The service requires full JavaScript support in order to view this website. A charity baseball game that paid tribute to the Negro Leagues and their significance to the sport was held at Sacramento State's John Smith Field on Oct. 9. An outfielder and a solid hitter, Page resides in Pittsburgh, where he operates a bowling alley. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. Soon he became involved in the Negro League Researchers and Authors Group and helped with an extensive study commissioned by the Hall of Fame and Major League Baseball. Like O'Neil, Minnie Mioso was still alive when he was denied entry in 2006, mostly because his time was so short in the Negro Leagues. Some high school data is courtesy David McWater. I believe the oldest living Negro League ballplayer is Roosevelt Jackson. Born May 6, 1931, Willie Mays is the youngest. How Cool Papa Bell was so fast that he could hit the light switch and be in bed before the lights went out. Dennis Biddle lives down the street from my grandparents. Mioso fell short on Golden Era votes in 2011 and 2014 . Soon he became involved in the Negro League Researchers and Authors Group and helped with an extensive study commissioned by the Hall of Fame and Major League Baseball. Hardball historians, however, are out there keeping the Negro Leagues alive. To this day, no one apparently has any idea of his whereabouts or even whether he is still living. Now 66, Bell lives in St. Louis where he is a guard at City Hall. A select few were All-Stars and one (Aaron) was inducted into the Hall of Fame. List of Negro league baseball players (M-R) This list consists of players who have appeared in Negro league baseball . March 16, 2007 - Hubert "Country" Glenn, passes away. We have tools and resources that can help you use sports data. Among the most captivating features of Stars Park was the trolley car building that served as the left-field barrier. Larry Doby debuted with the Cleveland Indians on July 5. . 1933 Homestead Grays, Part of that was simply how the Negro Leagues recorded their statistics, which wasn't as robust a system as the Major Leagues'. Center for Negro League Baseball Research, First black player for St. Louis Browns and New York Giants, First black player for Philadelphia Athletics, First black player for Pittsburgh Pirates, "Negro League Players Who Made the Major Leagues", "Negro Leaguers Who Served With The Armed Forces in WWII", List of Negro league baseball postseason games, Atlanta Black Crackers/Indianapolis ABCs (IV), Indianapolis ABCs (II)/New OrleansSt. Founded in 1990, the museum is the only one in the world . James Bell: Cool Papa Bell was probably the fastest ball player ever to don spikes. I read Bill James in the 1980s, and I wanted a Negro League Baseball Abstract. The leagues were full of talent and it went beyond the names you may know like Mays or Satchel Paige. He grew up in Cuba and says it was tough to adjust to segregation and racism he saw in the U.S. PEDRO SIERRA: It wasn't easy to see all the problems with the race. A select few were All-Stars and one (Aaron) was inducted into the Hall of Fame. Researchers are still looking to add fielding statistics, left/right splits and secondary pitching and batting stats for many Negro League seasons, especially those in the 1940s. They played most of their careers in the organized Negro leagues before the Great Depression. ","contextualCaption":null,"contextualAspectRatio":null,"credit":null,"format":"jpg","templateUrl":"https://img.mlbstatic.com/mlb-images/image/private/{formatInstructions}/v1605643461/mlb/lv9mhm1fsyjmr30kii4r","type":"photo"},{"__typename":"Markdown","content":"Thats the type of work that Ashwill, who currently works as a freelance academic editor and runs the Agate Type baseball blog, has done since he began researching the Negro Leagues 20 years ago. Many of the men that played in the last era of the Negro Leagues (1937-1957) died in the past 18 years, and a good portion in the past ten or eleven years. Of course, Josh Gibson and some of the other big names have passed on, but a lot of the legendary stars are still alive and well and living in well, why dont we call the roll of some of the more familiar names, men like . TRIBOU: The last league folded in the early 1960s. By August 1, 1947, three Major League teams had already integrated. This is not a complete or exhaustive list of all the organizations and individuals who have kept the Negro Leagues alive, but it is easy to contribute to the four following organizations whether . SIERRA: Yeah, a hundred dollars a month. Sports Reference . O'Neil served as a representative of the Negro Leagues on the Hall of Fame Veterans Committee from 1981-2000, and 11 Negro Leagues players were inducted through 2001 for a total of 18. 