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I played
with a very good friend of mine.

He and I used to pretend
like we were playing

against eight other guys
and we played with anything

that we could to pretend
like it was a baseball

and we used broomsticks.

I don't know
that you would call it baseball.

But we did
the best we could.

A baseball is round,
the bat's the same, you know?

If you have talent,
no matter what color you are,

and if you can play,
you can play.

Baseball is the greatest game
that's ever been invented.

I think
there's always been

in African American life

a real appreciation
of improvisation.

You figured out other ways
of being able to succeed.

And a perfect example of that
is what they did with baseball.

And that's the story
really of the Negro Leagues.

"Prince" Joe: I hear
Black people talking

about church,
I talk about the Negro Leagues.

So much depth.
You had all kind of stars.

There was a camaraderie, man.

You finished playing
a baseball game?

And, man, you go
to the nice places

within the Black community,

and all of your people
were there.

They're so loving, you know?

Greatest thing
that ever happened

to me in my life.

Negroes didn't play ball
'cause they were making money.

They played the ballgame
because they loved to play it.

The Negro Leagues,
I think is a story

about what Black Americans
were able to achieve

at a time when they only had
themselves to rely on.

They are a proud
bunch of men

who play
between the white foul lines.

They accepted their role
as a part of a movement

before we coined the term
"Civil Rights Movement."

Bob K: To go
to a Negro Leagues game,

you could feel the immense pride

that Black folks had
about this product

known as the Negro Leagues.

To a large degree
because they understood

that it was something
that was inherently ours.

Now, it was shared
with the rest of the world,

but it was still ours.

The stories

about the American Negro
Baseball League

were always good news.

People would say,
"Did you hear about the League?"

And you always knew
that they meant

the Negro Baseball League.

♪ Yeah ♪

Bob M: I wish you could have
seen all that I have seen.

For over ten years,

I was an umpire
in the Negro Leagues.

When I first heard
about the leagues

as a young man,

I knew I wanted to be a part
of that world,

closer to all of my heroes.

♪ Yeah! ♪

♪ Did you see Jackie Robinson
Hit that ball? ♪

♪ It went zoomin'
Cross the left field wall ♪

Bob M: Getting my dream job
as an umpire

in the Negro Leagues
allowed me to see, firsthand,

some of the best players
in the game.

Some of the greats
never achieved renown,

but there were quite a few

celebrated Major League ballplayers

who got their start
in the Negro Leagues.

♪ Satchel Paige is mellow
So is Campanella ♪

♪ Newcombe and Doby too ♪

♪ But it's a natural fact
When Jackie comes to bat ♪

♪ The other team is through ♪

Bob M: We didn't realize it
at the time,

but the great ballplayers
of the leagues

would transform the game.

Jackie Robinson
is recognized

as the first professional
African American ballplayer

to play in the Major Leagues.

Well,
we know that in 1884,

Moses Fleetwood Walker

played for a professional team,
the Toledo Blue Stockings.

So there were African American
professional ballplayers

in the 19th century.

African Americans
have been playing baseball

for as long as White people
have been playing baseball.

As the sport began
to take hold in popularity,

post-Civil War,
Black people were there always.

There were organized
Black teams,

and they barnstormed.

They played
against other Black teams.

They played against White teams.

There were Blacks
who did play

with Whites on teams.
But the team was majority White,

it may have one
or two Black players on it

and that seemed to be something
that was more acceptable

to the White paying public.

If they only have one
or two Black players

as opposed to a team

that might have
majority Black players

and one or two White players.

But as we move forward
through history,

we see that segregation
starts to tighten its hold.

In 1887,

the character named
Adrian "Cap" Anson

who's up in the Hall of Fame
right now,

one of the fathers
of professional baseball,

is scheduled to play in Newark

against
the Newark Little Giants.

Anson is a racist.

There's no question
he's a racist

because two Black players,

one of them named George Stovey,
a pitcher,

and the other
Moses Fleetwood Walker.

Anson sends word ahead,

"If those two so-and-so's..."

and he uses a word stronger
than "so-and-so's,"

"...are seen on
the field of play,

my team is not gonna play."

Cap Anson, at the time,
is really popular,

and the idea that Cap Anson
could potentially represent

the beliefs and ideals
of White people

throughout baseball,
throughout America in general,

is something
that these executives

really pay attention to.

So when he says
that he's not willing

to take the field
with Black players,

they're like, "Okay."

The International
League directors

held a secret meeting
at the Genesee House yesterday,

and the question
of Colored players

was freely discussed.

Many of the best players
in the League are anxious

to leave on account
of the Colored element,

and the board finally directed
Secretary White to approve

of no more contracts
with Colored men.

African American
ballplayers were very good

at this game,
and they were so good

at the game
that the fear was that,

you know,
they would consume the positions

that White players
were vying for.

In 1896, we have

the Plessy
versus Ferguson decision

that determines
that separate is equal.

Now, it's not, and we know that.

And so, it sets up, essentially,

what we have going well
into the 20th century,

which is this legal doctrine
that says,

"It is okay
to keep everyone separate."

What was happening there
is that a hand goes up

with a stop sign on it,
and it's saying to Blacks

outside of baseball,
but also inside of baseball,

"You can't do this.
You can't do that.

You can't go here.
You can't be this."

Well, what do you do
when that comes at you?

You turn
back into yourself.

You find resources
that are your own resources,

and you establish things
for yourself

that the larger world is saying
you can't do,

et cetera, et cetera.

Really all over the country

Black people
were coming together

and forming these
self-sustaining communities.

It's okay if they never fully
bring us into society.

We can do it ourselves.

We enjoyed ourselves
because we were by ourselves.

And nobody trying to tell us
what to do.

So we learn how to do
with what we had.

See, what do old ladies say?
"Got to use what you got"?

So we had to use what we had.

So Black businesses
come into being

in that period of time,

founded for themselves
out of their own resources,

Black schools and baseball too.

After the Plessy versus Ferguson decision,

great Black professional
baseball teams come into being,

and the players and the games
were ballyhooed by newspapers

that were their own newspapers.

And those newspapers knew

the audience
that they had to play to.

Everybody read
the Chicago Defender

and thePittsburgh Courier...

...the two leading
Black newspapers in the country.

My grandmother,
in our little town,

wouldn't take
the weekly newspaper.

She said it was written

for Whites, by Whites,
and about Whites.

I mean, there were
several major Black newspapers,

and Chicago Defender

was probably the major
Black newspaper.

And lots of people read it.

Lots of Black people read it
in the South.

And the Chicago Defender
was a big promoter

of Black people
moving to the North.

It was a push-pull thing.

You're being attracted
by the possibility

that life could be better
for you moving,

and you want to get away
from a situation that's bad.

So something's pushing you out,

as well as something
is pulling you forward.

Bob M: For Blacks
in the Jim Crow South,

life was a struggle.

Where I grew up in Alabama,

fear and violence
were commonplace.

The Ku Klux Klan always did
its dirty work at night

and would often drive
right past us on the way

to a lynching
or cross-burning ceremony.

Bob M: Mama would shout,

"Y'all kids, hurry up,
and turn off the lights,

and lay down on the floor."

With the house pitch black,
I could hear my heart pounding

with terror as I lay there.

If rifles were shooting
in the air...

...then we knew

some poor Black soul

had been lynched
just over the hill.

My brother had written me
several times,

encouraging me to join him
in the North.

I longed to go.

So on a chilly October day,
I hopped aboard a freight train.

As the train chugged forward,

I could feel the weight
of Southern oppression

lifted off my shoulders,

on our way
to a promised land of jobs,

independence...

...and a better life
for a Colored man in America.

We had a dream.

People felt that

this is a land of opportunity.
Okay, so I will move North,

I will move West, et cetera.

All of these areas where we hope
to find the real America.

America that allows us
to be all we can be,

all we can become.

And it's a flood tide,
that immigration.

Over a million Blacks come up

out of the South to settle in
urban centers in the North.

So it's no surprise
that Black baseball

would develop as Black people
moved out of the South

and into cities
where the segregation

was a little less rigid
and they had transportation

to get people to go
to a ballgame.

These kinds of things
made a huge difference

in making it possible
for Black people

to have an array
of teams in cities.

So now, you see

a few entrepreneurs trying
to make a go of it in baseball.

And people like Rube Foster,
in Chicago, is able to see

that a Black club can be

a successful
business enterprise.

Bob K: Andrew Rube Foster owned
the Chicago American Giants,

and he managed
the Chicago American Giants.

And Rube Foster,
in my own estimation,

is the greatest baseball mind
this sport has ever seen.

Rube Foster was light-years
ahead of his time.

He was better known
as a pitcher,

he pitched seven no-hitters
in his brilliant career.

Quite frankly,
by 1905, he might have been

the greatest pitcher
in the world.

Bob K: He is credited
with having invented

what we now know
to be the screwball.

Back then, it was called
a "fade away,"

and ol' Rube perfected
this pitch.

So much so that the great

Major League manager,
John McGraw,

would sneak Rube into his camp
so that Rube Foster could teach

Christy Mathewson how to throw
the screwball.

