Remembering the Negro Leagues on 100th anniversary

I saw my first Major League Baseball game in 1954 when my father took me to see our hometown Brooklyn Dodgers play the Milwaukee Braves at Ebbets Field. As long-time fans know, both teams had great players. For me, there was one player in particular that stood out: Jackie Robinson. I was 5 years old at the time and told my father that was the player I was going to follow. My father had followed baseball since he was a kid and was very knowledgeable about its history. He told me that at one point in his career, Jackie had been a member of the Kansas City Monarchs, a Negro Leagues team, and he was the player that, seven years before I saw him, broke the color barrier. That conversation began an interest in the Negro Leagues that has continued for 66 years.

Prior to Jackie’s history-making first game at Ebbets Field, as was the case with most of the film footage shot before 1947, baseball was being played in black and white. Along with Jackie—to this day the most electrifying professional athlete I have ever seen—Hall of Fame players that were in the Negro Leagues before signing with major league clubs include Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Ernie Banks, Monte Irvin and Roy Campanella. Among Hall of Famers that spent all or a majority of their careers in The Other Major League are Buck Leonard, James “Cool Papa” Bell, William Julius