This informative book gives readers the whole history of blacks in baseball, from its infancy in black colleges to the present, covering the establishment of both major leagues and the Negro Leagues, Jackie Robinson's reintegration of professional sports, and Curt Flood's struggle to establish a free agency.
Ashe makes a fast-break to fairness and understanding in telling the story of the African-American basketball player. This book traces the development of blacks' participation in the sport, from the club players of the '20s to the colleges to the professionals of today, including Hall of Famers.
In the 1960s, college sports required more than athletic prowess from its African American players. For many pioneering basketball players on 18 teams in the Atlantic and Southeastern conference, playing ball meant braving sometimes menacing crowds during the tumultuous era of civil rights. Perry Wallace feared he would be shot when he first stepped onto a court in his Vanderbilt uniform. During one road game, Georgia's Ronnie Hogue fended off a hostile crowd with a chair. Craig Mobley had to flee the Clemson campus, along with other black students. C.B. Claiborne couldn't attend the Duke team banquet when it was held at an all-white country club. Wendell Hudson's mother cried with heartache when her son decided to play at the University of Alabama, and Al Heartley locked himself in a campus dorm at North Carolina State for safety the night Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated. Grounded in the civil rights struggles on campuses throughout the south, the voices of players, coaches, opponents and fans reveal the long-neglected story of race, sports and social history. Barry Jacobs has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, People and other publications. He is the author of several sports books, including "Coach K's Little Blue Book," He lives in Hillsborough, North Carolina.
Icons of African American Sports will highlight and analyze the athletes and teams that have defined and revealed truths about American culture through their talent, perseverance, stubbornness, and will, showing the central role that sports and athletes have played in the 20th century.
The African American Woman Golfer: Her Legacy gives a brief historical overview of African American women in golf and examines the sport to uncover all African American women who have been involved in golf over the past 75 years. M. Mikell Johnson shows how these women-who were seemingly far removed from the white, male, privileged world of the country club-broke both color and gender barriers to become golfers. This book traces the history of how African American women got involved in golf. Title VI and Title IX alleviated some of the racial and financial burdens for some young women in high school and college athletics, allowing them to participate in all sports regardless of race, creed, or gender. Women's clubs also provided a stable foundation for female athletes in male-dominated sports. The misinformation, social apathy, financial encumbrances, and, finally, the role of the media in both promoting and preventing black women's opportunities in golf are discussed. The African American Woman Golfer: Her Legacy identifies over 300 women and their lives in golf. The author also profiles prominent golfers such as Althea Gibson, who crossed the LPGA color line; Helen Webb Harris, who created the first club for black women golfers; and Ann Gregory, who broke the USGA "whites only" clause in women's golf.
In 1924, after the Hilldale Giants captured the league crown in the Eastern Colored League and the Kansas City Monarchs won out in the Negro National League, the two teams met in a best-of-nine series for the world championship. But a 13-inning tie in Game 4 and alternating wins throughout would force a tenth game, making it the longest World Series on record in the modern era. This heavily illustrated volume provides a comprehensive account of the first championship series played between teams from two all-black professional leagues. Noted Negro League historian Larry Lester provides commentary, records, and full statistics for each club's regular season performance, along with biographical profiles of the players. Coverage also includes position-by-position comparisons of the Series combatants; a breakdown of the attendance, gate receipts, and team shares; game-by-game summaries; comments from the players; and complete statistics?including pitcher-batter matchups?for both teams.
In 1997 the American people will celebrate with great fanfare and publicity the fiftieth anniversary of Jackie Robinson's explosive entrance into major league baseball. Robinson has become a national icon, his name a virtual synonym for pathbreaker. Indeed, much has transpired between this young African-American's first bold strides around the baseball diamonds of a segregated America and General Manager Bob Watson's pride in assembling 1996 World Champion New York Yankees. Recognizing this monumental event in America's continuing struggle for integration, Jules Tygiel has expanded his highly acclaimed Baseball's Great Experiment. In a new afterword, he addresses the mythology surrounding Robinson's achievements, his overall effect on baseball and other sports, and the enduring legacy that Robinson has left for African Americans and American society.
"Brad Snyder uncovers a fascinating yet forgotten slice of history with his tale of the struggle for integration in the nation's capital, the heroic black sportswriters who led that crusade, and why their noble efforts ultimately failed."
--USA Today's Sports Weekly
"The story of a noble but heartbreaking team is eloquently told . . ."