Christy Mathewson threw
the pitch all the way

into the National Baseball
Hall of Fame,

that he learned
from Rube Foster.

Rube's greatest asset
was his genius as a manager

and as an executive.

He's the founder
of the Chicago American Giants,

1910 or thereabouts
and through the next decade,

Rube Foster makes that team
into the greatest Black team

up to that point in time
that there was.

Mr. Foster
was a pretty smart dude, now.

You would thought he went
to school somewhere,

but he didn't.

He would go down South
to the Negro colleges in Texas,

and he would get
a lot of the ballplayers

out of the schools.

If he was a fast man,
a good runner, he'd say,

"Would you put on
some football pads?

I want you to learn

how to steal bases."

And Mr. Foster taught
them all the tricks.

He exploited the rules
to his maximum benefit.

We're looking
at a bunt-and-run...

...drag bunting...

double steals...

a suicide squeeze play
at home plate.

He made the game more up tempo.

You see, he was adamant
about the style of play

that would become signature
Negro Leagues Baseball.

Fast, aggressive, daring.

They bunt their way up.

They steal second,
they steal third.

And, man,
if you weren't too smart,

they were stealing home.

During World War I,

W.E.B. Du Bois wrote
a very famous editorial

in the crisis
called "Close Ranks."

He told Black people,
"We need to set aside

our grievances and go join
with the country to go fight

to save democracy."

News reporter: Fighting
with the eighth Illinois

on the Swanson Front...

...372nd on the plains
of Mons-En-Chaussée.

But he thought that doing this,

Black people would show
their loyalty,

and Black people would show
they were American citizens,

and Black people would show
that they were putting

being American

above being Black,
and that this would get them

some degree of acceptance.
This would get them some degree

of White people listening
to their grievances

and responding
to their grievances.

He turned out
to be totally wrong.

What happens is that
they come back

into a racial world
that is terribly negative.

In a couple of instances,
the Chicago Defender prints

a Black soldier in his uniform
being hanged, being lynched.

The Red Summer of 1919
was one of the worst summers

of White terroristic violence
in history of this country.

From the late winter
up until the following fall,

there was violence all over,
and it was, almost all of it

was White violence
against Blacks.

The most noted
was Chicago.

There was also terrible blow up
in Washington, DC,

Wilmington, Delaware,
Elaine, Arkansas.

It happened all over.

And part of it was White people
wanting to tell Black people

the war doesn't change anything,
and we're still in charge.

But it convinced
a lot of Black people,

all the more,
that we need to close ranks

in another kind of way
to build our own institutions.

You had the rise

of someone like Marcus Garvey.

You had people
who were telling Black people,

in essence,
that they had a destiny.

Soon after,
we got Alain Locke writing

his great book called,
The New Negro.

The New Negro had a new voice.

The New Negro was not going

to sit back and accept these
segregated sanctions anymore.

And so we got a new mindset.

This is the perfect time
in America to start

an organized league in 1920.

Rube Foster
certainly has to be aware

of all these people
trying to figure out

how to move Black people forward

in a society that has constantly
ostracized them,

that has kept them
on the margins

and doesn't appear
to be changing.

So Rube Foster wrote
a series of op-eds called,

"The Pitfalls of Baseball"
for the Chicago Defender,

and he talked
about the importance

of organizing Black baseball.

How it would benefit,

not just the players,
but the owners of each team,

for them to form
this connected league

and to have scheduled games
and play against each other

and build a fan base.

"I have fought against
delivering Colored baseball

into the control of Whites,

thinking that with a show
of patronage from the fans

we would get together."

So he gets paperwork
done in the state of Illinois

to incorporate
this non-existent league

that no one has even agreed
to do yet.

And he gets these
other team owners to agree,

and they meet
in Kansas City at the Y.

Bob K: You know,
I wish I could have been

a fly on the wall in that room
because Rube Foster had to be

a master salesman.

He had to be
because he had pulled

these independent
Black baseball team owners.

So they were already
making money.

And now he had to convince them
that they could be

even more successful
if we organize

and we now share
a piece of the pie

by creating our own league.

And so, you know Rube
was a great salesman

because he was able to do that.

And on February 13th, 1920,
they walked out having signed

the documents to start
the Negro National League.

His motto for the League

he stole from abolitionist
Frederick Douglass.

"We are the ship..."

- "...and all else..."
- "...the sea."

Bob K:
Yeah, he was serving notice

to Major League Baseball

that a new player had arrived
on the scene

to be reckoned with.

Bob M: When it came
to promoting a game,

no one did it better
than the Negro Leagues.

Window placards,
newspaper advertisements,

and word-of-mouth
were in the works,

well in advance for most games.

Sometimes I spent the ten cents
to buy a ticket.

Other times,
I'd peer through the knotholes

in the wooden fence
outside the stadium.

Pitchers zipped balls
with such speed across the plate

that it was hard
to follow the pitch.

Batters stretched singles

into doubles,
and doubles into triples,

with lightning speed.

It was obvious the fans
didn't want the celebration

to end, and neither did I.

Negro Leagues baseball
was so popular

that Black churches would move
their service time up an hour

so fans could go to the game.

If you know anything
about the Black church,

you don't mess
with service time.

But when the great Kansas City
Monarchs are playing,

any of those great Black teams,

service time would move up
to ten o'clock,

and everybody filed out
going to that

Sunday doubleheader
looking good.

When they went
to baseball games,

men would dress very sharply.

Ladies wore dresses
and big hats, beautiful hats,

with flowers
and whatnot on them.

You would buy the fanciest
clothing in the world.

The age
of the 20th century,

the Harlem Renaissance,
New Negro Renaissance,

was the age of the rise
of the Black professional.

You know, you got
a new kind of presentation

of the Black
professional musician.

You got a new kind
of presentation

of the Black
professional athlete

with Negro League Baseball.

These were professional men,
sometimes women,

who were doing something
at a very, very high level

and had a tremendous virtuosity.

Any time you saw
Black people doing something

that was virtuosic,
you always... You felt like,

"Okay, I can go on

and deal
with the rest of my week...

...'cause I saw
some Black people doing

something
that's really excellent."

That's a home run
in the right field

into the stands!
First home run of the series!

Meanwhile,

White baseball will soon become
a station-to-station game.

You don't run. You don't steal.
You don't bunt. No hit and run.

You try to hit it out
of the park.

And I think that's a reflection
of Babe Ruth's influence.

But it's, in many ways,
the antithesis

of the Black game.

Bob K: If a guy went
into the hole,

flipped it behind his back,
start the double play...

well, we see that now
every night of the week

as a top-ten highlight
on some network.

Back then, the Major Leaguers
would say

that they were "showboating."

But what the Major Leaguers
were trying to say then

that the Negro Leagues
didn't play the game

the right way.

But really that was a code word
to say they didn't play the game

the White way.

But still,
it was a fabulous time

for Black men in baseball

because coming out
of World War I,

there were lots of people
who were looking

for that equality,
but now they have

their own league.
How about that?

So once Rube Foster organizes
the Negro National League,

other people start to see that,
"Hey, there's a possibility."

1923 rolls around.

There's a guy in Philadelphia
by the name of Ed Bolden,

and he'd worked
for the post office for years.

He was the owner
of the Hilldale team.

He sees the writing on the wall,

that Rube Foster's influence
is headed towards the East.

So Ed Bolden gets

all of the Eastern teams together,

and they have a big meeting,
and they form

the Eastern Colored League
in 1923.

With the creation
of the Eastern Colored League

on the East Coast,
the Negro National League,

that was primarily based
in the Midwest,

has a competitive league

that now they can stage
a World Series against.

So in 1924,
the Kansas City Monarchs

of the Negro National League
played the Hilldale Daisies

of the Eastern Colored League

in the very first
Colored World Series.

The World Series in 1924
was the best of nine,

not seven like it is today.

It turned out to be
a great series.

Series is tied up
four games each.

We're in Chicago now,

the weather is
in the mid-fifties.

José Méndez has a cold,
and Rube Foster says,

"You have to pitch this game."

Hilldale comes out
with Script Lee.

Script Lee
is a submarine pitcher.

The Hilldale pitcher
had everything

a pitcher could ask for
in the first seven innings.

During that time,
only one man reached first.

Then came the eighth.

But he runs out of gas
and he starts to pitch overhand.

The bases were full.

Allen looked over the ball,
then singled to right scoring.

Duncan slid into home plate...

...half a second
ahead of Riggs' throw to Santop.

Monarchs score five runs

and José Méndez, on three hits,
shuts out the Hilldale Club,

and the Monarchs take
the most dramatic World Series

ever played.

It really kind of
established Black baseball.

It was saying to White baseball,
"Look, we're the same.

We have the same end of the year
championship series,

the same way you do.

We've got
our two separate leagues,

like the National
and American League,

the same way you do."
And that was important.

As much as Rube Foster
and other executives wanted to,

you know, get into baseball,
and have successful teams,

so they could make
their own money

and so that they could do this
incredible thing for

and within the Black community.

There was also
this constant effort

to show White baseball
that Black baseball

was good enough,
with the hopes that, ultimately,

Black baseball could become one
with White baseball,

that they could join forces.