2006 Negro League Baseball News December 17, 2006 - Willard Brown inducted to LA. There's a huge amount of information about Latin American baseball that still needs to be processed -- Black Americans played professional baseball in Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Venezuela, Ashwill said. After spotting the Black newspaper The Chicago Defender in his universitys library stacks and knowing its historical importance, he dove into the reels for the 1920 season and was surprised to see incredibly thorough coverage and box scores for the Negro National League. Or write about sports? There's also Charley Pride (3/18/1935), famous country singer and one of the only black people to perform on Grand Ole Opry. The stories, however, keep alive the memory of a man who became bigger than the game. Suttles pictured back row, far left. Ted Page: Ted starred with the great Josh Gibson on the Pittsburgh Crawfords and Homestead Grays in the 1930s. A lifetime .312 hitter, Ray remembers 1950 as a banner year when he was selected as MVP in the Triple-A American Association, while playing with the Minneapolis Millers. TRIBOU: Today, Sierra lives in New Jersey. Center for Negro League Baseball Research. Apocryphal stories surround Paige, who was born July 7, 1906 in Mobile, Ala. That's about five times more in salary than Black players. Our statistics are based on box scores and game stories found in contemporary newspapers, as well as the small number of scorebooks and filled-in scorecards that can be tracked down, Ashwill wrote. You can't really settle on a few sacred numbers the way you can for MLB records.. His salary was less than 5% of what white players were earning. He says his greatest thrill was a home-run he hit in the 1940 classic in Chicago. All rights reserved. Thats the type of work that Ashwill, who currently works as a freelance academic editor and runs the Agate Type baseball blog, has done since he began researching the Negro Leagues 20 years ago. Since the Negro Leauges were still around several years after Jackie Robinson's debut, I would imagine there are still a few dozen former players who are still alive. Streeters biggest thrill in baseball was to hit a home run. The text below has been updated to reflect that. There was Oscar Charleston who hit .400 multiple times. As protests over racial injustice in the U.S. continue, Major League Baseball is honoring the Negro Leagues that showcased Black baseball players at a time the sport was segregated. Many historical player head shots courtesy of David Davis. TRIBOU: Pedro Sierra pitched in the Negro Leagues for several seasons in the 1950s. Data Provided By Mays played. Born May 6, 1931, Willie Mays is the youngest. Members of the Baseball Hall of Fame are noted with a . But before Paige there was baseball's serial pay disparity. Of them, only 9 are still alive as of Janury 26, 2023. Full-year historical Major League statistics provided by Pete Palmer and Gary Gillette of Hidden Game Sports. Pedro Dibut). January 29, 2007 - Ralph "Big Cat" Johnson passes away. In 1934, led by 20-year-old left-hander Slim Jones, the Stars defeated the Chicago American Giants in a controversial playoff series, four games to three, for the Negro National League pennant. He played for the Louisville Clippers, and later was traded with Jesse Mitchell to the Birmingham Black Barons for a used team bus. Born September 3, 1924 Bill Greason is the oldest player on this list. ", "So take a ballplayer like Monte Irvin, in 1948, who made $5,000 with the New YorkGiants," Lester said, "or $833.33 a month. Ernie Banks and Monte Irvin died a couple years ago. The coming seasons brought many more signings. TRIBOU: Minnie Forbes will keep sharing her stories with younger generations, and others will, too. Although there are two players who played before 1946 none of them appeared in 1946, thus no players from 1946 are still alive. His career was spent almost entirely playing in all black minor or semi-pro leagues, most of which were located in southern Florida. Major League Baseball has finally decided that players from the Negro Leagues should be considered Major Leaguers. There would be the Royals dressed as the Monarchs, the Tigers as the Stars, the Pirates as the Crawfords or Grays, Triple-A Memphis as the Red Sox, Double-A Birmingham as the Black Barons, High-A. When I began speaking with Ashwill about the database in September, Hall of Fame slugger Mule Suttles held the Negro Leagues single-season home run record with the 30 that he hit as a member of the St. Louis Stars in 1926. Logos were compiled by the amazing SportsLogos.net. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. Major League Baseball was segregated from 1887 through 1946. The list does not include Negro league players who only played in the minor leagues and White Hispanic players who played in both the Negro Leagues and MLB prior to full integration (ex. We already knew they were equals, of course, it's just official now. Charlie Neal Hank Aaron George Altman Maury Wills Donn Clendenon John Wyatt Blue Moon Odom Paul Casanova See also [ edit] List of starting black NFL quarterbacks List of black NHL players At their high point in mid-1930s, the team starred such greats as Biz Mackey, Jud Wilson, and Dick Lundy. One of two players in history to win the Rookie of the Year, Cy Young, and MVP in his career (Verlander being the other). They played most of their careers in the organized Negro leagues after the Great Depression. In 1924, the first year of the Colored World Series, the share of the winners, the Kansas City Monarchs, was $307.96, says Lester. This list comprises players who have appeared in Negro league baseball. At 5'3", she hit .273 and pitched to a 33-8 record for the Indianapolis Clowns from 1953 to 1955. Watch our How-To Videos to Become a Stathead, Subscribe to Stathead and get access to more data than you can imagine. The 1930 St. Louis Stars. He turns 100 on December 20th, 2017. Do you have a blog? This Month in Sports ReferenceFind out when we add a feature or make a change. Major League Baseball announced this week the 1920-1948 Negro Leagues was recognized as major league, Families of Negro Leaguers rejoice in MLB's decision to recognize league, After vowing change, Black candidates shut out again of MLB front office jobs, Oscar Charleston who hit .400 multiple times, Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. Basically, our earlier version of the 1926 Negro National League relied heavily on the Black weekly newspapers for games played in St. Louis -- in this case the Chicago Defender (which was distributed nationally) and the St. Louis Argus, Ashwill wrote. \n","providerName":"Twitter","providerUrl":"https://twitter.com","type":"rich","width":550},"type":"oembed"},{"__typename":"Markdown","content":"That started to change in the 1980s and early 90s as researchers like Dick Clark, Larry Lester, John Holway, James Riley and Phil Dixon began assembling a more robust statistical record. O'Neil also made history when the Cubs hired him as a coach in 1962, making him the first Black member of an AL/NL coaching staff as part of Chicago's "College of Coaches." 1928 St. Louis Stars, Major League Baseball announced this week the 1920-1948 Negro Leagues was recognized as major league, meaning Black players who played during those years are officially acknowledgedas the same as their white counterparts. America is about democracy and opportunity but it's also just as much about cash. The list includes those who played on major Negro league teams prior to integration (and any caliber Negro league team after integration) as well as in Major League Baseball. When the book was being put together, the Negro Leagues weren't even considered for inclusion. Jimmie Crutchfield: A slender outfielder, Jimmie signed with the great Pittsburgh Crawfords when he was only 19 years old. Many thanks to him. It's just that you rarely get where are they nows on the guys who played 3-4 forgettable seasons,whether they were in 1930s or 1990s. cnlbr.org is using a security service for protection against online attacks. I knew about it. Use Mays, Greason, Golden and Teasley as the faces of a compensation plan, like lead plaintiffs in a lawsuit, and account for what was a wide disparity in pay between Black and white players during those 28 years. I grew up with the distinct impression that no statistics could ever be compiled, that it was often unclear what happened at all, and that it was more or less impossible to find out anything for sure about many of the players., Our friends at Seamheads have added new 1926 statistics to their #SABR award-winning Negro Leagues Database, including a record-setting season by Mule Suttles: https://t.co/sCWIvkVMuB @scott_simkus @KJOKBASEBALL @DanHirsch pic.twitter.com/WlQhzB8q4u. Now 71, and a Pittsburgh resident, Sam says that Smokey Joe Williams was the greatest pitcher he ever saw while slugger Mule Suttles gave him the most trouble at the plate. Players he signed as a scout with Chicago then the Royals included Lou Brock, Oscar Gamble, Lee Smith and Joe Carter. Question, Comment, Feedback, or Correction? 1920 Chicago American Giants, Third baseman Hank Thompson appeared in a game for the St. Louis Browns (now the Baltimore Orioles) on July 17, two days before outfielder Willard Brown joined him on the Browns' roster. Scores from any date in Major League history, Minor, Foreign, College, & Black Baseball, Frequently Asked Questions about MLB and Baseball, Subscribe to Stathead Baseball: Get your first month FREE. With the game still years away from the multimillion-dollar contracts handed to star players, Aaron's annual pay in 1959 was around $30,000. That mission continues today.