Diversity In Baseball

Baseball was one of the first institutions in the American history to be desegregated. Shortly after the end of the civil war, there was the first public baseball game held between all-blacks teams. Philadelphia Excelsiors and Brooklyn Uniques played. Twenty years later, there were over 200 black teams in the US that had been formed. Then, the Blacks were able to play in teams that were traditionally known to belong to Whites, and this was practical in North and Midwest where they were known to be more tolerant of diversity in race. The issue had earlier in 1890 been worsened when National Association of Base Ball players rejected the black players. According to Fort and Joel (36), the agreement to bar the Blacks from participating in the baseball
However, regions like the South, Midwest and North had black teams playing and they could travel the country to play other Black teams and in some cases, they could challenge the all-white teams to exhibition games. For instance, in 1888, the Cuban Giants defeated New York’s (All-white team) in four games out of five (Laliberte 330-339). Together in 1920, there was creation of the first black league popularly known as the Negro National League. More leagues sprout that resulted in great entertainment for the communities that were engaged (Rogosin 4). It brought economic success as the years progressed by breaking the economic barriers as black hotels and restaurants emerged in areas where the leagues took place. Jackie Robinson signing by manager Branch Rickey as the first black player for the Brooklyn Dodgers marked the beginning of the end of the Negro Leagues with the black baseball fans being forced to follow their players in the main leagues. The Negro Leagues ended by 1960 (Lumpkin
The segregation was not tough for Latin American teams when compared to African-American teams (Negro League Teams). However, after the first black pioneers infiltrated the segregation to play in MLB, the influx of foreign-born players, particularly the Latinos increased. Therefore, Jackie Robinson’s integration is regarded as the culmination of efforts by different Blacks in the Negro League teams such as John Gibson, Rube Foster and Satchel Paige as well as other black Latinos such as Martin Dihigo, Alejandro Pompez, Jose Mendez, etc. (Cooper, Gawrysiak and Hawkins