Bob K: And Rube's initial vision

was that he would create
a league that was so dynamic,

that he would force Major League
Baseball's hand to expand.

So if we were looking at it
in a more modern-day context,

think football with the NFL
and the AFL merger,

or for those
who are basketball fans,

the merger of the NBA
and the ABA.

Now, this was Rube Foster
in the 1920s.

That's how forward-thinking
and how much a visionary

this man was.

Well, Rube Foster
was in Indianapolis for a game

in May of 1925,

and unfortunately,
he was subjected

to carbon monoxide poisoning
from a leaky gas heater.

Oh, he was rescued
by his teammates

who came to his room
to deliver a telegram.

Some newspaper accounts said
he was in serious condition.

He was rushed to the hospital.

I don't think
he ever fully recovered.

By September
of the following year, in 1926,

he was admitted to a sanitarium.

Rube Foster died
on December the 9th, 1930.

Bob K: And Rube Foster,
when he dies,

the fans of Chicago lined
the streets for three days

to pay their respect
to their beloved Rube Foster.

Thousands of people
came from afar

to celebrate this great legend.

Rube Foster's death
was a great loss

to baseball and Black America.

And the Negro National League

began to struggle.

And then, of course,
not only do they lose Foster,

the Great Depression hits.

And so the combination, I think,
of the two of those things

really brings about the demise

of that first
Negro National League.

As bad
as the Great Depression was

for most White Americans,
it was a heck of a lot worse

for Black Americans.

When it comes
to Blacks, it's the old phrase,

"Last hired, first fired."

That's what faced Blacks.

So the Black community,
which had enjoyed

a certain measure
of economic success in the '20s,

is once again facing hard times.

And that was a bad time
for this country for,

not only the Blacks,

but for the majority
of poor people. It was bad.

I know. They could come
to a baseball game,

forget about all their woes.

And I was just as proud
of making them happy.

And when I'd come in,

you'd think
I had a million dollars.

That's how much baseball
meant to them.

Bob M: All I wanted to do
was talk baseball.

Bob M: The older folks
who hung out at the barbershops

were more than happy to share
their wisdom with me.

Stories of seeing greats
like Oscar Charleston,

"Cool Papa" Bell,
and Josh Gibson.

And legendary teams
like the Pittsburgh Crawfords

and Homestead Grays rolled out
of the mouths of old men

as if they knew
each player personally.

Back in the '30s,
Pittsburgh becomes

the crossroads
of Black baseball in America.

It wasn't the largest
Black community by far,

but it was situated geographically

on the East-West rail lines,

which meant
that any Black intellectual,

politician, figure of note,
or ballclub that's traveling

from New York to Chicago,
or anywhere else,

is going to stop
and play in Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh becomes the home to,
along with the Chicago Defender,

the most influential
Black newspaper in the country,

the Pittsburgh Courier.

Some of the greatest
jazz musicians of the era

made their fortunes
in Pittsburgh.

And in the world of sports,

you have clearly
the two greatest

Negro League dynasties
of the 1930s...

the Homestead Grays
and the Pittsburgh Crawfords.

And those teams had two owners,

who were both
intensely competitive,

Gus Greenlee
and Cumberland Posey Jr.

They were men
of different temperaments.

They had different styles.

I think they knew
that their rivalry was something

that was good for both of them

and good for Black baseball
as a whole.

Cum Posey, who lived
a block and a half from me,

was a great basketball player
at Penn State.

His father was a fairly
well-to-do man,

and so he had the time.

Most Black kids in those days
had worked after school

and on Saturdays and Sundays...

to supplement
your family's income.

But Cum had the time to deal
with a hobby.

And he took some
of these Black baseball players

and made up a team.

It was just
a great experience

to have been in Homestead

at that time and tied in
with that great ballclub

called the Homestead Grays.

Bob K: In 1931, Cumberland Posey
introduces the world

to a young phenom

by the name of Joshua Gibson.

♪ Before ol' Henry Aaron
Before ol' Willie Mays ♪

♪ A brown-skin man
Hit homers ♪

♪ Over every wall
They raised... ♪

He was one
of the few people...

that was as good

the first year as he was
the last year he played.

He was actually a natural.

♪ Ooh, Josh Gibson... ♪

Joshua Gibson came North
in the Great Migration

after World War I.

His father, Mark,
left sharecropping

to become a steelworker
in Pittsburgh.

Josh left school
after the ninth grade

and then was discovered

on the sandlots when Gibson
was about 16 years old.

I saw a young man
playing, very muscular,

very young.

Near the end of the game,
he hit a home run

and he hit the ball
out of existence,

it looked like.
They didn't even go after it.

It went up over a mountain.

And from that day on, they just
loved Josh, all of 'em.

Josh was not pretentious.
He was amiable,

and he treated everybody
the same, and he could play.

And you knew if you had Josh
in the lineup,

you were going to be
a winning club.

Perhaps a championship club.

♪ Ooh, Josh Gibson ♪

Josh Gibson
made a name for himself

with the Homestead Grays.

When we look at his numbers,
his home run at-bat ratio

is between Hank Aaron
and Barry Bonds.

We're looking
at a Gibson home run

every 14 times at bat.

He always led

every league
that he ever played in,

in batting average.

He might go, you know,
get eight for ten,

you know, a 13 for 15.
You know, like that.

Yeah. He was tough to get out.

Griffith Stadium,

there was 405 feet down
the left of the line

and behind that,
there was a scoreboard

that had a big hotdog on it
with mustard on it.

And Josh hit the ball
over the 400 feet,

up over the back
above the stands,

and hit
that advertisement board

and peeled the paper
right off it.

So we used to tease
and say that he knocked

the mustard off the hotdog.

I remember one time

I was walking up the ramp
with Josh,

and one little kid ran up,
said, "Mr. Gibson, Mr. Gibson,

will you give me
one of your broken bats?"

Josh says,

"Son, I don't break bats.
I wear them out."

Now, that Josh Gibson,
he was the type of person

that just liked everybody.

And always with a smile,
like a big overgrown kid.

If I step on the bus, he'd say,
"Why, oh, my, Ms. Posey."

And he'd run
and he'd almost pick me up

and put me in the bus
and everything

he'd see that I had there
and say.

And the first thing he'd say
to the boys is...

And that was it.

Bob K: Cumberland Posey,

of course, had built
the great Homestead Grays,

and Cumberland Posey
had financial wherewithal.

And so he was able to pluck

star players away
from other Black baseball teams.

And he would do
that with regularity.

And then here comes
Gus Greenlee.

Gus Greenlee would build
the great Pittsburgh Crawfords,

as now a rival to Cumberland
Posey's Homestead Grays.

He was in
a lot of businesses.

He ran a very popular restaurant
called Crawford Grill,

and he was the leading entrepreneur

in the Black numbers
gambling business.

Well, the numbers, essentially,

were what we now know
as the lottery.

They would base
the winning number

usually on a number
in the stock tables that day,

and every day,
everybody played the numbers.

My grandmother...

...who, you know,
and my grandparents

who ran a funeral home,
played the numbers every day.

Gus Greenlee was as fine
a man as you would want to know.

And I found that Gus would do
anything for anybody

who was a friend of his.

If he didn't even know them,
and they got in trouble,

if there was anything
he could do to help them

out of trouble, he would do it.

Gus Greenlee was approached

by a couple members

of the Pittsburgh Crawfords
baseball team,

and at the time they were
like a semi-pro sandlot team

and, you know,
said that they needed money,

they needed an investor.
And Gus jumped in headfirst.

When he took
the ball team,

he let us know that when he took
it that he was going to the top

and he's gonna do
and get the best he could.

I think his top motivation
was he looked across town

and he saw Cum Posey,
the son of the biggest

and wealthiest Black family
in town, and said,

"If I can build the Crawfords
into a team

that can beat the Grays,

I'll be the top man
in Pittsburgh."

Bob K: He did
to Cumberland Posey,

what Posey had done
to other teams.

He outbidded Cumberland Posey
for his star players.

He convinces
Oscar Charleston

to cross town
and join the Crawfords.

Then he sets his sight
on Josh Gibson.

So now, Josh Gibson is playing
for the Crawfords.

And so he steals
every good player

that Cumberland Posey
ever developed.

But then the Crawfords are able
to pick up Satchel Paige.

I just could pitch
and then the master just give me

a home. And you just...
It was hard to beat me.

You couldn't ought to beat me.

I did some things in baseball
I've never seen anyone else do,

and I didn't know
what I was doing

one half of the time.
But still, I did it.

Satchel Paige is born
in Mobile, Alabama.

He's dirt poor.

He has to go out
and hunt game with rocks,

and he gets his name, Satchel

because later on,
after he's nine or older,

he's able to work
at the railroad depot

carrying bags, luggage, satchels.

He learned how to pitch

at the Mount Meigs
Reform school.

And so, after that,
he comes out of there

and begins his climb
to baseball fame.

A fellow by the name
of Bill Gatewood,

I just love the way he went,
the way he pitched.

He said, "You know the thing is,
if you listen to me,

I'll make you
one of the greatest pitchers

in the world."

