Everything about Negro Leagues totally explained
:
Part of the History of baseball in the United States series.
The
Negro Leagues were
American professional
baseball leagues comprising predominantly African-American teams. The term may be used broadly to include professional black teams outside the leagues and it may be used narrowly for the
seven relatively successful leagues beginning 1920 that are sometimes termed "Negro Major Leagues".
The first professional team, established in
1885, achieved great and lasting success as the
Cuban Giants, while the first league, the
National Colored Base Ball League, failed in
1887 after only two weeks due to low attendance. The
Negro American League of
1951 is considered the last major league season and the last professional club, the
Indianapolis Clowns, operated amusingly rather than competitively from the mid-
1960s to
1980s.
History of the Negro leagues
Amateur era
The first known baseball game between two named black teams was held on
September 28,
1860 at
Elysian Fields in
Hoboken,
New Jersey. The
Weeksville of New York beat the
Colored Union Club 11–0. In 1862, a newspaper reporter looking for a game between two white teams stumbled upon a game between black teams and covered it for his paper. At the time, baseball was commonly deemed recreation around which social gatherings were held.
Immediately after the end of the
American Civil War in
1865 and during the
Reconstruction period that followed, a black baseball scene formed in the East and Mid-Atlantic states. Comprising mainly ex-soldiers and promoted by some well-known black officers, teams such as the
Jamaica Monitor Club,
Albany Bachelors,
Philadelphia Excelsiors and
Chicago Uniques started playing each other and any other team that would play against them.
By the end of the
1860s, the black baseball mecca was
Philadelphia. Two former
cricket players,
James H. Francis and
Francis Wood, formed the
Pythians, who played in
Camden,
New Jersey, at the landing of the
Federal Street Ferry, because it was difficult to get permits for black baseball games in the city.
Octavius Catto, the promoter of the Pythians, decided to apply for membership in the
National Association of Base Ball Players, normally a matter of sending delegates to the annual convention; beyond that, a formality. But at the December
1867 convention, the Association passed a resolution that excluded "any club which may be composed of one or more colored players." In some ways
Blackball thrived under
segregation, with the few black teams of the day playing not only each other but white teams as well.
Catto was murdered by a white man four years later, while leaving the
Institute for Colored Youth (
October 10,
1871). With his death came the death of the best Negro team of the time.
Professional baseball
With the formation of the
National Association of Professional Base Ball Players in 1871, the professional game dominated baseball. The first known professional black baseball player was
Bud Fowler, who appeared in a handful of games as a pitcher for the
Lynn, Massachusetts club in the 1878
International Association. In 1879,
William Edward White, a
Brown University player, may have become the first African-American to play in the major leagues when he appeared in one game for the
Providence Grays of the
National League. In 1884, two African-American players,
Moses Fleetwood Walker and his brother
Welday Walker, attained big league status when their club, the
Toledo Blue Stockings, joined the
American Association. Fleet Walker lasted until mid-season when an injury gave the team an excuse to release him; his brother only played a few games. Then in
1886 second baseman
Frank Grant joined the
Buffalo Bisons of the
International League, the strongest minor league, and hit .340, third highest in the league. Several other African-American players joined the International League the following season, including pitchers
George Stovey and Robert Higgins, but 1888 was the last season in which blacks were allowed in a minor league of that level.
The first black professional baseball team was formed in
1885 when the
Babylon Black Panthers, formed by waiters and porters from the Argyle Hotel in
Babylon,
New York were spotted by a white businessman from
Trenton,
New Jersey,
Walter Cook. Cook renamed them the
Cuban Giants so that he could attract more white fans. Shortly after the Giants' formation, the
Jacksonville,
Florida newspaper, the
Leader, assembled the first Negro League, the
Southern League of Base Ballists. The Southern League was composed of ten teams: the
Memphis Eclipse, the
Georgia Champions of
Atlanta, the
Savannah Broads, the
Memphis Eurekas, the
Savannah Lafayettes, the
Charleston Fultons, the
Jacksonville Athletics, the
New Orleans Unions, the
Florida Clippers of Jacksonville and the
Jacksonville Macedonias. The league played its first game on
June 7 between the Eclipse and the Unions in
New Orleans, Louisiana. Soon deep in debt, the league lasted only one year.
