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Josh Gibson
Breaking the Color Line: 1860's - 1947
Negro Leaguers feted on Capitol Hill
Americans began playing baseball on informal teams, using local rules, in the early 1800s. By the 1860s, the sport, unrivaled in popularity, was being described as America's "national pastime."
Baseball rules and teams were gradually formalized during the mid and late 1800s.
1845: Alexander Cartwright published a set of baseball rules for the Knickerbocker Club of New York, and his rules were widely adopted.
1869: The Cincinnati Red Stockings became the first openly-salaried team and are thus considered the first professional team.
1871: The first professional baseball league, the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players, was established.
1876: The first major league, the National League, was formed.
African Americans played baseball throughout the 1800s. By the 1860s notable black amateur teams, such as the Colored Union Club in Brooklyn, New York, and the Pythian Club, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, had formed. All-black professional teams began in the 1880s, among them the St. Louis Black Stockings and the Cuban Giants (of New York). Reflecting American society in general, amateur and professional baseball remained largely segregated.
One of the few black players on an integrated professional league team was Moses Fleetwood "Fleet" Walker, a catcher for the minor league Toledo Blue Stockings. In 1883, the Chicago White Stockings, led by star player Adrian "Cap" Anson, refused to take the field against the Blue Stockings because of Walker's presence. The Blue Stockings manager insisted that the game be played, and Anson relented. When the Blue Stockings joined the American Association in 1884, Walker became the first African American major leaguer. In July of 1887, the International League banned future contracts with black players, although it allowed black players already under contract to stay on its teams. These are but two of the events that shaped the unwritten "color line," which segregated professional baseball until the 1940s.
During the 1890s, most professional black players were limited to playing in exhibition games on "colored" teams on the barnstorming circuit. Players on major league teams also barnstormed in cities and towns after the regular season was over. In some places black teams and white teams played each other, and some blacks played for all-black teams in otherwise all-white leagues. In amateur baseball, some athletes played on integrated teams such as the Navy baseball champions from the USS Maine.
Barnstorming & the Negro Leagues: 1900s - 1930s
Professional African American teams and short-lived "negro leagues" formed in the late 1800s. Some interracial games occurred when major league white teams played black teams in barnstorming (exhibition) games. However, during the early 1900s, blacks were not allowed to play on white professional teams in the United States.
Some baseball owners and managers of major league teams tried to hire African Americans by describing the players as Hispanicor Native American. In 1901, John McGraw, manager of the Baltimore Orioles, attempted to get black second baseman Charlie Grant into the game by calling him a Cherokee named Tokohama. The majority of owners and managers thwarted efforts like this. The baseball establishment also frowned on interracial barnstorming and white players were eventually banned from wearing their major league uniforms in these games.
In Cuba, Mexico, and other parts of Latin America, professional baseball was not segregated. Many blacks played baseball there in the winter as well as in Negro Leagues in the United States in the summer. The most viable of the Negro Leagues began in 1920 -- the Negro National League. The Negro American League started in 1937 and later absorbed the Negro National League teams.
In 1945, Jackie Robinsonjoined the Kansas City Monarchs (Negro American League) and played with such baseball legends as Satchel Paigeand Martin Dihigo. Negro League competition featured speed, surprise, and more showmanship than in organized baseball. Written contracts to keep players with teams through a season were uncommon, however, and schedules were irregular.
After 1947, when major league teams began integrating, the Negro League teams lost many of their best players, and the League folded entirely in 1960. In 1990, the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum opened in Kansas City, Missouri.
By the 1940s, organized baseball had been racially segregated for many years. The black press and some of their white colleagues had long campaigned for the integration of baseball. Wendell Smith of The Pittsburgh Courier was especially vocal. World War II experiences prompted more people to question segregation practices.
Although several people in major league baseball tried to end segregation in the sport, no one succeeded until Brooklyn Dodger's general manager Branch Rickey set his "great experiment" into motion. In 1945, the Jim Crowpolicies of baseball changed forever when Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson of the Negro League's Kansas City Monarchs agreed to a contract that would bring Robinson into the major leagues in 1947.