He said,
"Because you love to play,

you love the game,

and you try to do
what I tell you."

He says, "You see
all the fellas out there?"

He says,
"I have the devil with them

trying to make them practice."

He said, "You practice
without me asking you."

So he was gonna help me.

But now, as far as me saying,

"I am the greatest pitcher
in the world."

I didn't say that.
It's other people saying it.

Bob M: Once I became
an umpire in the leagues,

I finally got my shot to go
behind the plate

and call balls
and strikes for the legend.

I had never seen a ball move
the way it did.

I was stunned,
and so was the batter.

Satchel throw balls
that looked small,

throw the small ball,
which is true.

It'd be turning so fast,

it looks smaller
than the regular ball.

"Prince" Joe: I weakly
grounded a ball back to him

and I felt
like I'd hit a home run.

Just to know that I had made
contact with the ball.

Satchel Paige is,
without a doubt,

the greatest pitcher
in Black baseball history.

We can now show Satchel Paige's
strikeout rate per inning

is very similar to Nolan Ryan's.

Bob F: He would be
one of the top five

or ten pitchers
in baseball history

if he'd been in the big leagues
throughout his career.

But I saw him pitch
and he threw

with very little effort
whatsoever. And the hitters say,

"Well, you can't throw
the next one by me."

Boom. There it goes.

And, well, you're not going
to get that one by me.

Oop, oop! There it goes.

He went out on that mound
and he looked up at the crowd.

He said, "Duty,
the sun is shining,

but I'm gonna make them
think it's nighttime."

He struck out
21 of the 28 men he faced.

We knew when we saw
Satchel Paige pitch,

when I saw Satchel Paige
and Satch could call in

the whole team
and strike everybody out.

You know, I saw that.
He'd call them all in.

Here he is, seven of us,
kneeling around the mound.

He threw nine pitches,
and the side was out.

When he was in the backyard,
he just did amazing things.

Like he'd say, "Look at that.

Look at that berry hanging over
there on the bush.

I bet I can hit it."
And I'd say, "No you can't."

And he would pick up something and...

...hit it and I would say,

"Oh, wow!" You know,
that's what little children do.

They don't think, well,
it was 55 feet away

and it was
the size of a quarter.

You would have to be
a heck of a shot to make it.

Before Gus Greenlee
hired Satchel,

the initial Negro League,

which was formed
by Rube Foster,

had essentially fallen apart.

So in 1933,
Greenlee and some others found

the second
Negro National League.

So they became
the Negro National League.

But now it's all Eastern teams.
And in 1937, the Western teams

organized the Negro American League.

And so, Gus Greenlee

starts to bankroll
a bunch of new... ideas.

And one of those people

talk about is the East-West game.

And it was going to be
the premier event.

Gentleman Dave: They picked
the best of the teams,

players from the East

and the best of the players
from the West,

and they rented Comiskey Park.

We started playing in 1933.
It was only 22,000 that year.

From that day on,
the crowd kept going and going,

until the one time
we had 70,000.

People came
from all over the country.

You had all the entertainers
come in, you got Count Basie,

Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton,
Lena Horne was there.

Anybody who was anybody
was there at that game.

♪ Keep on swingin'
Trying to get to second base ♪

Bob K: This was
the crème de la crème

of baseball.

There's Satchel Paige.
There's Hilton Smith,

there's Josh Gibson,
and Buck Leonard, Mule Suttles.

All these great stars.
They're all there.

Oh, man, you're talking
about a gala affair. A weekend.

They start coming in
by Thursday.

Didn't leave
until Monday morning.

The real impact
of the East-West Classic

was that White sportswriters
started to cover it,

and once they did, some of them,
for the very first time,

saw a kind of baseball
they had never seen before,

where games were won...

...not just with hitting,
but with base stealing,

with these incredibly
acrobatic catches

in the outfield,
with just a level of speed

that they had never seen
in baseball.

And they started
to write about that,

and the appeal that could have
for White fans, as well.

So the East-West classic
is having a big impact

on the vision of the future
for baseball.

♪ Well you may run on
For a long time ♪

♪ Run on for a long time ♪

♪ Run on for a long time
Let me tell you ♪

♪ God Almighty
Is gonna cut you down ♪

♪ Go tell
That long-tongued liar ♪

♪ Go tell
That midnight rider... ♪

Bob M: Before, during
and after the season,

teams would travel
throughout the country

and play in exhibition games
to enhance their income.

I was given the chance
to go on the road

with many different teams.

We'd travel right after a game,

sometimes driving all night long
to get to our next destination.

♪ I thought I heard
The shuffle of angels' feet... ♪

It's 11 or 12 o'clock
at night,

and you're just leaving
a ballgame,

and you're on a hike
for 400 miles

or more to the next stop.

And you find ways, you know,
to amuse yourself.

And as you well know,

singers have been
a part of our culture.

And they have their quartets,
and you would hear one

going down the road
in the middle of the night

and hear them singing.

♪ Run on for a long time
Let me tell you ♪

♪ God Almighty
Is gonna cut you down... ♪

Barnstorming was a schedule that the teams

would have playing
different teams.

They may play
a league team one day,

and then they'd play

the local shoe factory
the next day.

And just playing,
in most cases,

as many games
as they could play.

I mean, it wasn't uncommon

for a team to play
three games in one day.

When I was playing

baseball with the Philadelphia Stars

on 4th of July,
we played four games.

Play the game
at ten o'clock in the morning,

doubleheader in the afternoon,
and then we'd get in the bus

and ride over New York State
and play that night.

We played so many doubleheaders

that when we had
played one game,

we'd call that an off day.

They had to find
a way to get money

turning over all the time.

Their system was
to have a game every day.

As long as they could play
somewhere every day

in order to keep those payrolls
going to keep it afloat.

♪ That's all, brother
You'll knock no more ♪

♪ Well, run on
For a long time ♪

We would get tired
when riding.

We would fuss
like a bunch of chickens.

But when you put the suit on,
well, it was different.

You just,
you knew that was your job,

and you just go to it.

♪ Tell the gambler
Rambler, backbiter ♪

♪ Tell 'em God Almighty
Is gonna cut 'em down ♪

Bob M: Players kept
their minds off their struggles

playing cards
and sharing stories.

Of course, we'd always run
into a few ignorant kooks

who would call us names.

In those moments,
responding to racism,

we weren't players,
and umpires, and managers.

We were brothers.

They thought
that the Homestead Grays...

was a White team.

So they had us booked
into a very nice hotel.

See, Posey
was the traveling secretary,

and he was very fair skinned.

So he went in,
and he got the rooms

and everything.

So they started
to unload the bus...

...and when the players got off,

they said, "Oh, no, no,
you can't stay here.

This is a White hotel."

Black hotels
in the South,

even in major cities
like Birmingham, Memphis,

New Orleans, and whatnot,
they were very rare.

And usually the ballplayers
would find a rooming house,

a Black rooming house
in the town,

and that was where
they had to stay.

I can remember a town

where we put up
in a rooming house in Arkansas.

When you turn on the lights,

you see the bedbugs start
to go for cover.

You have to sleep
with the lights on

because if you don't,

those little gremlins
would come out

and you wouldn't get
any sleep anyhow.

Satchel Paige makes

the point one
of his first games.

They arrived at the park

and he said,
"Oh, I'm really tired.

I want to hurry up and get
to bed and get some rest."

And the manager said,
"What bed? What do you mean,

get to rest?

We're staying here
in the ballpark."

I mean, you... you had to sleep
on your suitcase

in the ballpark.

We didn't stop much
because they wouldn't feed us

in the restaurants.

So we had to eat out
of paper sacks

and go in a grocery store.

We got one dollar
a day meal money,

and we would buy
one loaf of bread

and we would buy a jar,
a big jar of peanut butter.

That's what we lived off
of for three or four days.

Peanut butter and bread.

Sometimes I'd wonder,
I'd talk. I'd say,

"Well, how in the world
do they expect you to play ball

and you can't even eat?"

You haven't had a bed
to sleep in.

You slept in a bus.

It wasn't healthy.
It wasn't comfortable at all.

How they could play two
and three games in two days

is really a mystery.

Bob M: On long bus rides,
I had overheard

Negro League players talk

about their incredible experiences

playing winter ball
in the Caribbean.

The players said
that a Black man

could just be a man
and not have to worry

about paying
the social consequences for it.

Bob M: It sounded
about perfect to me.

First,
I played in Puerto Rico,

then I played in Cuba,
and then Mexico.

It was a wonderful place
to play.

They give you a chance
to go down there,

and the salaries
were a little better.

The crowds were better.

The teams in those towns
were the kings of the towns,

it was like high school.

You can say that

when the game was played
on weekends

and the whole town
was at the game.

Fans were more like
football fans, you know,

"rah rah" cheering
and hit a home run

you'd take your cap around
and they'd put money in the cap.

And they had a company
called Don Q Rum.

Every home run you hit,
you'd get a case of Don Q Rum,

you know?
So it was fun.

There little kids
run behind you

and after the ball game,
they want your autograph

and it makes you feel
a part of something,

instead of being something
separate unto itself.