The success of the Cubans led to the creation of the second Negro League in
1887, the
National Colored Base Ball League. It was founded with nine teams:
Boston Resolutes;
New York Gorham;
Philadelphia Pythians;
Washington Capital Cities;
Pittsburgh Keystones;
Norfolk Red Stockings;
Cincinnati Crowns;
Lord Baltimores and the
Louisville Fall Cities. NCBBL President
Walter S. Brown, a black
Baltimore businessman, applied for and was granted official minor league status and thus "protection" under the major league-led
National Agreement. This move prevented any team in organized baseball from signing any of the NCBBL players, which also locked the players to their particular teams within the league. The reserve clause would have tied the players to their clubs from season to season but the NCBBL failed. One month into the season, the Resolutes folded. A week later, only three teams were left.
Because the original Cuban Giants were a popular and business success, many similarly named teams came into existence — including the Genuine Cuban Giants (the renamed Cuban Giants), the
Brooklyn Royal Giants, the
Baltimore Giants and the
Cuban X-Giants, the latter a powerhouse in the early
1900s. Except for the
New York Cuban Stars and the
Havana Giants, the "Cuban" teams were all composed of African Americans rather than Cubans; the purpose was to increase their acceptance with white patrons as
Cuba was on very friendly terms with the US during those years.
The few players on the white minor league teams were constantly dodging verbal and physical abuse from both competitors and fans. Then President
Rutherford B. Hayes signed the
Compromise of 1877, and all the legal obstacles were removed from the South's enacting the
Jim Crow laws. To make matters worse, on
July 14,
1887,
Cap Anson's
Chicago White Stockings were scheduled to play the
Newark Giants of the International League, which had Fleet Walker and
George Stovey on its roster. After Anson marched his team onto the field, military style as was his custom, he demanded that the blacks not play. Newark capitulated, and later that same day, league owners voted to refuse future contracts to blacks, citing the "hazards" imposed by such athletes. The American Association and National League quickly followed suit.
In
1888, the
Middle States League was formed and it admitted two all-black teams to its otherwise all-white league, the Cuban Giants and their arch-rivals, the
New York Gorhams. Despite the animosity between the two clubs, they managed to form a traveling team, the
Colored All Americans. This enabled them to make money barnstorming while fulfilling their league obligations. In
1890, the Giants returned to their independent, barnstorming identity, and by
1892, they were the only black team in the East still in operation on a full-time basis.
Frank Leland
Also in 1888,
Frank Leland got some of Chicago's black businessmen to sponsor the black amateur
Union Base Ball Club. Through Chicago's city government, Leland obtained a permit and lease to play at the
South Side Park, a 5,000 seat facility. Eventually his team went pro and became the
Chicago Unions.
After his stint with the Gorhams, Bud Fowler caught on with a team out of
Findlay,
Ohio. While his team was playing in
Adrian,
Michigan, Fowler was persuaded by two white local businessmen,
L. W. Hoch and
Rolla Taylor to help them start a team financed by the Page Woven Wire Fence Company, the
Page Fence Giants. The Page Fence Giants went on to become a powerhouse team that had no home field. Barnstorming through the Midwest, they'd play all comers. Their success became the prototype for black baseball for years to come.
After the
1898 season, the Page Fence Giant were forced to fold because of finances.
Alvin H. Garrett, a black businessman in Chicago, and
John W. Patterson, the
left fielder for the Page Fence Giants, reformed the team under the name of the
Columbia Giants. In
1901 the Giants folded because of a lack of a place to play. Leland bought the Giants and merged it with his Unions (despite not a single Giant player ending up on the roster) and named them the
Chicago Union Giants.
Rube Foster
The
Philadelphia Giants, owned by
Walter Schlichter, a white businessman, rose to prominence in
1903 when they lost to the Cuban X-Giants in their version of the "Colored Championship". Leading the way for the Cubans was a young pitcher by the name of
Andrew "Rube" Foster. The following season, Schlichter, in the finest blackball tradition, hired Foster away from the Cubans, and beat them in their
1904 rematch. Philadelphia remained on top of the blackball world until Foster left the team in
1907 to play and manage the
Leland Giants (Frank Leland renamed his Chicago Union Giants the Leland Giants in
1905).
Around the same time,
Nat Strong, a white businessmen, started using his ownership of baseball fields in the
New York City area to become the leading promoter of blackball on the East coast. Just about any game played in New York, Strong would get a cut. Strong eventually used his leverage to put the
Brooklyn Royal Giants almost out of business, and then he bought the club and turned it into a barnstorming team.