In addition to racial intolerance, economic and other complex factors contributed to segregation in baseball. For example, many owners of major league teams rented their stadiums to Negro League teams when their own teams were on the road. Team owners knew that if baseball were integrated, the Negro Leagues would probably not survive losing their best players to the majors, major league owners would lose significant rental revenue, and many Negro League players would lose their livelihoods. Some owners also thought that a white audience would be reluctant to attend games with black players. Others saw the addition of black players as a way to attract larger white as well as black audiences and sell more tickets. Looking back on this time, Rickey described the problems he faced and the events that influenced his decision in a speech to the One Hundred Percent Wrong Club in 1956.
Branch Rickey (1881-1965) was involved with baseball in a variety of capacities -- as a player, coach, manager, and owner -- for more than sixty years. His Hall of Fame plaque mentions both his creation of baseball's farm system in the 1920s and his signing of Jackie Robinson. Rickey's interest in integrating baseball began early in his career. He had been particularly troubled by the policy of barring African Americans from grandstand seating in St. Louis, when he worked for the Cardinals.
The noted sportswriter Red Smith fondly summed up Rickey's multi-faceted persona: "player, manager, executive, lawyer, preacher, horse-trader, spellbinder, innovator, husband and father and grandfather, farmer, logician, obscurantist, reformer, financier, sociologist, crusader, sharper, father confessor, checker shark, friend and fighter." (Editorial page, St. Louis Post- Dispatch, Monday, October 31, 1955)
In 1942, Rickey joined the Dodgers and quietly began plans to bring black players to the team. The first black baseball player to cross the "color line" would be subjected to intense public scrutiny, and Rickey knew that the player would have to be more than a talented athlete to succeed. He would also have to be a strong person who could agree to avoid open confrontation when subjected to hostility and insults, at least for a few years. In 1945, when Rickey approached Jackie Robinson, baseball was being proposed as one of the first areas of American society to integrate. Not until 1948 did a presidential order desegregate the armed forces; the Supreme Courtforbid segregated public schools in 1954.
The player who would break the color line, Jack (John) Roosevelt Robinson, was born in Cairo, Georgia, on January 31, 1919. His mother moved the family to Pasadena, California, in 1920, and Robinson attended John Muir Technical High School and Pasadena Community College before transferring to the University of California, Los Angeles. An outstanding athlete, he lettered in four sports at UCLA -- baseball, football, basketball, and track -- and excelled in others, such as swimming and tennis. Consequently, he had experience playing integrated sports.
Robinson showed an early interest in civil rights in the Army. He was drafted in 1942 and served on bases in Kansas and Texas. With help from boxer Joe Louis, he succeeded in opening an Officer Candidate School to black soldiers. Soon after, Robinson became a second lieutenant. At Fort Hood, Texas, Robinson faced a court martial for refusing to obey an order to move to the back of a bus. The order was a violation of Army regulations, and he was exonerated. Shortly after leaving the Army in 1944, Robinson joined the Kansas City Monarchs, a leading team in the Negro Leagues.
After scouting many players from the Negro Leagues, Branch Rickey met with Jackie Robinson at the Brooklyn Dodgers office in August, 1945. Clyde Sukeforth, the Dodgers scout, had told Robinson that Rickey was scouting for players because he was starting his own black team to be called the Brown Dodgers. At the meeting, Rickey revealed that he wanted Robinson to play for the major league Dodgers. Rickey then acted out scenes Robinson might face to see how Robinson would respond. Robinson kept his composure and agreed to a contract with Brooklyn's Triple-A minor league farm club, the Montreal Royals.