But when you are out
of your own country,

and you find everything
so much better...

you know,
it's a revelation in a way,

if you never experienced it.

But it's like heaven, you know?

I want to go back, you know,
I got to go back there.

I got to go back there.

There was
very little discrimination.

So you felt, you know, free.

The fact that, you know,

you were accepted
for your ability,

not from the color of your skin,

and that really
made you feel great.

I think
from the very beginning,

there was a sense of a kind
of a solidarity or connection

between Black players here
and Latin players,

dark Latin players.

So in some ways,

baseball generated
a kind of diaspora,

'cause these Black Latin players

could not play
Major League Baseball either.

They had to play
in the Negro Leagues

that they were playing
in the United States.

And so Martín Dihigo
and José Méndez,

Cristóbal Torriente,

the game was just full
of Latino ballplayers.

Negro Leagues
was a rainbow coalition

of players of color,

everything from chalk
to charcoal.

That was the pigmentation

that played
in the Negro Leagues.

News reporter: Millions enjoy
a great year in American sports.

But Dizzy and Daffy Dean,

the Cardinal Ace's
new national heroes.

Dizzy Dean
pretty much saved baseball

during the Depression.

Babe Ruth was kind of fading out
for the Depression 1934,

and him and his brother
come in with the Cardinals.

They win the pennant,

and then they go
to the World Series.

So they're like
on top of the world.

And they could have gone home,
but they were gonna barnstorm.

And so they played
in that particular year, 1934.

They play six games
against Kansas City Monarchs,

two against
the Philadelphia Stars,

three against
the Pittsburgh Crawfords,

and two against
the New York Black Yankees.

And they tour all the way
across the country.

But people didn't,
hadn't seen Blacks

and Major League All-Star teams
mix too much in those days.

So we always had large crowds.
I think we played ten games.

We played against

Dizzy Dean and his brother
in Cleveland,

and they had a sellout crowd. And...

Satchel beat Dizzy two-one
in 12 innings.

Bob K: The record books bear out
that the Black teams

won the majority
of those head-to-head matchups.

What that tells me, number one,
is there was no doubt

in the minds
of those Major League athletes

that these guys could play.

Now,

we knew that we could play
baseball with anybody.

If you've got Satchel
on your team,

you can play our teams
that got nine devils on it.

Somebody asked
Dizzy Dean, they said,

"Who's the greatest pitcher
you ever saw?"

And Dizzy Dean was known
to be a little conceited,

and they figured he's gonna
start talking about himself.

He said, and he told them

that the greatest pitcher
he ever saw was a Colored boy

named Satchel Paige.

He said, "If you can get him
and me on the same team,

we could win the pennant
by the 4th of July

and go fishing
until the World Series started."

I remember
we were playing in California

in the winter league,

and I was with
Satchel Paige's All-Stars.

And we were playing
the Major Leagues All-Stars.

And we played three Sundays.

And then Judge Landis,
who was the commissioner

at that time,

sent a telegram out
and told the Major Leaguers

not to play us any more

because they had everything
to lose and nothing to gain.

We had everything to gain
and nothing to lose.

I can only be for the best team
in each league to win a pennant.

But to you fans, no heartaches
and not even a grouch.

May you all win.

Kenesaw Mountain Landis

is brought in as the first
commissioner of baseball

after the Black Sox scandal
of 1919,

which was the throwing
of the World Series.

So the owners give
Kenesaw Mountain Landis

essentially almost
dictatorial powers,

because they needed to clean up
the image of baseball

after the Black Sox scandal.

Whatever views Landis had,
we know that by his actions,

he maintained segregation
in Major League Baseball

far longer than it needed
to be maintained.

Landis will soon prevent teams
of Major Leaguers

from barnstorming against teams
of Negro Leaguers

because he doesn't want

intact Major League teams
being defeated.

Whatever he says about,
"Oh, there's no law.

There's no rule
against integration."

The reality is, at every step,
he did nothing but block it.

News reporter: Today,
Destination Freedom

will play that chapter entitled
"The Ballad of Satchel Paige."

♪ Nobody knows when he first
Played on a baseball field ♪

♪ Some say he put out Caesar ♪

♪ When old Julius
Tried to steal... ♪

As his name recognition
grows as a tremendous winner,

other teams want him to come in,
pitch two or three innings,

and that's when the relationship
between him and Gus Greenlee

becomes...

strained.

By 1937, he had put in
two, like, really great seasons

for Gus Greenlee.

He was back with the Crawfords,
and all of a sudden,

these guys start
hanging around the stadium,

and it turns out
that they were emissaries

from the strong man
in the Dominican Republic,

Trujillo.

So he sent his emissary
with 30,000 dollars

to offer Satchel Paige

to play for him,
and then also carte blanche

to then bring as many players
as he could bring with him.

Paige then was able
to reach out

to other star
Negro League players,

particularly those
on the Crawfords.

"And yeah, I'll go with you.
Sure. For what? How much money?

Pay me a couple thousand.
Oh, yeah, right. I'm coming."

Paige brought in a total
of nine Pittsburgh Crawfords

from a roster of 16.

But it destroyed
the Pittsburgh Crawfords

because they lost
their best players.

By 1938, they were history.

It was too bad because Greenlee
did a great deal

for Black baseball.

So at that point,

Cum Posey takes advantage, pounces.

And he lured Josh Gibson back,

started stealing
some of the players back.

And then you had the makings of,

really, the last great
Negro League dynasty,

which was the Homestead Grays.

And they made it
to five of the last

Negro League World Series

in the last decade
of the Negro Leagues.

News reporter:
The stakes this time

are the greatest men
have ever fought for.

And what are the stakes?
The American state.

The liberty of the whole earth

depends on the outcome
of this contest.

Bob M: Following the US entry
into World War II,

African Americans once again
embraced the opportunity

to fight for their country.

Close to 120
Negro League ballplayers

joined in the war effort.

In the spring of 1943,
I enlisted as a member

of the United States
Marine Corps.

I was one
of the first Black Marines

in the history of this country.

Black soldiers were always put
on the front lines,

used as pawns to pave the way
for the White soldiers.

On the battlefields
of Okinawa, Saipan, and Guam,

I would endure
many harrowing experiences.

More than half
of my company was killed.

There were so many
dead bodies lying around,

they could have covered
the playing field

of any Major League ballpark
with the corpses.

I had given America
two and a half years of service,

and the country still
had not granted

full rights to me
or my Black brothers.

It was a huge contradiction

that Americans were fighting
this war effort

on behalf of civil rights
and liberties for people abroad.

And Black people understood

that they were still
second class citizens at home.

And I think Black people
took that as an opportunity

to start pushing for more.

The Double V campaign

was started
by the Pittsburgh Courier.

The Courier rallied
Black opinion

around the country,

around the idea
of "We will support this war.

We will enlist to fight.

We will buy war bonds
and support the war.

We will be patriotic,
but we want it understood,

that when the war is over,
we are going to get our rights."

And this is what they call
the Double Victory campaign.

The idea of having
to fight two wars, one overseas,

and more importantly, one here
at home against segregation.

And in that discussion
comes one of, I think,

one of the most powerful images
and stories that comes out

is the idea they can fight,

and go, and fight,
and die at Guadalcanal,

but they can't play
on a diamond together?

At the time,

baseball was America's
most important sport,

and so integrating that

they felt symbolically
would be such a major step

to see Black people
and White people

working together
on the same team

to achieve a common goal
of winning a game.

I was involved

in an organization
of young people

interested in breaking

the Jim Crow ban
in the big leagues.

We used to go collect signatures

from the fans
coming into Forbes Field

that we want to have Negroes
get into the big leagues,

and there were lots of petitions

like we were making
in Pittsburgh, in New York.

Many, many petitions

were gathered
at the Yankee Stadium.

The owners knew
that this has got to change.

Bob K: Now, the Black press

was pushing this agenda
all along. Sam Lacy, Faye Young.

There were other
great Black writers

who were all trying to alter
the course of baseball

and move Black folks
into Major League Baseball.

But Wendell Smith,

one of the great Black writers
of that era,

was really
its primary front man.

Wendell Smith
started writing

this whole series of stories
about the issue.

And so, when teams came to play
in Pittsburgh at Forbes Field,

he would park himself
at the Schenley Hotel

across the street
from the ballpark

and buttonhole the top managers
and coaches and players and say,

"Are you in favor of integrating
the Major Leagues?"

And he got all of these top,

well-known people
on the record saying "Yes."

And then he and other
sportswriters used

some of that data
to start pressuring

the Commissioner Landis

to consider the integration
of Major League Baseball.

And he had been dodging
the whole issue

for a couple of decades.

In December 1943,
leaders of the Black newspapers

met with the commissioner
of baseball

and the owners of baseball

about getting Blacks
into the big leagues.

And they selected Paul Robeson
to be the spokesman

of the delegation here
in New York.

Paul Jr: Dad was then a great
theatrical star, film star,

the leading concert artist
in the country and in the world.

So my father's attitude was, especially,

because I've reached
this pinnacle,

because I'm who I am...

I have to do whatever I can do

to advance the interests
of African Americans as a whole.

