The history of baseball is also the history of America. From its rise as the national pastime to its racial integration beginning with Jackie Robinson in the late 1940s, the game has reflected the same social currents reshaping the country.
On the field, these changes were embodied by great Black ballplayers like Robinson, James Thomas “Cool Papa” Bell and Curt Flood. Their stories are among those chronicled in the new book “Play Harder: The Triumph of Black Baseball in America,” by Washington University professor Gerald Early. The project is a collaboration with the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.
“My grandfather was a Jackie Robinson guy, and he loved those old Brooklyn Dodger [players,]” Early said on Tuesday’s St. Louis on the Air. “I was too young to know who those people were.”
Eventually, those people — and many more from the era of the Negro Leagues – would fascinate him. Early said he became inspired by the stories of the Black players who had built their own baseball culture in his grandfather’s generation.
“They formed teams and formed leagues. They had an engagement with baseball in developing it as a business and as a sport in the community,” he said. “[Black people] had a deeper engagement with it than they had with any other sport on a professional level. … When they had the Negro Leagues, they ran the league. They ran teams. They were general managers, they were owners.”
Integration forever changed baseball in America. Coming out of the Negro Leagues, Black ballplayers took their new teams and fans to new heights. But the move required them to leave so much of what they’d built behind.
“Integration did not include bringing over the structure of the Negro Leagues, but only individual players,” Early said. “In some ways, for many Black people, [it was a] feeling as though they had to start over again.”
To hear the full interview with “Player Harder” author Gerald Early, including insights into the evolution of Black baseball players over time, listen to St. Louis on the Air on Apple Podcast, Spotify or Google Podcasts or by clicking the play button below.
“St. Louis on the Air” brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. The show is produced by Miya Norfleet, Emily Woodbury, Danny Wicentowski, Elaine Cha and Alex Heuer. Jada Jones is our production assistant. The audio engineer is Aaron Doerr. Send questions and comments about this story to talk@stlpr.org.