On October 23, 1945, Jackie Robinson officially signed the contract. Rickey soon put other black players under contract, but the spotlight stayed on Robinson. Rickey publicized Robinson's signing nationally through Look magazine, and in the black press through his connections to Wendell Smith at the Pittsburgh Courier. In response to allegations that Negro League contracts had been broken, Rickey sought assurances that Robinson had not been under formal contract with the Monarchs. Robinson responded to Rickey in a letter preserved in the Branch Rickey Papers.
After a successful season with the minor league Montreal Royals in 1946, Robinson officially broke the major league color line when he put on a Dodgers uniform, number 42, in April 1947.
The bibliography lists numerous histories of Negro League baseball.
Jump to:Selected Bibliography
This bibliography lists basic reference books for baseball history as well as titles that complement the special presentations. The Library of Congress houses more than 3,000 books related to the subject of baseball. Collection materials include histories, biographies, rule books, instructional manuals, and novels. The Library of Congress call number and an International Standard Book Number (ISBN) are provided to help you locate these titles. Some of the titles listed in this bibliography are out of print. Visit your local library to find out more about these and other baseball books.
General SourcesEncyclopedias
Each of the following three single-volume encyclopedias provides a statistical history of baseball and includes a year-by-year summation of each baseball season, championship playoffs, World Series, career statistics for major league players, and historical essays. Readers may prefer the arrangement of one over the other.
The Baseball Encyclopedia. New York: Macmillan, 1969. (Call number GV877.B27)
Provides career and post-season records for each player in one place and is the only encyclopedia of the three principal encyclopedias listed here to include fielding statistics and statistics for the Negro Leagues and All-American Girls Professional Baseball Leagues.
Neft, David S., ed. The Sports Encyclopedia: Baseball. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1974-. (Call number GV877.S78) This is the best source for year-by-year team rosters, with a summary narrative for each season. Career statistics are cumulative by era.
Thorn, John, and Pete Palmer, eds. Total Baseball. New York: Warner Books, 1989. (Call number GV863.A1 T682; ISBN 044651389X) The first half of this encyclopedia is comprised of essays, some quite lengthy, by noted baseball authorities on all aspects of the game. Covers Japan and Latin America. Career statistics do not include post-season play. Includes sections on umpires, coaches, and owners.
The following two multi-volume encyclopedias include general entries on baseball history as well as biographies of prominent players.
Salzman, Jack, David Lionel Smith, and Cornel West, eds. Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History. 5 vols. New York: Macmillan Library Reference, 1996. (Call number E185.E54 1996; ISBN 0028973453)
Williams, Michael W., ed. The African American Encyclopedia. 6 vols. New York: Marshall Cavendish Corp., 1993. (Call number E185.A253 1993; ISBN 1854355457)
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Other Sources
Ashe, Arthur R. Jr., et. al. A Hard Road to Glory: Baseball, the African-American Athlete in Baseball. New York: Amistad, 1993. (Call number GV863.A1 A84 1993; ISBN 156743035X)
Includes baseball material originally published in the three-volume multi-sport Hard Road to Glory (New York: Amistad, 1993), with additions.
Benson, Michael. Ballparks of North America: A Comprehensive Historical Reference to Baseball Grounds, Yards, and Stadiums, 1845 to Present. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1989. (Call number GV879.5 .B46 1989; ISBN 0899503675) Gives the history, location, dimensions, and associated teams for major league, Negro League, and minor league ballparks and stadia, when known. Entries are arranged geographically.
Connor, Anthony J. Voices from Cooperstown: Baseball's Hall of Famers Tell It Like It Was. New York: Collier Books, 1984. (Call number GV865.A1 B34 1984; ISBN 0020282109, pbk.) A compilation of quotations and anecdotes taken from published sources.
Dickson, Paul. The Dickson Baseball Dictionary. New York: Facts on File, 1989. (Call number GV862.3 .D53 1989; ISBN 0816017417) An award winning reference work on baseball terminology, this etymological dictionary includes over 5,000 words and phrases. The first edition will soon be available on-line at the Major League Players Association Web site. A second edition is scheduled for publication in 1998.