\n\nAnd I really do mean today. the Negro Leagues weren't even considered. They played primarily before the organized Negro leagues. Our reasoning for presenting offensive logos. A good right-handed hitter, Duncan is always mentioned as one of black baseballs best catchers. Of them, only 9 are still alive as of Janury 26, 2023. A native of Texas, Brown is reported to have pitched as early as 1917 with the Dallas Black Giants. Josh Gibson, Win Expectancy, Run Expectancy, and Leverage Index calculations provided by Tom Tango of InsideTheBook.com, and co-author of The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball. Hank Aaron and Willie Mays also began their careers in the Negro Leagues. Newt Allen: For 20 years, Newt starred as the Kansas City Monarchs slick-fielding 2nd baseman. The list includes those who played on major Negro league teams prior to integration (and any caliber Negro league team after integration) as well as in Major League Baseball. Born average. Louis Stars, Southern League of Colored Base Ballists (1886), International League of Independent Professional Base Ball Clubs (1906), National Association of Colored Baseball Clubs of the United States and Cuba (19071909), West Coast Negro Baseball Association (1946), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_Negro_league_baseball_players_who_played_in_Major_League_Baseball&oldid=1137262492, Short description with empty Wikidata description, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Served in the US Army during WWII 19421944, Served in the US Navy during WWII 19441945, Served in the US Army during WWII 19441945, Served in the US Marine Corp during WWII 19431945, Served in the US Army during Korean War 19521953, Served in the US Army during WWII 19431945, Served in the US Army during WWII 19421943, Served in the US Army during WWII 19411945, Served in the US Army during WWII 19441946, Served in the US Army during WWII 19431947, Served in the US Army during WWII 19431946, Served in the US Navy during WWII 19441946, Served in the US Army during Korean War 19511953, Served in the US Navy during WWII 19431946, Served in the US Navy during WWII 19431945, Served in the US Marine Corp during WWII 19431945 and the Korean War 19511952, Served in the US Army during Korean War 19511952, Served in the US Army during WWII 19421945, This page was last edited on 3 February 2023, at 18:10. Find out more. Allens best baseball memory is an unassisted triple play he made in the early 1930s. Lester said the average monthly salary of a Black player in the early 1920s was $175 a month. Dan Bankhead Sam Bankhead Bob Boyd Ray Brown Willard Brown Bill Byrd Roy Campanella Buster Clarkson Jimmie Crutchfield Ray Dandridge Leon Day Larry Doby Luke Easter Wilmer Fields Josh Gibson Junior Gilliam Sammy Hughes Monte Irvin This is a list of the last handful of living major leaguers from the 1940s. The color line in baseball is also probably the most profound case of historical injustice in the history of modern sports -- and the injustice most definitely includes the failure to properly record both the identities and the achievements of thousands of professional ballplayers., Before the Seamheads database, Negro League statistics were sparse and spottily updated. Theyve established -- though its no surprise -- that the speedy Bell holds the single-season record with 49 stolen bases for the Stars in 1929. For NPR News, I'm Doug Tribou in Ann Arbor, Mich. (SOUNDBITE OF A FOREST MIGHTY BLACK'S "REBIRTH"). 'THEY TRULY DESERVE IT:'Families of Negro Leaguers rejoice in MLB's decision to recognize league, OPINION: After vowing change, Black candidates shut out again of MLB front office jobs. Major leagueplayersreceived from $300 to $2,000 a month and about $15 a day for meals. The museum has pushed back its year-long celebration of the centennial to next year and renamed it Negro Leagues 101. Watch our How-To Videos to Become a Stathead, Subscribe to Stathead and get access to more data than you can imagine. Many historical player head shots courtesy of David Davis. A member of 8 All-Star squads, Willie remembers a home run he hit in 1931 to win the pennant for St. Louis as his greatest baseball thrill. We have tools and resources that can help you use sports data. Find out more. , Every Sports Reference Social Media Account, Site Last Updated: Saturday, March 4, 12:52AM. But thousands of Black and Latino players endured bigotry and racist taunts. That mission continues today. But you've got to establish a basic record first.. But more interesting, in my opinion, are some of the larger patterns we've found. A version of this story was first published in November, 2020, a few weeks before MLB announced that Negro League stats were being made part of the official record. The SPORTS REFERENCE and STATHEAD trademarks are owned exclusively by Sports Reference LLC. "I always really, really wanted to get the full workup for those guys -- walks, on-base percentage, fielding stats, home runs allowed by pitchers -- so you could tell what kind of players they were, how they fit into their teams, how the teams compared to each other. Over at the Seamheads Negro Leagues database, a dedicated few have combed through newspapers and scorebooks, photo albums and microfiche to piece together the most complete statistical record of the Negro Leagues to date. Use without license or authorization is expressly prohibited. An excellent all-round ballplayer and a teammate