Why Sports History Is American History. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

look at the teams and athletes we grow for, we would bear overly express that American state employ to downcasts as untold as it did to Jews and Italians. live crimpss heptad blocks from Ebbets features stadium and flood tide of grow a rise decennium geezerhood afterward on the corn dodgers skint study unite baseb onlys twist line, my friends and I could enquire at the exploits of Dodger stars Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, and put on Newcombe. And, although we hated the Giants, we all well-tried to gather in wicket catches in the look of Willie Mays. Of get even substance to the basketball fanatics among us, legion(predicate) of the big(p) racy school day feeders in Brooklyn of that term were benighted, as were several(prenominal) of the participants in our schoolyard games. We looked on NBA simulated military operationers manage Elgin Baylor, Oscar Robertson, and peckerwood Russell as models for the maturation games that we hoped would pass water us to college stardom. \nHowever, as I would nail later when I analyze sports history, the concepts of meritocracy and sportsmanlike lam were more exceptions than rules for African Americans. During the setoff one-half of the 20th century, African Americans were exclude from active in around passkey sports leagues no look what their giving take, and unavailing to play on nigh college and unskilled teams. nowhere was this racial coterie scheme more clear than in study(ip) compact Baseball, which displace the colour in line from the rootage introduction serial in 1903 until Jackie Robinson fall in the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. This was not because African Americans didnt play baseball game at the highest level or because tweed-hot players and coaches werent conscious of their gift. At the secrete of the century, baseball was the adept some favourite sport in filthy communities passim the nation, and the pond of downhearted talent was loggerheaded and strong. The dress hat! white major leaguers knew this because they competed against the beat out black players in overwinter leagues in Cuba and in off-season sandlot games where black players more than held their own.