---, comp. Baseball's Greatest Quotations. New York: Edward Burlingame Books, 1991. (Call number GV867.3 .B366 1991; ISBN 0062700014)
Grobani, Anton, ed. Guide to Baseball Literature. Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1975. (Call number Z7514.B3 G76; ISBN 0810309629)
Mead, William B., and Paul Dickson. Baseball: The President's Game. Washington D.C.: Farragut Publishing Company, 1993. (Call number GV867.3 .M43 1993; ISBN 0918535166) A history of the Chief Executive's relation to the game, starting with Taft. Includes extensive illustrations.
Porter, David L., ed. Biographical Dictionary of American Sports: Baseball. New York: Greenwood Press, 1987. (Call number GV865.A1 B55 1987; ISBN 0313237719) Although Shatzkin's The Ballplayers is more comprehensive in biographical content than Porter's Biographical Dictionary of American Sports: Baseball, Porter provides somewhat lengthier entries, focusing on better known individuals. Both are excellent sources, particularly for information about individuals who lack book-length biographies. Both include citations for further research.
Seymour, Harold. Baseball. New York: Oxford University Press, 1960. (Call number GV863.A1 S48 1960; ISBN 0195014080, v. 2; ISBN 0195038908, v. 3) This three-volume history covers professional baseball (in the first two volumes) and amateur baseball (in the third volume). For those with a scholarly interest in the game, this is one of the definitive works.
Shatzkin, Mike, ed. The Ballplayers: Baseball's Ultimate Biographical Reference. New York: Arbor House/William Morrow, 1990. (Call Number GV865.A1 B323 1990; ISBN 0877959846) Although Shatzkin's The Ballplayers is more comprehensive in biographical content than Porter's Biographical Dictionary of American Sports: Baseball, Porter provides somewhat lengthier entries, focusing on better known individuals. Both are excellent sources, particularly for information about individuals who lack book-length biographies. Both include citations for further research.
Smith, Myron J. Jr., comp. Baseball: A Comprehensive Bibliography. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1986. (Call number Z7514.B3 S64 1986; ISBN 0899502229) An exhaustive work that includes sections on players, team histories, and the Negro Leagues. This book's Dodgers material was published separately as Dodgers Bibliography (Westport, Conn.: Meckler, 1988) and is quite useful for material on Robinson, although not as up to date as Smith's Supplement 1.
---, ed. Baseball: A Comprehensive Bibliography. Supplement 1, 1985-May 1992. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1993. (Call number Z7514.B3 S64 1986; ISBN 0899507999)
Voigt, David Quentin. American Baseball. 3 vols. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1983. (Call number GV863.A1 V65 1983; ISBN 0271003316, v. 1; ISBN 0271003340, pbk.)
Voigt's American Baseball and Seymour's Baseball, both three volumes in length, are the most comprehensive histories of the sport. They differ in that Voigt covers baseball through the electronic age.
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Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Baseball
Levine, Peter. A.G. Spalding and the Rise of Baseball: The Promise of American Sport. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. (Call number GV865.S7 L48 1985; ISBN 0195035526) An excellent biography of a figure central to the development of the game of baseball. Spalding was a player, manager, and team owner before he founded a sporting goods manufacturing company and publishing house, the American Sports Publishing Company. Spalding organized the first around-the-world tour to promote the game in 1888-89. Spalding's rule books and annuals (for example, his Base Ball Guide and Official League Book) are useful sources for historical research because they include team and league profiles, player biographies, box scores, and equipment catalogs that appear at the end of each publication.
Ritter, Lawrence S., comp. The Glory of Their Times: The Story of the Early Days of Baseball Told By the Men Who Played It. New York: W. Morrow, 1984. (Call number GV865.A1 G56 1984; ISBN 0688039014) The first oral history of baseball. The second edition adds four players not included in the first edition, including Hank Greenberg. Players active between 1898-1946 were interviewed. As enjoyable as it is informative.
