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America’s National Negro Leagues Baseball Museum

egro League Baseball got its start thanks to the Segregation notwithstanding, Black players continued to find
increasing popularity of two things after the Civil ways to foster high-level competition in major northern cities.
NWar: baseball and segregation. The first “Colored Championship of the World” was held
Even before the Civil War, African Americans were in 1903, with pitcher Rube Foster leading the Cuban
playing America’s great pastime – baseball. Records X-Giants to victory over the Philadelphia Giants.
exist of an abbreviated game between two Black
teams as far back as 1855. The Negro National League
In the decades following the War, African In 1920, Rube Foster launched the Negro
American players started to play on military National League (NNL) with eight teams: Chicago
teams, college teams, and company teams, and American Giants, Chicago Giants, Cuban Stars,
formed clubs of their own in the New York area. Dayton Marcos, Detroit Stars, Kansas City Monarchs,
Eventually, some of these players even found their way to Indianapolis ABCs, and the St. Louis Giants. The league’s
professional teams with white players, but that was not early financial success prompted the formation of the Eastern
tolerated for long. In 1867, the National Association of Base Colored League, an enterprise of Black ownership, in 1923. The
Ball Players rejected African American membership, and in 1876, two circuits converged to play the World’s Colored Championship
owners of the newly formed (1871) National Association in 1924, and continued the annual series until 1927,
of Professional Base Ball Players adopted a “gentleman’s The Negro Leagues bringing the thrills and innovative play of black baseball
agreement” to keep Black players out. Baseball Museum Logo to major urban centers and rural communities across
the country. The Leagues maintained a high level of professional skill
Overcoming Segregation and Conflict and became centerpieces for economic development in many
Moses Fleetwood Walker and Bud Fowler were among the first black communities.
African American players to play on a team with white players;
however, racism and “Jim Crow” laws would force them from these
teams by 1900. In response, black players formed their own teams,
“barnstorming” around the country to play anyone who would
challenge them.
In 1884, catcher Moses Fleetwood Walker of the Toledo Blue
Stockings became the first African American to play in what was then
considered a major league. However, Walker and fellow African
Americans often faced outright hostility and physical intimidation
from both teammates and opponents. In one case, 19th-century
superstar Cap Anson of the Chicago White Stockings threatened to
cancel a game with Toledo if Walker was in the lineup.

In this Aug. 2, 1942, file photo, Kansas City Monarchs pitcher Leroy Satchel
Paige warms up at New York’s Yankee Stadium before a Negro League game
between the Monarchs and the New York Cuban Stars. Major League Baseball
has reclassified the Negro Leagues as a major league and will count the statistics
and records of its 3,400 players as part of its history. The league said Wednesday,
Dec. 16, 2020, it was “correcting a longtime oversight in the game’s history” by
elevating the Negro Leagues on the centennial of its founding.

Stability, however, proved fleeting for these early Negro Leagues.
Players jumped from squad to squad in pursuit of the highest bidder,
and teams skipped league games when a more lucrative exhibition offer
surfaced. By 1926, Foster’s Negro National League was mired in
controversy, and in 1928, its rivals, the Eastern Colored League, folded.
The NNL finally fell apart in 1931 under the economic stress of the
Great Depression – only a few strong independent clubs survived the
1932 season. While some top teams such as the Leland Giants of
Chicago and the Lincoln Giants of New York enjoyed some staying
power and financial success, they were often at the mercy of white
booking agents who controlled access to large stadiums.
A charter member of the Negro National League, the Kanas City Monarchs
reigned as one of the best known and most successful professional baseball The American Negro League
franchises. The Monarchs captured ten league pennants and recorded only
one losing season during their entire association with the Negro Leagues. In 1937, a new entity was formed called the American Negro

32 Journal of Antiques and Collectibles