And in this case,

what better way than to throw
my weight behind the campaign

to break the segregation

in organized baseball
in particular.

So Paul explained

to the commissioner
and to the others,

"We have a million Blacks
in the armed forces,

and now, right during this war,

they... You still have this ban
against them in what sport?

The national sport.

How does that fit in
with what we're fighting for?"

Voice as Paul Sr:
We live in times

when the world
is changing very fast,

when you may be able
to make a great contribution

to not only the advance
of our own country

but of the whole world.

Because a thing like this...

...Negro ballplayers becoming

a part of the great
national pastime of America...

can make a great difference

in what peoples
all over the world

feel towards us as a country

in a time
when we need their help.

Paul Jr: He made about a ten,
12-minute presentation,

which was quite impassioned.
It was off-the-cuff

and really had
an enormous effect

on the owners,
apparently because unusual,

they applauded at the end
and all that.

And then of course,
everybody withdrew,

and they went back
into private session.

Branch Rickey,

who's president
of the Brooklyn Dodgers, says,

"Are we going to discuss
and make a decision

on the proposal to integrate
Major League Baseball?"

And Landis said,

"We have considered it.
No action has been taken."

He said, "It is a matter
for each club to determine

whether or not to sign
a Black player."

But as long
as he is the commissioner,

there will not be any player
who can't cross the color line.

But in 1944,
Commissioner Landis dies.

It really changes everything.

♪ Goin' to Kansas City
Kansas City, here I come... ♪

Bob M: Sailing home
was a bittersweet journey.

We had defeated
a dangerous enemy,

all the while earning respect
as soldiers.

Bob M: We hoped life
would be better back home.

♪ They got some
Crazy little women there... ♪

Bob M: After the war,

my brother begged me to give him
a lift to Kansas City, Missouri.

Kansas City had jobs, nightlife,
a thriving Black community,

and a professional
Black baseball team,

the world famous
Kansas City Monarchs.

♪ Standin' on the corner... ♪

Bob M: When I arrived
in Kansas City,

the Monarchs
were stocked full

of some of the League's
best known talent.

♪ With my Kansas City baby... ♪

Bob M: Clifford Connie Johnson,
Buck O'Neil, Ted Strong,

Willard Brown,
and Satchel Paige.

♪ I might take a plane... ♪

The Monarchs
were big shots,

as far as I was concerned.

We thought that they
were the greatest things

that Kansas City had,
you know.

We'd sit over there

and talk about who
had pretty legs

or who was built
and looked real fine.

You know, they looked good.

♪ Ah, but you know
Yeah, must die... ♪

This was a good time
for baseball,

a good time for musicians.

They would come to the ballgame,
see us play.

And at night we go on
and see them,

dance and everything.

By the time
we get to the '40s, really,

this is the heyday
of Black baseball.

Because of World War II,

there's money pouring
into the Black community, right?

Like defense hiring,

these manufacturers
can no longer say,

"Well, we're not gonna hire you
'cause you're Black."

It's all hands on deck, right?

So now, Black people
in the general community

have more money to go
to baseball games

and to support
these institutions.

So by the late '30s
and early '40s

Black baseball was considered
to be the third largest

economic institution
in the Black community.

'Cause you have vendors,

and you have advertising,
and you have ticket sales,

and you have all of these
other aspects to the game

that weren't considered,
you know.

People were making
money from it.

Bob K: The impact that it had
on urban communities

was something that
we've not seen to that magnitude

since the Negro Leagues.

So when we think
about Black baseball

and its impact on cities
like Chicago,

Kansas City, New York.

Wherever you had
successful Black baseball,

you typically had
thriving Black economies.

♪ They got some
Crazy little women there... ♪

Bob M: My arrival
in Kansas City in 1946

came at an exciting time
for Black baseball in the town.

Bob M:
When the Monarchs advanced

to the Negro League
World Series that year

against the hot contender
from the East,

the Newark Eagles.

They were run
by powerhouse owners,

Abe and Effa Manley.

The ballplayers,
they have a word they used.

I realized it
was the most important word

in their vocabulary,
and the word is "satisfied."

"I am satisfied."
If they're not satisfied,

all you've got is a guy
in a uniform.

And then on the case

of our old time
Negro ballplayers,

they were happy doing
what they did.

Effa Manley was a woman

who said the things
that needed to be said,

even if nobody wanted
to hear 'em,

and did the things
that needed to be done,

even if nobody else
wanted to do them.

She is called

"The First Lady
of Black baseball"

because there really,

at that time
and pretty much after that,

weren't any other women

closely involved in successful
Black baseball teams.

And there weren't very many
other women closely involved

with successful
White baseball teams, either.

But she was also an enigma.

There's questions of like,
"Was Effa Black? Was Effa White?

Was she passing,

or was she just living
her truth?

Was she just living her life?"

Before she gets
into baseball,

she comes of age in Harlem
in the 1920s and early '30s,

and she is absorbing all of it.

I immediately became
very much involved

in civic affairs.

I was attending
a dinner one night,

and we got
into this conversation

about how hard it was
for Negroes to find employment.

The department stores
and other big stores

on 125th Street in Harlem,

which was the main
business street there, had no,

other than elevator operators,

you couldn't see
a Black employee in the store.

So she decides
to launch a boycott

against a department store
in Harlem,

because even though 70,
75 percent of their sales

were coming
from the Black community,

they would not hire
Black women as salesclerks.

It worked.
And if you were gonna see

how Effa Manley
was gonna run her team

in the Negro National League,

you need only look
at those few months

in Harlem in 1934.

Abe Manley was involved
in numbers operations,

and Abe had always been
a really big fan

of Black baseball.

Once he marries Effa and sees
what Effa is capable of

during this Blumstein's boycott.
He can trust her.

He knows that
she will do the work,

that she is smart,
that she is savvy.

He's like, "Yeah, let me give
this Black baseball thing a go."

Little by little,

I found myself
doing more and more.

I drew up the schedules,
bought the equipment,

went to all of the meetings,
of course.

I found myself
completely involved,

and I enjoyed it.

Bob K:
She was a shrewd negotiator.

She knew the business
of baseball as well as any man,

and Monte Irvin
was fond of saying,

"She never missed a payday."

You had a lot of respect
for her,

and she tried to keep you on,
you know, tried to,

particularly young fellas.

She'd try to advise them
what to do,

how to do it
and that kind of a thing.

But I think
it was her ability

and her characteristics
and what she was like

and what she wanted
the League to look like

that made her a presence

in the Negro League situation,
you know? Very important. Yeah.

For many years in the '40s,
the Homestead Grays

were constantly winning
the pennant,

and the Eagles
were right behind them.

And in 1946,
they finally caught up.

It was special for Effa.

She'd been in baseball
at this point, her and Abe,

for over a decade.

And this was the moment
that she had been working to.

She had Larry Doby,

who became the first player
in the American League,

when he signed

with the baseball team
out of Cleveland.

Monte Irvin was on that team,
Leon Day was on that team.

Bob K: Leon Day throws

an opening day no-hitter...

...in 1946.

Opening day,
that was tremendous.

It was... I mean, it was...

That's why that reaction,
it was shock.

The Black people threw
the little blue cushions

they used to give you to sit on,

they just covered
the stadium with pillows.

And pillows were sailing out
from all over the place.

I was a little boy
looking at that,

I thought... I was like,
"Wow, look at this."

Bob K: And the Newark Eagles
rode that wave

all the way to the World Series

against the Kansas City Monarchs.

The Monarchs were ahead,
three games to two,

and were on the verge
of winning.

The Eagles won a slugfest
in the sixth game to tie it up.

So they're back
at Rupert Stadium

for the seventh game.

And he gets to the ninth inning.

The Eagles are ahead,
three to two.

Monarchs last chance.
First guy makes an out,

the second guy singles,

but he's thrown out at second,

trying to stretch it
into a double.

So now there are two outs,

and Effa Manley is just
as nervous as a cat

because the next guy gets a hit.

She's something
like in her memoirs,

"How can a human heart
take all this tension?"

She says, "I can't look,

I hear the crack of the bat
and I can't look.

I finally opened my eyes,

and the ball is coming
right down

in first baseman
Lennie Pearson's mitt."

He grabs it. The Eagles win.

Boy, did we have
a ballclub in 1946.[chuckling]

I don't believe

any ballclub in the country
could have beaten us.

I'm in the Navy.

I'm a boatswain,
stevedore platoon.

It's an all Black battalion.

It's 10:30 at night.

Everybody's in bed,
and the officer said,

the officer of the day,

"Boatswain O'Neil,
come to my office at once."

I say, "Oh, hell,
what did I do now?"

He said, "You know what?"
I say, "No, sir."

"Branch Rickey
just signed Jackie

to an organized
baseball contract."

I say, "Whoop,
give me that horn."

I got on it.

I say, "Hear this,
hear this, hear this."

Woke up the entire camp.

And I said, "Branch Rickey
just signed Jackie Robinson

to an organized
baseball contract."

They whoop, they holler,
they shot their guns.

We didn't sleep much that night.
Oh, man. That was it.

