Summary

A complete reference guide to Negro league baseball. Most baseball fans know that in 1947 Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers, marking the beginning of integration in the major leagues, but few know what the game was like for African-American players prior to that breakthrough event. How many fans know that integrated military teams played each other during the Civil War, but that segregated leagues became the norm in the years that immediately followed the war ? Or why the League of Colored Baseball Clubs lasted less than one full season in 1887? Or who Rube Foster, the organizer of the Negro National League, a league that thrived from 1920 until World War II, was? The Encyclopedia of Negro League Baseball chronicles the times, the teams, the players and managers, the stadiums, the sportswriters, and the unique stories that make Negro league baseball such a significant part of the history of the sport and of American culture. Where other histories have been glossier and less comprehensive, this one recreates the richness of the game in a readily accessible reference format perfect for the general reader. Among the more than 3,000 entries included are: Gus Greenlee, a black gambler who created the Pittsburgh Crawfords The Pittsburgh Courier, a leading black newspaper offering the most complete coverage of Negro league baseball under the direction of sportswriter Wendell Smith Josh Gibson, the Babe Ruth of the Negro leagues Leon Dray, a top pitcher Toni Stone, the first woman to play professional baseball in the U.S.