Before Brooklyn: The Unsung Heroes Who Helped Break Baseball's Color Barrier

by Ted Reinstein

In the April of 1945, exactly two years before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in major league baseball, liberal Boston City Councilman Izzy Muchnick persuaded the Red Sox to try out three black players in return for a favorable vote to allow the team to play on Sundays. The Red Sox got the councilman’s much-needed vote, but the tryout was a sham; the three players would get no closer to the major leagues. It was a lost battle in a war that was ultimately won by Robinson in 1947. This book tells the story of the little-known heroes who fought segregation in baseball, from communist newspaper reporters to the Pullman car porters who saw to it that black newspapers espousing integration in professional sports reached the homes of blacks throughout the country. It also reminds us that the first black player in professional baseball was not Jackie Robinson but Moses Fleetwood Walker in 1884, and that for a time integrated teams were not that unusual. And then, as segregation throughout the country hardened, the exclusion of blacks in baseball quietly became the norm, and the battle for integration began anew.

Genres: Baseball, Nonfiction, Sports

272 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2021

Reviews

[Judy Blachek · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you like history, care about how Black ball players were treated, or like baseball, then this is not to be missed.

I heard Ted Reinstein give a synopsis of his book at my library. It was riveting. His final summation gave me the chills. It made me want to read his book to get the full details. If you get a chance to hear him, make sure you go!

Reinstein is a thorough researcher and brings in other groups and organizations that also contributed to the end of segregated baseball. The story is fascinating.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fun, fast read.

It tells the (well worn) story of how baseball became segregated and then overcame that segregation. It tells it well, humanizing the first part with details from the lives of those you may have encountered in passing if you’ve looked into this, but probably not with this much depth. It introduces others you’ve likely not heard of at all. And it tells a side-story about Boston’s place in the March toward Brooklyn (and how very far it was from following through to becoming the finish-line itself) that I had never otherwise heard of even a little.

I appreciate it all.

This story, as told here, does make me wonder about one path not taken, though, which the book also doesn’t address. As emphasized a little in its epilogue (and more by the Negro League Museum), the franchises of those leagues were among the biggest, most important to their communities, Black-owned businesses in America for decades. And then the wrong of the color-line came down and they weren’t. And the leagues were strip-mined for talent, like a minor league system (but one that wasn’t either supported by the majors or compensated for the talent they took away).

I find myself wondering if there was a better way. This Wall fell in the late-‘40s, just before MLB dramatically expanded, first West and then out to include almost x2 as many teams. Bearing in mind the history of other sports — with the NFL and AFL merging about 20 years later and the NBA and ABA partially doing the same another decade down the road — was something comparable possible here? After 1947 and the drama of Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby, could a merger have brought some of the Negro League teams into the majors whole? The Royals are named the Royals because of the history of the Monarchs. Could they have just let the Monarchs into the AL earlier instead? The team was clearly good enough to compete in the Majors as a team. What if it’d been allowed to? Or the Homestead Grays: what if they’d been allowed in, in their alternate home of Washington or Baltimore instead of disappearing entirely? Maybe the Browns would’ve moved to Texas instead of becoming the Orioles or to SD instead. This quickly becomes a mess of an alternate history, mostly in ways irrelevant to my point. But the Grays were also clearly Majors-worthy as they were for decades. Or the Birmingham Black Barons. Or the Newark Eagles. Or maybe 4 or 5 of them…

Skip that side-track. The big question, likely unanswerable or answerable only by shaking your head at the impact of MLB’s antitrust exemption, is whether there was a way these businesses that were so vital to the story could’ve reaped their just rewards? I don’t know, but I wish there had been. And I appreciate the book for reminding me of the question.

Also: go to Kansas City and visit the Museum. It’s totally worth the trip.

[David Kruh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought I knew the story of how the MLB color barrier got broken but I was wrong. There was so much more to the story and Ted Reinstein tells it with engaging and often powerful prose. This is a book not just for baseball fans but for all Americans to understand a shameful part of our history.

[D · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have a soft spot for books about baseball and the history of the sport but I'm confident I would have enjoyed this book without being a fan of the game.

I very much enjoyed reading about the road that was paved for Jackie Robinson to make it to the big leagues long before he was even born. This is not to say that the road Jackie took was an easy one to travel, as we all know it was not. However, it was immensely fascinating to hear about the many players who came before him and, while they didn't play in the bigs, have cemented themselves in the history of the game alongside their white teammates and opponents.

[Frank · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-written, engaging story of the "unsung heroes who helped break baseball's color barrier." Reinstein comes across as a passionate, all-consuming lover of history, of baseball, and of humanity in this entertaining book. He's done a wonderful job of pulling together various stories about diverse personalities and events to bring his book to life. Well-done!

[Megan Lawson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this story. As a huge baseball fan I always want to learn more and more about the history of the game and those who were left out. While I wasn’t a huge fan of the writing itself, the information was still fascinating.

[Tim West · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book, learned a lot on the history of how the Negro Leagues were conducted. The way the author tells the stories is very easy to follow and is an intriguing read overall. Moses Fleetwood Walker paved the way along with countless others!

[Steve Wolcott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic readable history about the African American experience in baseball in the United States. So much did happen before Jackie Robinson.

[Richard Canale · Rating 5 out of 5]

well researched and thorough insight. Not only a joy to read but enlightening.

[Michael Morrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book digging up long lost facts from many sources of the Negro League. This is the history of Black in Baseball all before Jackie Robinson got into Major League Baseball.

[Daniel Suhajda · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic history of black baseball, the realities of being black in early 1900s, and all the unsung heroes that furthered the cause.

[Coleman Crosby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very fascinating to see all of the off-field developments, especially in journalism, that led to April 15 1947

[Clara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Super interesting subject matter, but the execution left something to be desired.

[JK · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am used to audiobooks mispronouncing Worcester. And I can maybe excuse mispronouncing Berkshire county.

But repeatedly mispronouncing the verb "ask" (when the book is not written in dialect) and "corps" pushed me close to the edge. Making up words ("inobstrusive") and street names ("Babbock Street" and "Yawkey's Way"), and completely whiffing on the pronunciations ("wunderkind", "sepia") is utterly inexcusable for a professionally narrated and produced audiobook.

[April]

Though not a baseball fan, I still enjoyed this read. (You can’t go wrong with anything written by Ted Reinstein!) The history of breaking the color barrier was very interesting to me… So much I was clueless about-many unsung heroes indeed. The book was very well written and paid wonderful homage to them.
An added bonus was hearing Ted speak in person about the book.