The Page Fence Giants, an all-star black baseball club sponsored by a woven-wire fence company in Adrian, Michigan, graced the diamond in the 1890s. Formed through a partnership between black and white boosters, the team's respectable four-year run was an early integration success--before integration was phased out decades ahead of Jackie Robinson's 1947 debut, and the growing Jim Crow sentiment blocked the Page Fence Giant's best talent from the major leagues. This book tells the the story of a long-ignored team at the close of the 19th century, whose Hall of Famer second baseman Sol White was but one of their best players.

When the Negro National League was formed in Kansas City in 1920, a new chapter in sports history began. The city of Chicago played no small part in the creation and content of this historic chapter. Black Baseball in Chicago chronicles the history of the teams and players that spent time in the "Windy City." In 1911, the Chicago American Giants were born. This team drew some of the best players from the league, including such legendary stars as Bruce Petway, Pete Hill, Grant "Home Run" Johnson, and future hall-of-famer John Henry "Pop" Lloyd. On any given Sunday afternoon, the Chicago American Giants games often outdrew those of the cross-town rivals, the White Sox and the Cubs.

This is the biography of Bud Fowler (ne John Jackson), the first African American to play in organized baseball, and the longest tenured at the time that the color line was drawn. In addition to his professional playing career, which lasted more than 25 years, Fowler was a scout, organizer, owner, and promoter of touring black baseball clubs--including the legendary Page Fence Giants--in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Emphasizing the social and cultural contexts for Fowler's accomplishments on and off the baseball diamond, and his prominence within the history and development of the national pastime, the text builds a convincing case for Fowler as one of the great pioneering figures of the early game.

America and baseball are rediscovering the game played by African Americans before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947. We now know a great deal about the Negro Leagues of 1920 on, and their great stars-Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, and their contemporaries. But what of the pre-1920 black game? From the onset in the 1880s of the "gentleman's agreement" that barred blacks from playing in white leagues, that game is nearly invisible. Financially shaky, with sporadic media coverage even in black newspapers and completely overlooked by the mainstream, Negro teams of this era played on for love of the game and in hopes that their skills would receive their due. In 1907, Sol White, a remarkable African-American ballplayer, successful manager, and baseball loyalist, wrote a small volume on the history of the black game. Part fund-raising effort, advertising brochure, team hype, celebration of black baseball, and throughout an implicit and explicit challenge to racism, Sol White's History of Colored Base Ball is the source of much of what we know of the events in the organized black game of that time. The original was poorly printed, and copies are exceedingly rare (known and rumored copies number only four). This edition republishes the full 1907 edition (with the even rarer supplement), completely reset for legibility, and reproduces all the original's illustrations, including the advertisements that speak volumes on the social world of the day. Fifteen additional documents from 1886 to 1936 augment the picture of the black game and our record of Sol White himself. The work is introduced by Jerry Malloy, a recognized expert on the history of Negro leagues who has spent years inpainstaking research into this vanished world.

The Hilldale Club of Darby, Pennsylvania, was the dominant team in black baseball during the 1920s. Their success came about largely through the efforts of Hilldale president and manager Edward Bolden. Bolden’s professionalism and reputation for fair play were instrumental in his forming the Eastern Colored (EC) League in 1922. This absorbing story, highlighted with vivid photographs, chronicles the origins and development of black baseball.

A collection of essays which "describe developments in the game's past, assess their impact, and explain how they reflect the period in which they occurred; ... explore baseball's influences outside the field of play as well as the effect of external factors on the game; ... [and] discuss such key issues as demographics, communities, social mobility, race and ethnicity."--Cover.

When the Negro National League was formed in Kansas City in 1920, a new chapter in sports history, indeed in American history, began to be written. Whistle Stop: Black Baseball in Detroit chronicles the history of the various teams and players that spent time in the "Motor City." From the aftermath of the First World War, through the Jazz Age and Prohibition, the Great Depression, and through the 1950s, the history of the Negro Leagues parallels the history of Black America, from segregation to full inclusion. With the hiring of pioneers like Jackie Robinson by the major leagues came the end of the Negro Leagues, and the end of an era. You will meet the players--"Ghost" Marcell, "Cool Papa" Bell, "Bingo" DeMoss, and the great Norman "Turkey" Stearnes--who made this sport a vibrant and exciting part of the American landscape.