When Foster joined the Leland Giants, he demanded that he be put in charge in not only the on field activities, but the bookings as well. Foster immediately turned the Giants into the team to beat. He indoctrinated them to take the extra base, to play hit and run on nearly every pitch and to rattle the opposing pitcher by taking them deep into the count. He studied the mechanics of his pitchers and could spot the smallest flaw, turning his average pitchers into learned craftsmen. Foster also was able to turn around the business end of the team as well, by demanding and getting 40 percent of the gate instead of the 10 percent that Frank Leland was getting.
By the end of the
1909, Foster demanded that Leland step back from all baseball operations or Foster would leave. When Leland wouldn't give up complete control, Foster quit, and in a heated court battle, got to keep the rights to the Leland Giants' name. Leland took the players and started a new team named the Chicago Giants, while Foster took the Leland Giants and started to encroach on Nat Strong's territory.
As early as
1910, Foster started talking about reviving the concept of an all-black league. The one thing he was insistent on that black teams should be owned by black men. This put him in direct competition with Strong. After the
1912, Foster renamed his team the
Chicago American Giants to appeal to a larger fan base. During the same year,
J. L. Wilkinson started the
All Nations traveling team. The All Nations team would eventually become one of the best-known and popular teams of the Negro leagues, the
Kansas City Monarchs.
On
April 6,
1917, the United States entered
World War I. Manpower needed by the defense plants and industry accelerated the migration of blacks from the South to the North. This meant a larger fan base that had more money to draw from. By the end of the war in
1919, Foster was again ready to start a Negro baseball league.
On
February 13 and
14,
1920, talks were held in
Kansas City, Missouri that established the
Negro National League and its governing body the
National Association of Colored Professional Base Ball Clubs. The league was initially composed of eight teams:
Chicago American Giants,
Chicago Giants, Cuban Stars,
Dayton Marcos,
Detroit Stars,
Indianapolis ABC's,
Kansas City Monarchs and
St. Louis Giants. Foster was named league president and controlled every aspect of the league, including who played where and when and what equipment was used (all of which had to be purchased from Foster). Foster, as booking agent of the league, took a five percent cut of all gate receipts.
The Golden Age
On
May 20,
1920, the Indianapolis ABCs beat the Chicago American Giants in the first game played in the inaugural season of the Negro National League. But, because of the
Chicago Race Riot of 1919, the National Guard still occupied the Giants' home field,
Schorling's Park (formerly South Side Park). This forced Foster to cancel all the Giants' home games for almost a month and threatened to become a huge embarrassment for the league. In
1921, the
Negro Southern League, a regional black semipro league, joined Foster's
National Association of Colored Professional Base Ball Clubs. As a dues paying member of the association, it received the same protection from raiding parties as any team in the Negro National League.
Foster then admitted
John Connors'
Atlantic City Bacharach Giants as an associate member to move further into
Nat Strong's territory. Connors, wanting to return the favor of helping him against Strong, raided
Ed Bolden's
Hilldale Daisies team. Bolden saw little choice but to team up with Foster's nemesis, Nat Strong. Within days of calling a truce with Strong, Bolden made an about face and signed up as an associate member of Foster's Negro National League.
On
December 16,
1922, Bolden once again shifted sides and, with Strong, formed the Eastern Colored League as an alternative to Foster's Negro National League. The league started with six teams: Atlantic City Bacharach Giants,
Baltimore Black Sox, Brooklyn Royal Giants, New York Cuban Stars, Hilldale, and
New York Lincoln Giants. The National League was having trouble maintaining continuity among its franchises. Three teams folded and had to be replaced after the 1921 season, two others after the 1922 season and two more after the 1923 season. Foster kept replacing the defunct teams, calling teams up from the Negro Southern League. Finally Foster and Bolden met and agreed to an annual
Negro League World Series beginning in
1924.
1925 saw the
St. Louis Stars come of age in the Negro National League. They finished in second place during the second half of the year due in large part to their pitcher turned center fielder,
Cool Papa Bell, and their shortstop,
Willie Wells. A gas leak in his home nearly asphyxiated Rube Foster in 1926, and his increasingly erratic behavior led to him being committed to an asylum a year later. While Foster was out of the picture, the owners of the National League elected
William C. Hueston as new league president. In 1927, Ed Bolden suffered a similar fate as Foster, by committing himself to a hospital because the pressure was too great. The Eastern League folded shortly after that, marking the end of the Negro League World Series between the NNL and the ECL.
