Negro Baseball League

The Negro Baseball League is a historical term for professional baseball teams. Negro League baseball mainly included black and African Americans and was Bradley used for most professional Negro Baseball League teams. In the 1920s were seven successful leagues that were sometimes also called the “Negro Major League”.

The first professional colored team was established in 1885 and they where called the Cuban Giants. The name of the first Negro Baseball League was the National Colored Base Ball League. But the league was shut down in 1887 because of low attendance. The last Negro Baseball Leagues belonged to the Negro American League in 1951 and the last professional black team was the Indianapolis Clowns that played rather for the crowd’s entertainment as for sports.

The Baseball Hall of Fame was under pressure in the 1970s to include Negro League baseball players into their halls. In the beginning they wanted to establish a separate award, but since this was like the players did not belong to the hall of fame the public did not accept this award. The Hall finally gave in to the public requests and selected the first Negro league player’s names in 1971.

Kansas City, Missouri is the location of the Negro League Baseball Museum. The museum was opened in 1990 and moved into its location in the 18th and Vine District in 1997. This district is where in the early 20th century the most African-American activity was. The Negro baseball league museum holds all kind of artifacts from the history of Negro league baseball, pictures of Negro baseball league players and teams and even Negro League baseball apparel. The apparel includes game worn Negro League baseball jerseys, worn pants, cleats and even gloves. It also houses the Field of Legends, which can only be entered at the end of the tour through the museum. The field hold 12 nearly life sized bronze statues of famous Negro League baseball players, Gibson (hit over 80 homeruns in one season), Buck Leonard, Ray Dandridge, Pop Lloyd, Judy Johnson, Cool Papa Bell, Oscar Charleston, Leon Day, Satchel Paige and Martin Dihigo. Dihigo is the only man alive to be inducted into three countries Hall of fames (Mexico, Cuba, United States). The last two statues are Rube Foster (founder of the Negro National League) and Buck O’Neil.

The Negro Baseball Leagues era ended in the 1940s when the Minor and Major baseball league started to integrate non-white players into their leagues. The Negro leagues started loosing their good players.