseball. Photo credit: Baseball Hall of Fame.
Breaking the “Color Line”
the
Integration of Major League Baseball
Starting in the 1930s, reporters at African-American newspapers around the country started a campaign to integrate Major League Baseball. This group of journalists published open letters to team owners, polled white players and managers, brought Black players to open tryouts, and kept the issue in the public consciousness. Several white journalists from major papers joined the push. Unions and civil rights groups staged protests outside Yankee Stadium, Ebbets Field, Comiskey Park, and Wrigley Field. In 1940, an “End Jim Crow in Baseball” demonstration occurred at the World’s Fair. Activists gathered over a million signatures on petitions calling for Major League Baseball to recruit Black players. In 1941, a delegation was sent to meet with Commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis to ask for integration. Paul Robeson, the prominent Black entertainer and activist, spoke at the 1943 baseball owners winter meeting, where he was patently ignored by owners under the direction of Landis. In 1945, a member of the Boston City Council threatened to deny the Red Sox a permit to play on Sundays unless they auditioned Black players. The Red Sox did so, with no intention of hiring someone as did their fellow MLB teams the Pittsburgh Pirates and Chicago White Sox who also held auditions for Black players. Even though they had no intention of hiring, the public nature of the conflict put even more pressure on team management. Other politicians also used their platform to push for integration. Ben Davis, a Black New York City Councilman, distributed leaflets with a picture of a dead Black soldier and a baseball player with the phrase “Good enough to die for his country, but not good enough for organized baseball.” The New
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York state legislature passed an anti-discrimination in hiring law and began an investigation into MLB hiring practices. New York City Mayor LaGuardia established a committee to push New York teams to hire Black players and Congressman Marcantonio, who represented Harlem, called for an investigation into racist practices in baseball. In October 1945, Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey announced that they were recruiting Jackie Robinson to their roster from the Kansas City Monarchs. Robinson was placed on the Dodgers minor league team in Montreal for the following season, and then made his Dodgers debut on opening day 1947. In 1952, a full five years after Robinson broke the color barrier, less than half (6 of 16) major league teams had a Black player. It was not until 1959 that the last non-integrated team, the Boston Red Sox, finally brought a Black player onto their roster. Between 1949 and 1960, Black players won eight of the twelve Rookie of the Year awards, proving the naysayers wrong about Black players being “less qualified” to play in the major leagues. Unfortunately, integration didn’t automatically lead to equality. Academic studies done from the 1960s to the 1990s made clear that discrimination was still rampant in baseball. Teams were more likely to hire a weak-hitting white player over a weakhitting Black player as utility man and Black players had less lucrative and fewer commercial endorsement deals. No team had a Black manager until 1975 and no general manager until 1977. Earvin “Magic” Johnson was the first African-American owner of a franchise when he joined a group who purchased the Dodgers in 2012.
Toni Stone – PlayGuide