I came out of the service,

I joined a baseball team.
In a year or so,

I was with
the organized baseball,

and in a very short time,

I was up there
in the Major Leagues.

Boy, I was a pretty lucky fellow
because we do pretty well

in the Major League
in baseball.

♪ I got a good thing
A good thing going on ♪

♪ I got a good thing
A good thing going on ♪

♪ Woke up this mornin'
It's a brand-new day ♪

♪ And I know everything's
Gonna come my way ♪

♪ 'Cause I got a good thing
A good thing going on ♪

Jackie Robinson had been
this incredible athlete at UCLA,

and he was known
across the country

as this football star,

but there was no avenue
for him to play football.

And so, baseball really became
the best outlet for him

to be a professional athlete
to make money.

And that door opened for him
through the Negro Leagues,

through the Kansas City Monarchs.

At the time,

Wendell Smith decided
that Jackie Robinson

was the player
that had the best odds

of breaking through
into the Major Leagues

because he had
the right temperament,

and he had the right look

that would be accepted
by White fans.

So it was actually Wendell Smith

who put Jackie Robinson
on Branch Rickey's radar screen.

Organized baseball

hasn't had a Negro player
since 1884,

when Moses Walker
was with Toledo.

But 63 years later, in 1947,

Jackie Robinson
joined the Brooklyn Dodgers

and blasted his way to stardom.

Bob M: We never thought
we'd lived to see the day

when a Black man would be
admitted into the Major Leagues.

Equality was within our reach.

If a Black man could integrate
the great American pastime,

anything seemed possible.

Every Sunday
in my hometown Fairfield,

I would read about three guys,

Joe DiMaggio,
Ted Williams, Stan Musial.

Those are the guys

that were on the sport page
every Sunday.

So when Jackie came in in '47,
he gave me hope.

Well, man, one of these days

I might be
on the front page like that.

Brooklyn became Harlem.

Or that is to say,
it was a place most loved.

And whether you would ever go
there or not, you knew Brooklyn

because Jackie Robinson
was there.

One of the very first times

that I went to see the game
at Ebbets Field...

First of all,
going on the subway,

you'd have thought all of Harlem
was heading there.

Everybody I see,
they're bringing along baskets.

They've got chicken.
It's like a big picnic.

All of Harlem now
is going to Ebbets Field and so,

you know where they're going,
and you know why they're going.

Jackie. Everybody's talking
about Jackie.

Jackie changed people.

The whole dynamics
of America changed.

You know, when the Dodgers
began playing on the road...

you saw tumultuous scenes,
you know, and...

this was...
There was a first in everything.

There was an exhibition game
in Georgia.

This tremendous crowd
of Black people,

and the Dodgers emerged
from their dugout.

A big roar of greeting
from the Black crowd.

The second thing
is booing from the White stands.

Okay.
Then the third thing happens.

What's the third thing?
White people begin standing up

and clapping
to differentiate themselves.

How many? Hundreds.

So, who are these people,
you know?

They're not all hidden
closet progressives, you know.

So that's a great dynamic
at work there.

Black and White
took the field together.

How do you estimate
the meaning of that, you know?

Jackie Robinson not only
opened the doors for baseball,

but he opened the doors
for a lot of other opportunities

because he brought to mind

to a lot of predominantly
White businessmen,

why shouldn't we have
a Black telephone operator?

Why shouldn't we have
a clerk in our store?

They didn't understand that,

until they got to see
Jackie Robinson

producing like
a professional baseball player

and then projected that
into other areas of life.

I think Jack
was one of the catalysts

for the civil rights movement,

that somehow
he alerted White people

to the fact of discrimination

and what the losses
were for the society,

that you couldn't include
this talent.

And I think
he made Black people,

who had been made
to feel inferior,

feel prouder of themselves.

Signing him
was remarkable

because Jackie was not
a great player when he started,

but every year he improved
and became very exciting,

and a great second baseman,
and a team leader.

He just... He did
a great job of pioneering.

But the hostility
to Jackie was very, very strong.

And now, the Cardinals
were probably the most hostile.

And I saw Enos Slaughter
run down

and just deliberately reach out
with his left foot

and spike
Jackie Robinson's ankle.

The things
that happened on the ball field

hurt more than anything else,
simply because of the fact

that I had been in athletics
for many, many years,

and I had never really
experienced some of the things

that were happening to me
at this particular time.

So Mr. Rickey felt that
for the first few years

that we couldn't oppose
actually some of the things

that were said and done to us.

We had to sort of turn
the other cheek.

I found that very difficult.
Matter of fact,

my doctor told me
to get away from baseball

for fear I was gonna
have a nervous breakdown.

I knew
what he was going through,

and I could hear it
in certain cities,

like Philadelphia and Baltimore,

some of the places
where there would be

racial epithets coming
out of the stands

and that kind of thing.

And I would...
It would make me angry.

But I was just as committed
to the course

that Jack had chosen, as he was,

and he would fight back
with his bat.

I mean, he would do well,

and that would silence
those detractors.

In that pressure cooker
of that first year,

he still was Rookie of the Year,
and they won the pennant,

which has to be
the most incredible,

courageous feat in the history
of American sports.

Just look at this,
and think about Jackie Robinson.

Dark-skinned Black man
puts on a white uniform,

picks up a bat
made of white ash,

stands in a white batter's box

to hit a white baseball
from a White pitcher...

...thrown over
a white home plate,

hits the ball
between two white foul lines.

He's called "out" or "safe"
by a White umpire,

as White fans boo or cheer.

He was an ink spot

on the white canvas
of injustice.

And so, no matter
how you feel...

...he was under
a tremendous pressure...

to try to blend in.

All those that I talked to
or was around were very excited

about the Negroes
breaking into the Majors,

you know,
which I myself was, in a way,

except that it did wreck
our business.

And I do feel
it was an unfair approach.

I feel that it should have been
handled much differently.

Black executives
of Negro Leagues teams

were on board with integration
in the sense that they believed

that integration in baseball

would mean integration
in all of society,

that Black people would
ultimately become "equals,"

if you will.

I'm not even gonna say
that they were opposed

to integration in baseball

in terms of its effect
potentially on their teams.

You know, whether they might
lose some of their best teams.

You know, once Jackie was signed
away from the Monarchs,

you know, they understood

that their players
could be next.

In fact,
their players were next.

I don't even think

they were really
opposed to that.

The conflict came in

because they wanted
to be treated fairly

as businessmen and women.

Even Cum Posey
was an advocate,

before he died,

of integration.

He would give speeches
and he would say,

I hope to, you know,

eventually see Black players
playing in the Major Leagues.

But it was always
with the expectation that the...

that the Negro League teams
would be compensated,

that if they jumped

from the Negro Leagues
to a pro-team,

that the pro-team
would essentially

do what they would do,
you know...

...amongst themselves,

which are,
they would buy out the contract.

Branch Rickey opposed that
from the very beginning.

In fact, he mocked the idea

that Jackie Robinson
had any contractual obligation

to the Kansas City Monarchs,

or that the Negro Leagues
were even a real league.

He said they're not even
a real league.

Branch Rickey didn't even ask...
He accused Dad of being...

And the Negro Leagues
were ran by a bunch of gamblers.

I don't know where he got...

Well, there was one guy
in the East Coast,

was in the number business,
but that's the only guy

I ever heard of being
into gambl...

But he used that
mainly as an excuse,

so they wouldn't have
to pay him.

But Branch Rickey
never paid anything,

really, to anybody.

He was a very close-operating,
cheap person.

He knew how
the baseball business worked.

Here are these players
that you have invested in

that you have trained,
that you have developed.

Now, I want them to play
on my Major League roster.

Here is what it should cost me.

But Jackie Robinson signed
with the Dodgers,

and Branch Rickey did not pay
the Monarchs for his contract.

And later, Branch Rickey
signed Roy Campanella

and did not pay Tom Wilson

of the Baltimore Elite Giants
for his contract.

And he signed Don Newcombe,

and he didn't pay Effa and Abe
for his contract.

So there was this understanding

that, not only
was integration happening,

but it was going
to kill their businesses.

I never felt he was right
to take those valuable players

and not give us
a nickel for them.

I felt that was very wrong,

and we should have had
some little compensation.

But we were in no position
to protest, and he knew it.

So he just completely
outmaneuvered us,

outsmarted us,
or just plain raped us.

I don't know what you'd say
or how you'd describe it.

Bob K: To say that Effa Manley
couldn't stand Branch Rickey

might be an understatement.

She didn't care
for Branch Rickey

because she saw what Branch
was going to do,

and she was able
to kind of fight him off.

But she knew she wasn't gonna
be able to continue to hold

those other owners off
once this thing did break loose.

As we say,
there was blood in the water,

and the sharks were coming out.

At this point,

Jackie's establishing himself
with the Dodgers

in the National League.

Bill Veeck, from Cleveland,
had called and told Effa

that he wanted
to sign Larry Doby,

and immediately,

I think Effa's probably
just happy she got a call

because she didn't get a call

from Branch Rickey
for Don Newcombe.

So already she understands,

okay, he is at least trying
to do business with me.

And he makes it clear that
he wants to sign Larry Doby.

