Satchel Paige Mahlon Oscar Duckett Charleston Josh Gibson Buck O’Neil The Color of Baseball At the beginning of the 20th century, Philadelphia was a baseball mecca with a wealth of teams playing in every neighborhood and at all levels. At the forefront of the city’s rich baseball culture were two Major League teams, the National League Philadelphia Phillies and the American League Philadelphia Athletics. But entry onto the Phillies, Athletics or any other Major League team was restricted based solely upon the color of one’s skin. Only white players were permitted to step onto a Major League Baseball field, forcing many of the era’s top talents to find other avenues to play the game they loved. In America at Bat: The Color of Baseball you will explore the factors that led to the creation of the Negro Leagues, the similarities and differences between the Negro Leagues and Major League Baseball (MLB) and the impact the Negro Leagues had on MLB from a social, Mahlon Duckett (seated) was honored by the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park for his achievements as cultural, financial and historical standpoint. You a Philadelphia Stars player. will also examine how Jackie Robinson’s act of breaking of MLB’s color barrier in the modern a new type of baseball that we still see on the the Negro Leagues’ place in baseball history. baseball era led to the dissolution of the Negro diamond today. Leagues while at the same time ushering in Particular attention will be paid to the Phila- How to use this booklet delphia Stars of the Negro National League. America at Bat: The Color of Baseball Nearly two decades ago, as MLB began to is meant to work in conjunction with the recognize on a wide scale the contribution Fans of all ages celebrate online Negro League Curriculum found at that Jackie Robinson had on the game, the Jackie Robinson’s first game www.phillies.com/uyanegroleagues. Topics Phillies and members of the Philadelphia each year on April 15. will be introduced throughout the booklet and Stars came together to celebrate the play of will be expanded upon online. the Stars and the legacy they left the city. Educational lessons will be incorporated More importantly, however, the partner- throughout the booklet that will allow for a ship produced the opportunity to share deeper understanding of the information the history of the Negro Leagues, and presented. The answers to the questions in particular the Stars, with current posed will be combinations that ask for one’s and future generations of baseball background knowledge and interpretation players and enthusiasts who either of information presented both in the booklet did not know or did not understand and online. On the cover is an image of Jackie Robinson surrounded by stars of the Negro League. Visit www.phillies.com/uyanlcovers to learn more about the players on the cover and the teams they played for. 2 Increasing Participation in the Game Prior to the 1997 season, Major League Baseball recognized that current players only had a surface understanding of Jackie Robin- son and his impact on the game. The response was to begin an educational movement that was ushered in on April 15, 1997 with the retiring of Robinson’s #42 across all of baseball. Today every April 15 is celebrated as Jackie Robinson Day and every player, manager and coach wears #42. In Philadelphia it has also been a day to celebrate the Philadelphia Stars. Through the 2015 season, the Phillies were privileged to recognize members of the Stars on field and in broadcast. While 2016 marked The mural Philadelphia Stars: A Tribute to Negro League Baseball is located on Belmont Avenue the first season without a living member of the directly across from Memorial Park in West Philadelphia. Stars, the celebration of their contributions continues through tributes at Citizens Bank Park, educational activities such as They Said not just the number of African-Americans, but next level and following the lead of MLB We Couldn’t Play: An Oral History of the all youth, participating in the game. introduced RBI Leagues to serve 13-18 year olds. Philadelphia Stars and this booklet. Today more than 8,000 players (5,000 in Jr. RBI Stanley Glenn, a catcher for the Stars from Resources for the community and 2,000 in RBI) play baseball and softball 1944 to 1950, lamented during an interview In 1989, the Phillies recognized Philadelphia throughout the tri-state area thanks to the featured in They Said We Couldn’t Play that the was no longer the mecca for baseball that it had Phillies. The growth led to the partnering of the fight to play that he, his Stars’ teammates and been in the early half of the 20th century and Phillies, MLB and the City of Philadelphia to all those who played in the Negro Leagues was that they needed to start providing resources to develop a UYA which officially opened fields at not resonating with current generations of deserving communities throughout the region Franklin Delano Roosevelt Park on June 4, 2015 African-American players. And fewer African- if they wanted the game to rebound in youth as the Phillies MLB Urban Youth Academy. On Americans are playing baseball, with less than communities. Born out of this realization were July 21, 2016 the Phillies MLB UYA opened the 10% of Major League players of African-American Phillies Rookie Leagues (now Junior RBI) that Ryan Howard Training Center. The indoor site heritage. MLB recognizes this decrease and provided 400 youth aged 12 and under with is housed at the Marian Anderson Recreation through programs such as RBI (Reviving Baseball uniforms and equipment to play the game of Center located at 17th and Fitzwater and is the in Inner Cities) and the construction of Urban baseball. In 1993, the Phillies, seeing the need only existing multi-site UYA. It will provide Youth Academies, MLB is working to increase to have Rookie League players graduate to the free year-round instruction and educational programming to those in the Phillies youth baseball programs. Resources There are many great resources on the Internet for learning more about the Negro Leagues. Click on the links below to access three top ones. • Phillies Negro League Curriculum • They Said We Couldn’t Play: An Oral History of the Philadelphia Stars • MLB Negro Leagues Legacy page The Philadelphia Stars were led by Ed Bolden (center) in 1944. 3 Climate of U.S. and Its Impact on the Segregation of Baseball Today it is hard to imagine relegating the best baseball players in the game to the professional baseball sidelines simply because of skin color, but that is what occurred from 1867 until Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in the modern baseball era when he stepped onto the field on April 15, 1947 to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers. To understand why the color barrier existed in baseball, one has to understand the climate of the country in 1867 when the ban unofficially became common practice in baseball. The climate in the United States of America during the late 1860s was a fragile balance between the Northern and Southern states trying to mend the fault lines of the country that came to a head during the Civil War fought between 1861 and 1865. One of the leading issues in the fight between the Confederacy (Southern) and Union (Northern) armies was the issue of slavery. Southern states felt that, with the 1860 election of President Abraham Lincoln who believed that there should be a ban on slavery in U.S. territories, that their constitutional rights were being Black Codes during segregation required white and black Americans to violated. This feeling led to the secession (breaking away) from the United drink from separate water fountains. States by seven southern states with the highest slave populations and to the outbreak of war. The Union war efforts were aided by large numbers of slaves and free (the 13th Amendment) was officially adopted on December 18, 1865 black men fighting for their rights. The official beginning to the end of and declared that “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as the Civil War happened on April 9, 1865 when General Robert E. Lee of a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, the Confederate Army surrendered his forces to the Union’s General shall exist within the United States, or any places subject to their jurisdiction.” Ulysses S. Grant at McLean House in Appomattox, VA. Despite the Union’s victory and the 13th Amendment’s abolition of While the war was being fought, an amendment to the U.S. Constitution slavery, the Reconstructionist Era (1863-1877) and later years were still was introduced to abolish slavery. The measure passed the U.S. Senate on difficult for African-Americans who were governed by laws known as April 8, 1864, the U.S. House on January 31, 1865 and was ratified (approved Black Codes that restricted their movements and place in society. These by required number of states) on December 6, 1865. Amendment XIII Codes, which existed prior to the Civil War, and were expanded upon by many southern states after the war, continued to segregate society. In Southern states local and state laws knows as Jim Crow laws enforced the segregation of public facilities such as schools, restrooms, transportation and restaurants. The 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson ruling by the United States Supreme Court upheld state laws mandating racial segregation in public facilities by stating “separate but equal” was legal. This ruling stood until 1954 when the Supreme Court overturned the decision in Brown v.