--Sacramento Bee
"The Grays, stymied by bigotry, their love for the game overlooked, their skills underappreciated, were a vital force in changing baseball and America. Snyder, at last, gives them the credit they deserve."
--Philadelphia Daily News
Beyond the Shadow of the Senators gracefully reveals the true story behind the Homestead Grays, the greatest baseball team ever forgotten! This bold adventure takes you back to those front lines, where intriguing characters such as journalists Sam Lacy and Wendell Smith fought doggedly for integration; the Negro Leagues' most celebrated sluggers, Josh Gibson and Buck Leonard, gave the major-league superstars a run for their money; and club owner Clark Griffith, mired in prejudice and greed, thwarted integration at every turn.
Through numerous interviews with key players (many now deceased), a treasure trove of archival material, and dozens of unpublished historical photos, the author masterfully pieces together the lost legend of how the fight to integrate baseball really began, bearing witness at last to the greatest legends of black baseball and opening the book on a forgotten chapter in American history.
Brad Snyder's articles on baseball and other subjects have appeared in numerous publications, including the Baltimore Sun, the Washington Post,and the St. Petersburg Times. A graduate of Duke University and Yale Law School, he is a lawyer and freelance writer. He lives in Washington, D.C. For more information on this book, visit www.beyondtheshadow.com.
Founded in 1920, the Negro National League originally comprised teams throughout the Midwest, but the league's groundwork was laid in one city?Chicago. This essay collection presents notable papers delivered at the 2005 Jerry Malloy Negro League Conference in Chicago. With contributions from many Negro Leagues experts, the work offers a cohesive history of Chicago's long relationship with black baseball. After an introduction and an overview, sections cover early Chicago baseball from the nineteenth century to the founding of the Negro Leagues; teams in the Negro Leagues after 1920; players, both well-known and obscure, who spent significant time with Chicago clubs; owners and managers; the East-West All Star Game; ballparks; the Great Lakes Naval Team; and the integration of the Cubs and White Sox. Appendices provide a timeline of major black-baseball events in Chicago and player rosters for Chicago?area teams.
An important and forgotten chapter in sports and African American history. Here is the first in-depth account of the birth of black baseball and its dramatic passage from grass-roots venture to commercial enterprise. In the late nineteenth century resourceful black businessmen founded ball teams that became the Negro Leagues. Racial bias aside, they faced vast odds, from the need to court white sponsors to negotiating ball parks. With no blacks in cities, they barnstormed small towns to attract fans, employing all manner of gimmickry to rouse attention. Drawing on major newspapers and obscure African-American journals, the author explores the diverse forces that shaped minority baseball. He looks unflinchingly at prejudice in amateur and pro circles and constant inadequate press coverage. He assesses the impact of urbanization, migration, and the rise of northern ghettoes, and he applauds those bold innovators who forged black baseball into a parallel club that appealed to whites yet nurtured a uniquely African American playing style. This was black baseball's finest hour: at once a source of great ethnic pride and a hardwon pathway for integration into the mainstream.
From the first Black amateur players before the Civil War through to the last barnstorming Negro League teams in the 1960s, here is the complete and utterly fascinating history of segregated baseball in the United States. Thanks to photographs of the major players and many first-hand accounts, baseball fans will get the full story of this tumultuous time, behind the scenes and out in the ballparks. Every detail is revealed, starting with that sad day in 1911 when the governing body of the National Association of Baseball Players voted unanimously to bar any club that signed an African-American. Meet the many players, including George Stovey, Sol White, and Welday Walker, who blazed the way for Jackie Robinson to integrate major league baseball in 1947. Feel the frustration felt by the players when they were denied hotel rooms and restaurant service while on the road. Every image and tale also conveys the joy of the game and the pride these men felt in playing professional baseball.
The NBA is a place where, without ever acknowledging it white fans and black players enact and quietly explode virtually every racial issue and tension in the culture at large. In "Black Planet" the author/cultural narrator David Shields lays himself open as a representative of American fandom in order to scrutinize how white people think and talk about black heroes, black scapegoats and black masculinity. As a fan among fans, as a voice among other voices, as participant and observer, David Shields places himself in the middle of a complex social ambiguity. As a white fan of a predominately black, sport, he sets out to chronicle a season of the Seattle Supersonics by immersing himself in games, radio shows, the internet, charity events and print media- to explore the ways in which the game is talked about, presented and understood by the player and the fan. Sometimes funny and sometimes painfully on target, Shields reveals a telling commentary on the culture at large through a national obsession.
www.BlackShelfBooks.com 