After the Eastern League folded following the
1927 season, a new eastern league, the
American Negro League, was formed to replace it. The makeup of the new ANL was nearly the same as the Eastern League, the exception being that the
Homestead Grays joined in place of the now-defunct Brooklyn Royal Giants. The ANL lasted just one season. In the face of harder economic times, the Negro National League folded after the
1931 season. Some of its teams joined the only Negro league then left, the Negro Southern League.
Paige, Gibson and Greenlee
Just as Negro league baseball seemed was at its lowest point and was about to fade into history, along came
Cumberland Posey and his Homestead Grays. Posey used the popularity of the Grays as a foundation of a new Negro league in
1932, the
East-West League. Joining his Homestead Grays, were the
Cleveland Stars,
Newark Browns,
Washington Pilots,
Detroit Wolves, Hillsdale Daises, Baltimore Black Sox, and the Midwest edition of the Cuban Stars. By May 1932, the Detroit Wolves were about to collapse and instead of letting the team go, Posey kept pumping money into it. By June the Wolves had disintegrated and all the rest of the teams, except for the Grays, were beyond help, so Posey had to terminate the league.
Across town from Posey,
Gus Greenlee, a reputed gangster and
numbers runner, had just purchased the
Pittsburgh Crawfords. Greenlee's main interest in baseball was to use it as a way to
launder money from his numbers games. But, after learning about Posey's money making machine in
Homestead, he became obsessed with the sport and his Crawfords. On
August 6,
1931,
Satchel Paige made his first appearance as a Crawford. With Paige on his team, Greenlee took a huge risk by investing $100,000 in a new ballpark to be called
Greenlee Field. On opening day,
April 30,
1932, the pitcher-catcher battery was made up of the two most marketable icons in all of blackball: Satchel Paige and
Josh Gibson.
In
1933, Greenlee, riding the popularity of his Crawfords, decided to be the next man to start a Negro league. In February 1933, Greenlee and delegates from six other teams met at Greenlee's Crawford Grill to ratify the constitution of the
National Organization of Professional Baseball Clubs. The name of the new league was the same as the old league,
Negro National League. The members of the new league were the Pittsburgh Crawfords,
Columbus Blue Birds, Indianapolis ABCs, Baltimore Black Sox, Brooklyn Royal Giants, Cole's American Giants (formerly the
Chicago American Giants and Nashville Elite Giants. Greenlee also came up with the idea to duplicate the
Major League Baseball All-Star Game, except, unlike the big league method, in which the sportswriters chose the players, the fans voted on the participants.
World War II
With the
Japanese
Attack on Pearl Harbor on
December 7,
1941, the United States was thrust into
World War II. Remembering
World War I, black America vowed it wouldn't be shut out of the beneficial effects of a major war effort: economic boom and social unification.
Just like the major leagues, the Negro Leagues saw many stars miss one or more seasons fighting overseas. But the white majors were barely recognizable while the Negro Leagues reached their highest plateau. Millions of black Americans were working in war industries and, making good money, they packed league games in every city. Business was so good that promoter
Abe Saperstein (famous for the
Harlem Globetrotters) started a new circuit, the
Negro Midwest League, a minor league similar to the Negro Southern League.
The
Negro League World Series was revived in
1942, this time pitting the winners of the eastern
Negro National League and midwestern
Negro American League. It continued through
1948 with the NNL winning four championships and the NAL three.
The Great Paige/Gibson confrontation
A frequently-told legend of Black Baseball involves Game Two of the
1942 World Series on
September 8, focusing upon two of Blackball's most famous legends,
Satchel Paige of the
Kansas City Monarchs and
Josh Gibson of the
Homestead Grays in a legendary matchup. Unfortunately, a great deal of it's just that: legend and not truth.
According to the legend as frequently told in one form, Paige came into the game in the seventh inning with a 2-0 lead. He gave up a triple to leadoff batter
Jerry Benjamin. With one man on and two out, Paige intentionally walked the next two batters,
Vic Harris and
Howard Easterling, so he could face the most feared hitter in all of baseball, Gibson, with the bases loaded. Paige then taunted Gibson while throwing fastballs ("this one's gonna be a pea at your knee") and struck him out looking. The story is also told as having happened in the ninth inning with the winning runs on base.