And she says, "Okay, well,
how much will you give me?"

So Bill Veeck,

the owner
of the Cleveland Indians,

offered 10,000 dollars
for Larry Doby's contract.

It wasn't a lot of money,

but it was a whole lot more
than anybody else was paying.

And Effa said,
"You know, Mr. Veeck,

if he were White
and a free agent,

you could get
100,000 dollars for him."

And Veeck says,
"Well, yeah, you're right.

I'll tell you what.

If he sticks with the team
for a month,

I'll pay you another five."

I think that made her
tremendously important.

A woman in a man's space,
speaking up and running a team,

but also a woman
in a man's space saying,

"Run me my money."

So Bill Veeck
brings in Larry Doby.

He also will bring in
Satchel Paige.

Paige is pretty old
by that time,

but he comes in,

he sets attendance records
in his first three games,

and he can still pitch.

Announcer 1: Lou Boudreau
goes to the mound,

that's all for Christopher
and it's gonna be Satchel Paige.

And here's the announcement

about the appearance
of Satchel Paige. Listen.

Announcer 2: Satchel Paige!

And he will pitch in relief,

he will pitch
in the World Series,

and the Indians will win.

That was the death knell
of Negro League Baseball.

When they signed
the Black players,

the people that had been coming

to Griffith Stadium
in Washington to see us play,

and in Yankee Stadium
to see us play,

now, they want
to see Jackie play.

The interest
in the Negro League

really fell off.

So they found out
that they couldn't continue

to pay the salaries.

And, you know,
all those favorite fans

now were going to see players
that had just been called up.

Integration took place,

and I begged Abe to quit
the next year

because we dropped
another 20,000 dollars.

I mean, the fans deserted us

to go see the boys
on the White team.

Deserted us like they say
rats desert a ship.[chuckling]

Bob M: With the onset
of integration

in the great American pastime,

the once-prosperous
Negro National League

in the East folded in 1948.

Only the Negro American League
in the Midwest was left

to hold down the fort
of Black baseball.

So on the East Coast primarily

is where you saw
that really quick downfall.

Effa called it
"Jackie Robinson Country"

because where she was playing
in Newark, like, you know,

her fans could just catch
a train and go see Jackie.

When people have one option,
or you know,

they don't have money
to go to multiple games,

they're choosing
to go see Jackie.

Why am I going to go see
the segregated ballclub

that was born of Jim Crow

and represent segregation
and all of these things,

when I can go see Jackie?
He's the hope. He's the future.

One of the questions
I get asked all the time

about integration is,
"Layton, wasn't it wonderful

that when Jackie Robinson
got called up,

that it opened up baseball
for all the Black ballplayers?"

And I said, "If you talk
to the ballplayers themselves,

the answer is no."

Is... If you were
an impact ballplayer

like Larry Doby,
or Roy Campanella,

or Don Newcombe,
or a Jackie Robinson,

there was gonna be a chance

that you could play
in organized baseball.

But for the average
Negro League ballplayer, no.

I knew that everybody
couldn't be the same

and be that at the same time.

It's a lack of opportunities,
that's all.

But we had ballplayers

that could have played
in the Major Leagues

when they first started playing.

But they didn't get the chance.

Willie Wells,

there ain't no baseball player
in Major League Baseball,

no better ballplayer
shortstop than Willie Wells.

Raymond Dandridge...
...Josh Gibson.

Josh Gibson
was always in the conversation

about this vision some day

of Black players playing
in the Major Leagues

because, by the mid-1930s,

he was considered
the greatest hitter

in Black baseball,

and people who had seen him play
would say, like,

"He's greater than Babe Ruth."

But in fact,
Wendell Smith himself,

and some of the other
top Black sportswriters,

had actually stopped advocating
for Josh Gibson by the 1940s

because they thought
he had too many demons.

According to the family,

Josh was diagnosed
with a brain tumor.

And it took a toll on him,
physically and mentally.

He lost his sense
of who he was and control

and was found wandering
around the streets of San Juan.

And he passed
not long after that.

And it was a very,
very sad ending for someone who,

anybody who saw him play,

said this was one
of the greatest players

who ever played the game.

There were still
attempts to keep going,

to keep playing.
And even into the '50s,

there were some players
that were being recruited.

Henry Aaron was playing
on a Black team

when he was recruited,

and we saw all kinds of efforts
to bring in more ticket sales,

like the signing of women
to play games.

There's good baseball
being played by Negro Leaguers,

and the league itself
persists down to 1960.

But it's not anywhere near
the quality of baseball played

when the Negro Leagues
were at their height.

I don't know
if it was apparent at first,

but I think over time the loss
of the Negro Leagues

began to be more felt,

and that people began
to understand

that the loss
of the Negro Leagues

was something significant.

It was felt in many ways
that were tangible.

You know, when we start talking
about all of the people

that it takes
to make a team run,

whether we're talking
about bus drivers, or, you know,

people working concessions
or taking tickets,

all of those people
typically came

from within
that Black community.

But then,
there's also the intangible,

of in the midst
of all of the stuff

that we have to deal with
as Black people in this society,

this place where we can go,

where we can get dressed
to the nines,

where we can hang out,

where we can root
for our favorite players

and are free to just be us
without the White gaze.

They lost that too.

What happened
was starting in the '50s,

a lot of the Black folks,

who had the opportunity
to leave those communities

to go to college, to rise
within White professions,

did so, and they left

folks who were stuck
in those communities

to be on their own

at a time when they were
more vulnerable than ever,

as a result
of the declining industries,

as a result of the devastating
impact of urban renewal.

These housing projects
and highway projects.

So the demise
of the Negro Leagues

foreshadows a larger crisis

for Black America
in those communities.

You look at just
the Crawford Grill

and across the street
is a Black barbershop.

And it's fascinating

after the integration
of Major Leagues,

you see the deterioration.

It's just devastating
to the Black community.

Bob K: When we talk
about integration,

it was good morally,
it was good socially,

and it moved us in ways

in which we probably never,
ever dreamed possible.

But that progress
came at a cost.

The enduring importance
of the Negro Leagues is the fact

that we can do this thing
on our own.

I'm not saying we should.

I'm not saying that
we should go off in a corner

and, you know,
build our own teams and leagues

and recreate
Negro Leagues baseball.

But we can.

We know, and White baseball
should know as well,

that we're capable
'cause we already did the thing.

Boom.
Out toward straight center.

Willie Mays catches it,
450 feet.

Say, hey, Willie,
was that a catch!

Would baseball
be baseball today

without Willie Mays
from the Birmingham Black Barons

or Ernie Banks
from the Kansas City Monarchs?

The Negro Leagues brought
a new dynamic to the game.

It made the game
a better version of itself.

By the '60s and '70s,

guys who had not played
in the Negro Leagues

come on the scene in what really
was the heyday of Black baseball

in the Majors.

Hank Robinson
jockeys the count

to three and two,
before he gets his pitch

Players like Frank Robinson

excelled at every level
of the game.

Like Rube Foster,
he was a star player,

a manager,
and a baseball executive.

Bob Gibson was the greatest
Black pitcher

since Satchel Paige.

And Reggie Jackson,
like Josh Gibson,

who is one of the most feared
sluggers in baseball history.

Black and Latin players made it
a very different game,

and with their success
on the field,

there was no turning back.

Upton steals home!

Bob M: On April 8th, 1974,

Hank Aaron broke
Babe Ruth's record,

one of the most sacred
in baseball,

hitting his 715th home run
in the Major Leagues.

Swinging and there's
a drive into left-center field,

that ball is out of here!

It's 715,

there is a new home run champion
of all time,

and it's Henry Aaron!

Hank Aaron once said,

"My abilities are only limited
by the lack of opportunity."

And once he got
that opportunity,

he made an assault
on Ruth's record.

Henry Aaron,
the home run king of all time...

So let's keep in mind

that Babe Ruth never hit
a home run off a Black pitcher.

His record was set
in apartheid baseball,

which makes Hank Aaron's record
more valuable.

His record was set

against the best pitchers
on the planet.

Bob M: Following years
of pressure from the public,

Satchel Paige
became the first player

to be inducted
into the Baseball Hall of Fame

based on his record
in the Negro Leagues.

I am the proudest man
on Earth right today,

and I know my wife is.

Bob M: The following year,

he was joined by Buck Leonard
and Josh Gibson,

and then "Cool Papa" Bell.

Many more would follow,
including Rube Foster,

Effa Manley,
and Cumberland Posey.

It's hard to do
too much for pioneers.

I think, you know,
we stand on their shoulders,

and we know it.
They paved the way for us,

and we should have
a lasting gratitude toward them.

Bob K: The Negro League
players themselves,

they had no idea
they were making history.

Man, they didn't care
about making no history.

They just wanted to play ball.
But the pride, the passion,

the courage that
they demonstrated

in the face of adversity.

To overcome the adversity
transcends race, transcends age,

transcends gender.
And that's the real story.

It was in my blood.

It'’s still in my blood
to be an umpire.

You call a player safe,
it just get all over ya.

You call a player out,
it just get all over ya.

It's just like a... in heaven.