White, Sol, B. Sol White's History of Colored Base Ball, With Other Documents on the Early Black Game, 1886-1936. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995. (Call number GV863.A1 W448 1996; ISBN 0803297831) Sol White, a baseball player himself, published this work in 1907. Originals are rare and a facsimile edition, published in 1984, is now a collectors' item. The most current edition includes supplementary documentation regarding black baseball, including a "Chronological Registry of 19th-Century Black Players in Organized Baseball." This is an invaluable source.
Zang, David W. Fleet Walker's Divided Heart: The Life of Baseball's First Black Major Leaguer. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995. (Call number GV865.W34 Z35 1995; ISBN 0803249136)
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Negro Leagues
Brashler, William. The Story of Negro League Baseball. New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1994. (Call number GV863.A1 B72 1994; ISBN 0395671698; ISBN 0395697212, pbk.)
Cooper, Michael L. Playing America's Game: The Story of Negro League Baseball. New York: Lodestar Books, 1993. (Call number GV863.A1 C615 1993; ISBN 0525674071)
Fields, Wilmer. My Life in the Negro Leagues: An Autobiography. Westport, Conn.: Meckler, 1992. (Call number GV865.F427 A3 1992; ISBN 0887368506)
Holway, John B. Black Diamonds: Life in the Negro Leagues from the Men Who Lived It. New York: Stadium Books, 1991. (Call number GV865.A1 H613 1991; ISBN 0962513237)
---. Voices from the Great Black Baseball Leagues. Rev. ed. New York: Da Capo Press, 1992. (Call number GV865.A1 H615 1992; ISBN 0306804700) John Holway is a well-known historian of the Negro Leagues. The oral histories included here rank among the best. Also notable is Holway's pamphlet-length biography Rube Foster, the Father of Black Baseball.
O'Neil, Buck. I Was Right on Time. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996. (Call number GV865.O48 A3 1996; ISBN 0684803054)
Overmyer, James. Effa Manley and the Newark Eagles. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1993. (Call number GV865.M325 O94 1993; ISBN 0810827034) Biography of a highly regarded Negro League team owner.
Peterson, Robert. Only the Ball Was White: A History of Legendary Black Players and All-Black Professional Teams. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. (Call number GV863.A1 P47 1992; ISBN 0195076370) The first history of black baseball since Sol White's and still one of the best.
Reisler, Jim. Black Writers/Black Baseball: An Anthology of Articles from Black Sportswriters Who Covered the Negro Leagues. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., 1994. (Call number GV742.4 .R45 1994; ISBN 0786400021) The black press, as well as covering the Negro Leagues, editorialized on organized baseball's exclusion of African Americans. This anthology includes articles by some of the most noted black sports journalists, including Sam Lacy and Wendell Smith. Smith's papers are at the National Baseball Library in Cooperstown, New York. Those interested in his crusade should consult David Wiggins' excellent article "Wendell Smith, the Pittsburgh Courier-Journal and the Campaign to Include Blacks in Organized Baseball, 1933-1945" (Journal of Sport History, vol. 10, no. 2, Summer 1983.)
Riley, James A. The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1994. (Call number GV865.A1 R473 1994; ISBN 0786700653) Biographical information on many Negro League players is difficult, if not impossible, to find because press coverage was sporadic. This work is the most comprehensive source yet published on the subject and is an indispensable reference for the study of the Negro Leagues.
Rogosin, Donn. Invisible Men: Life in Baseball's Negro Leagues. New York: Kodansha International, 1995. (Call number GV863.A1 R585; ISBN 1568360851) An excellent narrative of the Negro Leagues. Appendixes of final standings and all-star games box scores are from Peterson's Only the Ball Was White: A History of Legendary Black Players and All-Black Professional Teams.
