There was a time when going to a baseball game at Yankee Stadium in the 1930’s and early 1940’s meant that the only thing you may see that was white was the color of the baseball. That’s because Major League Baseball’s segregation policies meant that some of the greatest players of the first part of the 20th century, players of color that also included many dark skinned Latino players, only played in the Cathedral in the Bronx when Negro League games were played. The New York Black Yankees were a key part of the growth of baseball, often drawing 50,000 into the Stadium when the Yankees were on the road, and lore has it that scores of Yankees players were always lobbying for the color barrier to be broken, which it was not until first Jackie Robinson with the Brooklyn Dodgers, and then New Jersey’s Larry Doby with the Cleveland Indians, became the first players of color to integrate Major League Baseball.
The history of the Negro Leagues is literally brought to life in a new documentary, “The League,” which is out in theaters next week, and it could not come at a better time. I was able to see the film at the Tribeca Film festival, and listen to a q and a about it with MLB Network’s Harold Reynolds, director Sam Pollard and others, and it reminded me of what we do every day with our young players in and around the Yankees today…never have them forget the legacy of those who came before them, and that includes the stars of the Negro leagues, many of whom never got the widescale recognition they deserved in their heyday.
Drawing from file footage and archived player interviews, the 103-minute film unpacks the “gentlemen’s agreement” struck among white major league owners at the turn of the 20th century to keep America’s pastime white, while celebrating the Black visionaries who nonetheless formed teams and leagues and found financial symbiosis in segregation. By the 1940s, baseball was the third largest economic institution in Black communities, the League notes. “And the teams thrived because Black people had their own stores, their own restaurants, their own means of entertainment. All that money was circulating within the community,” Pollard said. “That’s a story that didn’t used to be told.”
It is a story that is even still unfolding as MLB continues to find ways to lift and celebrate these amazing athletes well after they are gone, and it is a story that hopefully will inspire more athletes of color to return to the game in the future. While we see so many Latino stars showcased in MLB today, the faces of black ballplayers continue to dwindle, and that is something that the Yankees are working diligently on with all their community work both in the New York area and in Tampa, their spring training home. “The League” is must watch not just for baseball fans, but for everyone interested in history, pop culture and race relations. It celebrates the heroes while making us understand the issues of a time not that long ago…lessons we need to be reminded of so that we do not repeat them in challenging times of today.
