Shadow Ball: The History of the Negro Leagues

by Geoffrey C. Ward, Ken Burns

Tells the story of the Black baseball teams that played throughout the country before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947

Genres: Baseball, Nonfiction

79 pages, Hardcover

First published September 7, 1994

About the author

Geoffrey Champion Ward is an author and screenwriter of various documentary presentations of American history. He graduated from Oberlin College in 1962.

He was an editor of American Heritage magazine early in his career. He wrote the television mini-series The Civil War with its director Ken Burns and has collaborated with Burns on every documentary he has made since, including Jazz and Baseball. This work won him five Emmy Awards. The most recent Burns/Ward collaboration, The War, premiered on PBS in September 2007. In addition he co-wrote The West, of which Ken Burns was an executive producer, with fellow historian Dayton Duncan.

Reviews

[Brad · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three-and-a-half stars.

What I valued most from reading this was that it gave me some more detailed explanations on some things where I was missing part of the story. Feels more like a textbook. Missing some of the high points of getting to know the players. Not the best Negro Leagues book in my research--nor the best place to start--but not the worst either.


“In 1867, just two years after the end of the Civil War…organized baseball made its first attempts to ban blacks. The National Association of Base Ball Players—which later became the National League—refused to allow an all-black team from Philadelphia to join the league. Nevertheless, during the next twenty-five years, more than fifty blacks managed to play on white teams.” (6)
“Bud Fowler is credited with inventing the first shin guards” because white players kept spiking him enough he wanted to protect his legs. (7)
“roughly one-tenth of the nation’s citizens” were Black around 1900. (12)
The so-called Cuban Giants were said “that they spoke gibberish to each other in the field so that fans would think they speak Spanish.” (14)
Since John McGraw of the New York Giants was unsuccessful in trying to bring Charlie Grant into MLB (pretending he was a Cherokee named Chief Tokahoma in 1901, he knew he couldn’t get Rube Foster, so “he paid Rube to teach Christy Mathewson, the Giants’ star pitcher, his ‘fadeaway,’ or screwball pitch.” (18) Rube “won fifty-one games and lost only five” (18)
“The owner of the Kansas City Monarchs was a white man named J. L. Wilkinson. Foster believed that all the clubs [invited to join the Negro National League] should be owned by blacks, but he agreed to let the Monarchs into the league because of Wilkinson’s long, impressive history in black baseball.” (23)
1922: Eastern Colored League, which included the Philadelphia Hilldales, Brooklyn Royal Giants, Lincoln Giants, Baltimore Black Sox, Atlantic City Bacharachs, and New York Cuban All-Stars.” (24)
“The emotional and financial strain of running the league—and watching his best players being lured away to the rival Eastern League—started to wear [Rube] Foster down. In 1926 he suffered a nervous breakdown. One day he was found chasing imaginary fly balls in the street near his house. Finally he was sent to a mental hospital, where he died in 1930.” (27)
“[Cum] Posey’s rival, Gus Greenlee, was determined to build the best team in black baseball. His method was simple—he bought up the finest players on the Homestead Grays.” (31)
“Greenlee spared no expense on his team. When his players were refused permission to use the locker rooms at the Pittsburgh Pirates’ Forbes Field, Greenlee decided to build his own stadium. Completed in 1932, Greenlee Field cost $60,000 and seated 7,500.” (34)
Satchel Paige specifically “carried several bags at one time on a pole across his shoulders.” “The pay was ten cents a bag.” (36)
“In January 1933 Greenlee put together a new Negro National League. There were six teams—the Crawfords, the Chicago American Giants, Columbus Blue Birds, Detroit Stars, Indianapolis ABCs (who were soon replaced by the Baltimore Black Sox), and Nashville Elite Giants.” (38)
When Branch Rickey signed Jackie Robinson, “the other major league clubs did not support his move. They voted fifteen to one against letting Robinson into the league. But Happy Chandler overruled them and approved the deal.” (52)
“More than half of the 26,623 fans at Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field on [the day Jackie Robinson first played in MLB] were black.” (53)

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is more than the history of the Negro leagues, for it begins in the early years of organized baseball, when a few blacks were able to play. The concerted efforts of several of the main players in the early game to freeze blacks out of white-dominated baseball are then reported. From this, the rise of the Negro leagues is explained. The reality that much of the refusal to allow blacks to play in the majors was due to the fact that they were better is also mentioned.
Given the rich and extensive history of the Negro baseball leagues, this book is too short to do anything more than give a synopsis. Yet, there is enough here to highlight some of the greatest players in the segregated league, few of which were able to get a chance to play in the majors. Ted Williams was one of the white players that praised the skills of the black players and advocated for their inclusion in the baseball Hall of Fame.

[Heather Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

juvenile, history, sports, baseball, negro leagues, third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade, sixth grade