Trouppe, Quincy. 20 Years Too Soon: Prelude to Major-League Integrated Baseball. Rev. ed. St. Louis: Missouri Historical Society Press, 1995. (Call number GV865.T7 A35 1995; ISBN 1883982073)
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Jackie Robinson, Branch Rickey, and Their Legacy
Allen, Maury. Jackie Robinson: A Life Remembered. New York: F. Watts, 1987. (Call number GV865.R6 A74 1987; ISBN 0531150429)
Barber, Red. 1947, When All Hell Broke Loose in Baseball. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1982. (Call number GV863.A1 B37 1982; ISBN 0385177623)
Frommer, Harvey. Rickey and Robinson: The Men Who Broke Baseball's Color Barrier. New York: MacMillan, 1982. Call number GV865.R6 F76 1982; ISBN: 0025416804)
---. Jackie Robinson. New York: F. Watts, 1984. (Call number GV865.R6 F75 1984; ISBN 0531048586).
Kahn, Roger. The Boys of Summer. New York: Perennial Library, 1987. (Call number GV875.B7 K3 1987; ISBN 0060914165) Roger Kahn grew up in Brooklyn as a Dodger fan and later covered the team as a beat writer for the New York Herald-Tribune in the 1950s. Boys of Summer is considered by many to be one of the best books ever written about baseball. Also highly recommended is his Memories of Summer (New York: Hyperion, 1997).
Mann, Arthur William. Branch Rickey: American in Action. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1957. (Call number GV865.R45 M3)
---. The Jackie Robinson Story. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1951. (Call number GV865.R6 M3)
Moffi, Larry, and Jonathan Kronstadt. Crossing the Line: Black Major Leaguers, 1947-1959. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1994. (Call number GV865.A1 M64 1994b; ISBN 0877455295) The major leagues integrated in 1947, but it wasn't until 1959 that every team had, at some time, employed a Black player. Using these 13 years as a chronological framework, the authors present biographical sketches of all the black players, from Jackie Robinson to Pumpsie Green. Not all were Hall of Famers; some had brief and unremarkable careers in the big leagues. This book includes them all.
O'Connor, Jim. Jackie Robinson and the Story of All-Black Baseball. New York: Random House, 1989. (Call number GV865.R6 O27 1989; ISBN 0394924568; ISBN 0394824563, pbk.)
Polner, Murray. Branch Rickey: A Biography. New York: Atheneum, 1982. (Call number GV865.R45 P64 1982; ISBN 0689112548)
Rampersad, Arnold. Jackie Robinson: A Biography. New York: Knopf, 1997. (Call number GV865.R6 R34 1997; ISBN 0679444955)
Robinson, Jackie, and Alfred Duckett. I Never Had It Made: An Autobiography. Hopewell, N.J.: Ecco Press, 1995. (Call number GV865.R6 A3 1995; ISBN 0399110100)
Robinson, Rachel, and Lee Daniels. Jackie Robinson: An Intimate Portrait. New York: Abrams, 1996. (Call number GV865.R6 R592 1996; ISBN 0810937921) In this extensively illustrated biography about her husband, Rachel Robinson describes his baseball career and their civil rights work and family life. Also of note is their daughter Sharon Robinson's autobiographical work Stealing Home: An Intimate Family Portrait by the Daughter of Jackie Robinson (New York: HarperCollins, 1996), which focuses on family experiences after her father's career in baseball.
Rowan, Carl T. Wait Till Next Year: The Life Story of Jackie Robinson. New York: Random House, 1960. (Call number GV865.R6 R64)
Stout, Glenn, and Dick Johnson. Jackie Robinson: Between the Baselines. San Francisco: Woodford Press, 1997. (Call number GV863.R676 S86 1997; ISBN 0942627490)
Tygiel, Jules. Baseball's Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and His Legacy. Expanded ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. (Call number GV865.R6 T93 1997; ISBN 0195106199; ISBN 0195106202) In the author's words this book is a "social history of the integration of baseball which looks at Robinson's baseball years as part of a larger story." (From his Jackie Robinson Reader)
---, ed. The Jackie Robinson Reader: Perspectives On An American Hero. New York: Dutton, 1997. (Call number GV865.R6 J33 1997; ISBN 0525940960) Includes selected articles and excerpts by Jules Tygiel, Sam Lacy, Roger Kahn, Red Barber, and Robinson, among others. This anthology is an excellent introduction to the life of Robinson.