According to recent
SABR research, Paige entered the game in the sixth inning, protecting a 2-0 lead for fellow Hall of Famer
Hilton Smith. The Grays loaded the bases on three singles in the seventh inning, and Paige struck out Gibson to end the threat, getting the first two strikes on foul balls and the third on a swing and miss. After the Monarchs had made the score 5-0 in the top of the eighth, the Grays scored four runs off of Paige (two earned) in the bottom of the eighth, but Gibson didn't bat against Paige in that inning. Paige retired the side in order (including Gibson for the second out) in the ninth. He didn't walk a man. The final score was 8-4 Monarchs, Paige earning a save.
The first account of this legend was told by Paige himself in his autobiography "Maybe I'll Pitch Forever", about twenty years after the alleged incident and fifteen years after Gibson's death, but contemporary evidence of it's sorely lacking.
Buck O'Neil's re-telling of the story is likely based upon Paige's telling in the book, with a few embellishments added over the years.
Integration
In
1944,
Bill Veeck tried to buy the
Philadelphia Phillies with the intention of signing black ballplayers immediately. When
Judge Landis,
Commissioner of Major League Baseball, was informed of Veeck's plan, he'd the
National League buy the team and award it to
William Cox. (Although this story has long been part of accepted baseball lore, in recent years, its veracity has been disputed by some researchers.)
In March
1945, the white majors created the
Major League Committee on Baseball Integration. Its members included
Joseph P. Rainey,
Larry MacPhail and
Branch Rickey. Because MacPhail, who was an outspoken critic of integration, kept stalling, the committee never met. Under the guise of starting an all-black league, Rickey sent scouts all around the United States, Mexico and
Puerto Rico, looking for the perfect candidate to break the color line. His list eventually was narrowed down to three,
Roy Campanella,
Don Newcombe and
Jackie Robinson.
On
August 28,
1945, Jackie Robinson met with Rickey in Brooklyn where Rickey gave Robinson a "test" by berating him and shouting racial epithets that Robinson would hear from day one in the white game. Having passed the test, Robinson signed the contract which stipulated that from then on, Robinson had no "written or moral obligations" to any other club. By the inclusion of this clause, precedent was set that would raze the Negro leagues as a functional commercial enterprise.
To throw off the press and keep his intentions hidden, Rickey got heavily involved in Gus Greenlee's newest foray into black baseball, the
United States League. Greenlee started the league in
1945 as a way to get back at the owners of the Negro National League teams for throwing him out. Rickey saw the opportunity as a way to convince people that he was interested in cleaning up blackball, not integrating it. In midsummer of 1945, Rickey, almost ready with his Robinson plan, pulled out of the league. The league folded after the end of the
1946 season.
Pressured by civil rights groups, the
Fair Employment Practices Act was passed by the
New York State Legislature in
1945. This followed the passing of the
Quinn-Ives Act banning discrimination in hiring. At the same time,
Mayor Fiorello La Guardia formed the
Mayor's Commission on Baseball to study integration of the major leagues. This all led to Rickey announcing the signing of Robinson much earlier than he'd have liked. On
October 23,
1945,
Montreal Royals president
Hector Racine announced that, "We are signing this boy."
Early in
1946, Rickey signed four more black players, Campanella, Newcombe,
John Wright and
Roy Partlow, this time to much less fanfare. After the integration of the major leagues in
1947, as marked by the appearance of
Jackie Robinson with the
Brooklyn Dodgers that April, interest in Negro League baseball waned. Black players who were regarded as prospects were signed by major league teams, often without regard for any contracts that might have been signed with Negro League clubs. Negro League owners who complained about this practice were in a no-win situation: they couldn't protect their own interests without seeming to interfere with the advancement of players to the majors. By
1948, the Dodgers, along with Veeck's
Cleveland Indians had integrated. The Negro Leagues also "integrated" around the same time as
Eddie Klep became the first white man to play for the
Cleveland Buckeyes during the 1946 season.
End of the Negro Leagues
Some proposals were floated to bring the Negro Leagues into "organized baseball" as developmental leagues for black players but that was recognized as contrary to the goal of full integration. So the Negro Leagues, once among the largest and most prosperous black-owned business ventures, were allowed to fade into oblivion.
First a trickle and then a flood of players signed with Major League Baseball teams. Most signed minor league contracts and many languished, shuttled from one bush league team to another despite their success at that level. But they were in Organized Baseball, that part of the industry organized by the major leagues.
