Negro Leagues

A significant roadblock to integrating the major leagues was baseball’s first commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who opposed the entry of black players into the majors. After Landis’s death in 1944, Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey began the search for a player to break the color barrier. He wanted not only an outstanding athlete but also a man of strong character who could withstand the hostility he was bound to encounter and not fight back. Rickey found that combination in Jackie Robinson, an accomplished multisport athlete who was a graduate of the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) and a World War II veteran. In late 1945 Rickey signed Robinson to play for the Montréal Royals, a minor league affiliate of the Dodgers. Robinson agreed to Rickey’s terms when he signed, promising not to respond to taunts and threats both on the field and off. In 1947, after a year with Montréal, Robinson moved up to the National League Dodgers and became the first black to play in the major leagues in the 20th century.

Robinson’s entry into major league baseball did not go unnoticed. Fans and opposing players shouted insults and racial slurs, pitchers took aim at him, and base runners tried to spike him with their shoes as they slid into first or second base. He received death threats and was refused service at the hotels and restaurants that welcomed his teammates. Robinson found some support from Dodgers shortstop Pee Wee Reese and other teammates, but he had a rough time trying to ignore tormentors among players and fans. By the end of the 1947 baseball season, however, Robinson led the National League (NL) in stolen bases (29), had powered the Dodgers to the NL pennant, and was named baseball’s first rookie of the year. Robinson’s performance and composure on the field won him respect and admiration from Americans of all races.

Outfielder Larry Doby, who had starred on the Negro Leagues’ Newark Eagles, joined the majors just three months after Robinson. Recruited by team owner Bill Veeck, Doby signed with the Cleveland Indians, becoming the first black player in the American League (AL). In 1948 pitcher Satchel Paige, then over 40 years of age, signed with the Indians, and Roy Campanella joined the Dodgers as catcher. Integration moved forward slowly. Not until 1958, 11 years after Robinson’s debut, did every major league roster finally include at least one black player.

The integration of the major leagues marked the end of the Negro Leagues. As the most talented black players followed Robinson into the major leagues, the Negro Leagues lost their top players and their fans. The last Negro League World Series took place in 1948, and the East-West Classic lost the broad support it had enjoyed in the 1930s and 1940s. Club after club folded and by the mid-1950s only a few barnstorming teams remained.

Interest in the Negro Leagues as an important part of baseball history has grown over the decades. Ken Burns's Emmy-winning television documentary series Baseball (1994) highlighted the story of the Negro Leagues and the racial integration of the major leagues. The Negro League Baseball Museum opened in 1997 in Kansas City, Missouri, with exhibits covering the leagues’ entire history. Since the 1960s the National Baseball Hall of Fame has elected notable players who started in the Negro Leagues but went on to careers in the integrated major leagues, including Jackie Robinson, Hank Aaron, Ray Campanella, and others. Beginning in 1971 the National Baseball Hall of Fame inducted over a dozen Negro League players who never entered the majors, along with executive Rube Foster. In 2006 a special election brought 17 more figures from black baseball into the Hall of Fame: seven players and four executives from the Negro Leagues, and five players and one executive from the pre-Negro Leagues. Honorees included Newark Eagles co-owner Effa Manley, the first woman member of the Hall of Fame.