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Related Subjects
Asinof, Eliot. Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963. (Call number GV875.C6 A8 1977; ISBN 0030206413)
Chalk, Ocania. Black College Sport. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1976. (Call number GV583 .C45; ISBN 039607023X)
Davis, Lenwood G., and Belinda S. Daniels. Black Athletes in the United States: A Bibliography of Books, Articles, Autobiographies, and Biographies on Black Professional Athletes in the United States, 1800-1981. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1981. (Call number Z7515.U5 D38; ISBN 0313229767)
Gonzlez Echevarra, Roberto. The Pride of Havana: A History of Cuban Baseball. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. (Call number GV863.25.A1G65 1999; ISBN 0195069919)
Obojski, Robert. The Rise of Japanese Baseball Power. Radnor, Pa.: Chilton Book Co., 1975. (Call number GV863.77 .A1026 1975; ISBN 0801960614)
Oleksak, Michael M., and Mary A. Oleksak. Beisbol: Latin Americans and the Grand Old Game. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Masters Press, 1991. (Call number GV862.6 .043 1991; ISBN 0940279355)
Sowell, Mike. The Pitch That Killed. New York: Macmillan, 1991. (Call Number GV863.A1 S73 1991; ISBN 0020747616) The story of Ray Chapman, the only major leaguer killed by a pitched ball, and Carl Mays, who threw it.
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Pictorial Works
By searching the Prints and Photographs Division online catalog for "baseball," more images can be located. However, only some pictures have been cataloged online. Many other images are available through the specialized finding aids or indexes for individual collections.
Cahan, Richard, and Mark Jacob. The Game That Was: The George Brace Baseball Photo Collection. Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1996. (Call number GV863.A1 C35 1996; ISBN: 0-8092-3200-6)
Chadwick, Bruce. When the Game Was Black and White: The Illustrated History of the Negro Leagues. New York: Abbeville Press, c1992. (Call number GV875.A1 C47 1992; ISBN: 1558593721)
Dixon, Phil, and Patrick J. Hannigan. The Negro Baseball Leagues, 1867-1955: A Photographic History. Mattituck, N.Y.: Amereon House, 1992. (Call Number GV863 .D59 1992; ISBN 0848804252)
Honig, Donald. Baseball: the Illustrated History of America's Game. New York: Crown, 1990. (Call number GV863.A1 H64 1990; ISBN 0517572958)
---. Shadows of Summer: Classic Baseball Photographs, 1869-1947. New York: Viking Studio Books, 1994. (Call number GV863.A1 H656 1994; ISBN 0670857319)
Kart, Lawrence, and David R. Phillips. That Old Ball Game: Rare Photographs From Baseball's Glorious Past. Chicago: H. Regnery Co., 1975. (Call number GV863.A1 T45 1975; ISBN 080928101)
McCabe, Neal, and Constance McCabe. Baseball's Golden Age: The Photographs of Charles M. Conlon. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1993. (Call number GV862.5 .C66 1993; ISBN 0810931303)
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Younger Readers
Alvarez, Mark. The Official Baseball Hall of Fame Story of Jackie Robinson. New York: Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers, 1990. (Call number GV865.R6 A78 1990; ISBN 0671694804; ISBN 0671690930, pbk.)