The Negro National League folded after the 1948 season when the Grays withdrew to resume barnstorming, the Eagles moved to
Houston,
Texas, and the New York Black Yankees folded. The Grays folded one year later after losing $30,000 in the barnstorming effort.
So the Negro American League was the only "major" Negro League operating in 1949. Within two years it had been reduced to minor league caliber and it played its last game in
1958.
The last All-Star game was held in 1962, and by 1966 the
Indianapolis Clowns were the last Negro League team still playing. The Clowns continued to play exhibition games into the
1980s, but as a humorous sideshow rather than a competitive sport.
Significant Negro Leagues
The Negro Leagues and the Hall of Fame
In his
Baseball Hall of Fame induction speech in
1966,
Ted Williams made a strong plea for inclusion of Negro League stars in the Hall. After the publication of Robert Peterson's landmark book
Only the Ball was White in
1970, the Hall of Fame found itself under renewed pressure to find a way to honor Negro League players who would have been in the Hall had they not been barred from the major leagues due to the color of their skin.
At first, the Hall of Fame planned a "separate but equal" display, which would be similar to the
Ford C. Frick Award for baseball commentators, in that this plan meant that the Negro League honorees wouldn't be considered members of the Hall of Fame. This plan was criticized by the press, the fans and the players it was intended to honor and Satchel Paige himself insisted that he wouldn't accept anything less than full fledged induction in to the Hall of Fame. The Hall relented and agreed to admit Negro League players on an equal basis with their Major League counterparts in
1971. A special Negro League committee selected
Satchel Paige in 1971, followed by (in alphabetical order)
Cool Papa Bell,
Oscar Charleston,
Martín Dihigo,
Josh Gibson,
Monte Irvin,
Judy Johnson,
Buck Leonard and
John Henry Lloyd. (Of the nine, only Irvin and Paige spent any time in the major leagues.) The Veterans Committee later selected
Ray Dandridge, as well as choosing Rube Foster on the basis of meritorious service (though many feel he deserved selection as a player as well).
Other members of the Hall who played in both the Negro Leagues and the Major Leagues are
Hank Aaron,
Ernie Banks,
Roy Campanella,
Larry Doby,
Willie Mays, and
Jackie Robinson. Except for Doby, their play in the Negro Leagues was a minor factor in their selection: Aaron, Banks, and Mays played in Negro Leagues only briefly and after the leagues had declined with the migration of many black players to the integrated minor leagues; Campanella (1969) and Robinson (1962) were selected before the Hall began considering performance in the Negro Leagues.
From 1995 to 2001, the Hall made a renewed effort to honor luminaries from the Negro Leagues, one each year. There were seven selections:
Leon Day,
Bill Foster,
Bullet Rogan,
Hilton Smith,
Turkey Stearnes,
Willie Wells, and
Smokey Joe Williams.
In February 2006, a committee of twelve baseball historians elected 17 more people from black baseball to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, twelve players and five executives.
Negro Leagues players (7): Ray Brown; Willard Brown; Andy Cooper; Biz Mackey; Mule Suttles; Cristóbal Torriente; Jud Wilson
Pre-Negro Leagues players (5) : Frank Grant; Pete Hill; José Méndez; Louis Santop; Ben Taylor
Negro Leagues executives (4) : Effa Manley; Alex Pompez; Cum Posey; J.L. Wilkinson
Pre-Negro Leagues executive, manager, player, and historian (1): Sol White
Effa Manley, co-owner and business manager of the Newark Eagles (New Jersey) club in Negro National League, is the first woman elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
The committee reviewed the careers of 29 Negro Leagues and 10 Pre-Negro Leagues candidates. The list of 39 had been pared from a roster of 94 candidates by a five-member screening committee in November, 2005. The voting committee was chaired by Fay Vincent, Major League Baseball's eighth commissioner and an Honorary Director of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.
Museum
The
Negro Leagues Baseball Museum is located in the
18th and Vine District in
Kansas City,
Missouri.
The Last Negro Leaguers
Hank Aaron was the last Negro League player to hold a regular position in Major League Baseball.
Minnie Miñoso was the last Negro League player to play in a Major League game when he appeared in two games for the Chicago White Sox in 1980.
Buck O'Neil was the most recent former Negro League player to appear in a professional game when he made two appearances (one for each team) in the Northern League All-Star Game in 2006.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Negro Leagues'.
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