Justice Batted Last: Ernie Banks, Minnie Miñoso, and the Unheralded Players Who Integrated Chicago's Major League Teams

by Don Zminda

On May 1, 1951, Orestes “Minnie” Miñoso took the field for the Chicago White Sox and broke the color line for Chicago major league baseball. Ernie Banks integrated the Chicago Cubs two years later. The future Hall of Famers began their Chicago baseball careers against the backdrop of a 1951 race riot in suburban Cicero, where a white mob abetted by local police attacked a building that had rented to Black tenants. Don Zminda’s account looks at these interconnected events alongside the little-known chronicle of Chicago’s slow track to integrating major league baseball. By the early 1950s, the Cubs and White Sox organizations had become rich in Black and Afro-Latino stars and talented prospects. Unlike Miñoso and Banks, however, most of these minor leaguers never advanced to the majors or, if they did, it was for little more than a cup of coffee. Zminda also profiles these players, from Charles Pope, the Cubs’ first Black signee, to larger-than-life fireballer Blood Burns.

Essential and dramatic, Justice Batted Last uses the lives and careers of two Chicago legends to tell a story of integration on and off the diamond.

Genres: Baseball, Sports, Nonfiction

278 pages, Hardcover

Published March 11, 2025

Reviews

[Jim Marek · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author and his research team did a thorough job of researching the introduction of black players into white baseball leagues (major and minor) in the period 1947-1955 and beyond. The account is very detailed, at times a little too much so, but as the chapters evolve the reader gets a very good picture of the mindset of white America in that time with respect to race relations.

I was only about 6 when I saw my first Cubs game in 1962 and there is no doubt Ernie Banks was one of my heroes. Bank's acquisition is covered, but it seemed there was a lot more information presented on Minnie Minoso. The recount of the White Sox ignoring the recommendation of their talent scout John Donaldson to take a close look at Ernie Banks and Willie Mays was really eye opening and helps explain why they underachieved for much of the decade of the 1950s.

That said, I wish the story had been weaved a little differently and that it wasn't such a tedious read. There is too much information presented in such detail that it was sometimes difficult to see the big picture.

[Jason M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my GoodReads goals for 2025 has been to only read baseball books that would be challenged and/or banned from libraries in Florida and Texas. "Justice Batted Last" proudly fits that bill. An exhaustive year by year look at how MLB's two Chicago teams (the White Sox and Cubs) intentionally slow-walked integration after jackie Robinson broke the color barrier, the book contains mini-biographies of dozens of players. Minnie Minoso and Ernie Banks are on the cover and are featured heavily, but the story of integration is not just about how MLB teams allowed themselves to have one (and sometimes the luxury of even two or three!) Black stars on the roster at one time, but about how many other Black baseball stars were excluded from the pros, or given short "window-dressing" stints in the minors and then released quickly regardless of on-field performance.

The prose is a little dry. Don Zminda's righteous anger burns bright and keeps the pages turning, but because the book goes year-by-year rather than player-by-player, a lot of information is duplicated, and there are some errors (one man is said to be an "honorary ball player" rather than honorary pallbearer at Satchel Paige's funeral). A running thread about the story of Harvey Clark's lawsuits against the City of Cicero (IL) is riveting, even if the ending to that tale is, as you'd expect, less than heartwarming.

Thankful to live in a state where I can still read this book.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Zminda did so much research for this deep dive into the history of the racial integration of Major League Baseball, with a focus on the Chicago teams and the star players who integrated those teams (Minnie Minoso and Ernie Banks).

The book is fairly dry and is sometimes hard to follow, but I loved the anecdotes and the historical context.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent and in-depth look at the history of the first black players for both Chicago baseball teams as well as many that came before them but never got their fair shot. This was well researched and an easy read.

[Raymond Chen · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5, did not finish.

A very in-depth, well-researched, and informative book that focuses more on the "forgotten" players who helped to integrate baseball in Chicago. Unfortunately, a little dry, hence my not finishing it in its entirety.

[Ryan Duffy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very clear-eyed and unromantic accounting of the experiences of Minnie Minoso and Ernie Banks as they racially-integrated the White Sox and Cubs, respectively, with an even bigger focus on the players who might have done it first but weren’t given a fair shot