Lipman, David. Mr. Baseball. New York: Putnam, 1966. (Call number GV865.R45 L5)
Margolies, Jacob. The Negro Leagues: The Story of Black Baseball. New York: Franklin Watts, 1993. (Call number GV863.A1 M35 1993; ISBN 053111130X)
Ritter, Lawrence S. Leagues Apart: The Men and Times of the Negro Baseball Leagues. New York: Morrow Junior Books, 1995. (Call number GV875.A1 R58 1995; ISBN 0688133169; ISBN 0688133177)
Robinson, Jackie, and Alfred Duckett. Breakthrough: to the Big League: The Story of Jackie Robinson. New York: M. Cavendish Corp., 1991. (Call number GV865.R6 A3 1990; ISBN 1559050942)
Sabin, Francene. Jackie Robinson. Mahwah, N.J.: Troll Associates, 1985. (Call number GV865.R6 S2 1985; ISBN 0816701644; ISBN 0816701652, pbk.)
Ward, Geoffrey C., and Ken Burns. Shadow Ball: The History of the Negro Leagues. New York: Knopf, 1994. (Call number GV863.A1 B87 1994; ISBN 067986749X; ISBN 0679967494)
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Related Web Sites
In American Memory
Panoramic Photographs
The Panoramic Photograph Collection contains four thousand images featuring American cityscapes, landscapes, and group portraits. Coverage includes: agricultural life; beauty contests; disasters; engineering work such as bridges, canals and dams; fairs and expositions; military and naval activities, especially during World War I; the oil industry; schools and college campuses, sports, and transportation.
Baseball cards, 1887-1914
This collection presents a Library of Congress treasure -- 2,100 early baseball cards dating from 1887 to 1914. The cards show such legendary figures as Ty Cobb stealing third base for Detroit, Tris Speaker batting for Boston, and pitcher Cy Young posing formally in his Cleveland uniform. Other notable players include Connie Mack, Walter Johnson, King Kelly, and Christy Mathewson.
Spalding Base Ball Guides, 1889-1939
Spalding Base Ball Guides, 1889-1939 comprises a historic selection of Spaldings Official Base Ball Guide and the Official Indoor Base Ball Guide. The collection reproduces 35 of the guides, which were published by the Spalding Athletic Company in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Spaldings Official Base Ball Guide was perhaps the premier publication of its day for the game of baseball. It featured editorials from baseball writers on the state of the game, statistics, photographs, and analysis of the previous season for all the Major League teams and for many of the so-called minor leagues across the nation. The 15 Spaldings Official Base Ball Guides included in this online collection were published between 1889 and 1939. The Official Indoor Baseball Guide concerns a game unfamiliar to most contemporary baseball fans because its demise occurred almost beyond living memory. These guides, too, offer rules and how-tos of the game, information on the games founding fathers, photographic illustrations of teams and players from across the land, and game statistics. The 20 Official Indoor Base Ball Guides included in this collection were published between 1903 and 1926.
To find more images and stories about the great American pastime, search on "baseball" across the American Memory collections.
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On the World Wide Web Beyond the Library of Congress
The selected sites listed below offer a variety of perspectives on Jackie Robinson. The sites were chosen for their educational content, broad accessibility, and long-term sustainability. The Library of Congress neither endorses nor maintains these Internet sites. Users should direct any problems with links to the particular administrator or webmaster responsible for the site.
Jackie Robinson Foundation
This site includes links to information about Jackie Robinson and the educational foundation that his wife, Rachel Robinson, established in 1973.
Negro Leagues Legacy
Major League Baseball. This site includes links to information about professional Negro League players, teams, and league history.
Beyond the Playing Field: Jackie Robinson, Civil Rights Advocate
National Archives and Records Administration. This site includes links to original documents relating to Robinson, quotes from Robinson, and to information about using original source material.
National Baseball Hall of Fame
This site includes links to a bibliography on Jackie Robinson and links to the personal papers of sportswriter Wendell Smith.
Jackie Robinson: A Baseball Celebration
New York Times. This site includes links to past New York Times articles about Jackie Robinson, an archive of Robinson photos, and other Jackie Robinson sites on the Web. First-time users must register before entering the site. Registration is free.
Jackie Robinson: Soul of the Game
The Sporting News Archives. This site includes links to The Sporting News articles, photographs, and information about Jackie Robinson.
Baseball, the Color Line, and Jackie Robinson - Library of Congress |
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