Salute to Negro Leagues

For a half century, professional baseball in America was divided by a color line. Doors were firmly shut to Black players, but Black talent was never wasted.

Forebears to the Civil Rights movement, Black ball players “barnstormed” the country playing against local sandlot and semi-pro teams before building a viable institution of their own.

As baseball begins its pandemicdelayed 2020 season, we mark the centennial of the formation of the Negro Leagues, where Black players, though never allowed to acquire the riches and renown that white players enjoyed, made their own history.

It’s been said that the Negro Leagues were the first national Black business, and the industries generated by Black baseball supported fans, players, journalists, hotels, restaurants, bars, and barber shops. During the 1930s and ‘40s, Pittsburgh was the center of this baseball world. Headquarters to the National Negro League, and home to two of baseball’s most storied franchises — the Homestead Grays and the Pittsburgh Crawfords, teams that won 13 Negro League pennants between them in 16 seasons and sent seven players to the Hall of Fame. The teams played a crucial role in the social and culture life of Pittsurgh’s Black community.

In a cruel irony, it was the achievement of Black baseball — proving that Black players could play at the highest level — that led to its demise. Jackie Robinson’s debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 caused a mass exodus of fans to the Major Leagues, and by the late 1950s, the Negro Leagues were virtually extinct.

Much was gained by Robinson’s triumph in the majors, but integration meant the end of Black ownership and management, and it proved to be a devastating blow economically for the Black businesses that thrived during the era of segregated baseball.

There never would have been a Jackie Robinson, or Roberto Clemente or Willie Stargell if not for the leagues that Black Americans created on their own.

On Sept. 1, 1971, the Pittsburgh Pirates became the first Major League franchise to field an all-Black and Latino starting lineup. History was made on that day because of all the ballplayers of color that came before them.

It is to these men that we tip our caps today.