Belated Praise for
the Negro Leagues
EDITORIAL, NYTimes on
the Web, July 30, 2006
Baseball purists believe that some
records should be entered into the books with an asterisk — to make the point
that they were achieved under questionable circumstances. By that
standard, every record set in baseball before the late 1940’s, when black
players were finally allowed into the big leagues, would be open to
qualification.
Before integration, black superstars who could have rewritten the record books
spent their careers as barnstormers in a financially precarious league whose
marquee teams included the Pittsburgh Crawfords, the Homestead Grays and the
Kansas City Monarchs. Predictably, the league began to fade and fail once
the walls of segregation came down and black stars who were still young enough
to perform defected to better-paying white teams.
The National Baseball Hall of Fame began to make amends for segregation in the
1970’s, when it recognized Negro league luminaries like the pitcher Satchel
Paige, the slugger Judy Johnson and the supernatural base runner Cool Papa Bell.
It will take another step toward racial reconciliation today when it inducts 17
more talented ballplayers and executives from black baseball.
This group includes Effa Manley, who will be the first woman ever elected to the
Hall of Fame. Manley was universally respected as the business manager and
co-owner of the legendary Newark Eagles. Among other things, she fought to
bring a rational contract system into the league at a time when teams were
poaching each other’s players.
It was a long time coming. But by embracing so large a group, the Hall of
Fame brings into focus the vibrant, talented, often eccentric people who built
black baseball in the time of American apartheid.
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