of such greats as Josh Gibson and Oscar Charleston, Jimmie is a Chicago resident where he is employed at the post office. Paige, now 65 and a Kansas City resident, is by far the best known of these old stars. Pedro Dibut). Total Zone Rating and initial framework for Wins above Replacement calculations provided by Sean Smith. They receivedbetween $1 to $1.50 a day for meal money. Aside from him, we also have Mamie "Peanut" Johnson (9/27/1935), the first female pitcher in the Negro Leagues. From 1940 to 1949, 1,705 men played at least one game in the National League or American League plus hundreds, maybe thousands, more in the Negro Leagues. You knew the disparity in pay would be bad, but that gap is embarrassing for baseball. List of Negro league baseball players (AD), List of Negro league baseball players (EL), List of Negro league baseball players (MR), List of Negro league baseball players (SZ), List of first black MLB players by team and date, List of player profiles from the Negro Leagues Baseball eMuseum, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lists_of_Negro_league_baseball_players&oldid=1087987010, This page was last edited on 15 May 2022, at 16:27. Researchers are still looking to add fielding statistics, left/right splits and secondary pitching and batting stats for many Negro League seasons, especially those in the 1940s. Do you have a sports website? He cites being selected to manage the East All-Star team in 1939 as his biggest moment. Members were the Brooklyn (New York) Royal Giants, Bacharach Giants of Atlantic City, New Jersey, Baltimore Black Sox, Hilldale Club of Philadelphia, and the Cuban Stars (no relation to the Cuban Stars of the NNL) and Lincoln Giants of New York City. Total Zone Rating and initial framework for Wins above Replacement calculations provided by Sean Smith. For example, here, courtesy of Ashwill, are the pages from a 1941-42 Baltimore Elite Giants scorebook showing the Elites beating the Philadelphia Stars on Aug. 16, 1942: The biggest myth of them all is that the history of Negro League baseball is nothing but blurry, hard-to-substantiate legends and tall tales, Ashwill wrote in an email to MLB.com. The most important sources are the Black weekly newspapers (Chicago Defender, Pittsburgh Courier, Baltimore Afro-American, Kansas City Call, etc.) ***** Buck Leonard: Walter (Buck) Leonard combined with Josh Gibson for Negro baseballs best 1-2 home-run punch. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. That started to change in the 1980s and early 90s as researchers like Dick Clark, Larry Lester, John Holway, James Riley and Phil Dixon began assembling a more robust statistical record. From 1940 to 1949, 1,705 men played at least one game in the National League or American League plus hundreds, maybe thousands, more in the Negro Leagues. Willie Foster: Called by many the greatest left-handed pitcher in the black leagues, Willie won 4 World Series games in his long career, and may be the only pitcher, black or white, to have pitched a complete 9-inning All-Star game. The service requires full cookie support in order to view this website. We still have to separate truth from hyperbole, but more analysis has become available. The star pitcher for the Chicago American Giants of the Negro National League in the early 1920s was a young left-hander named Dave Brown. They played most of their careers in the organized Negro leagues after the Great Depression. While there are roughly 130 players alive from the Negro Leagues, according to baseball historian Larry Lester, only those four players are alive from that 1920-1948 window. "Many of the players are gone, but their . In 1954, he signed with the Indianapolis Clowns at the age of 16. and daily newspapers in cities where games were played. Fortunately, that has recently changed with the recognition of the Negro Leagues as a Major League, but for decades that wasn't the case. You will be redirected once the validation is complete. As with any sports league, I have to assume that there are still plenty of unknown or lesser known players still out there. Sign up to receive our daily Morning Lineup to stay in the know about the latest trending topics around Major League Baseball. Current Greats: Clayton Kershaw, Mike Trout, Mookie Betts, . Turkey Stearnes. December 15, 2006 - Medal of freedom awarded to Buck O'Neil. Keys bought the Giants franchise after the 1921 season and built the newly named Stars a stadium in '22. Among them Fowler, Frank Grant, George Stovey, and Fleet Walker were notable players especially during the 1880s, before complete segregation. We know which were the pitchers' parks (Chicago's Schorling Park, for example) and which were the hitters' parks (Stars Park in St. Louis and the Catholic Protectory Oval in the Bronx, home of the New York Lincoln Giants). And I really do mean today. Question, Comment, Feedback, or Correction? Rookies earned $75 and the stars $375. Our reasoning for presenting offensive logos. Phone: 602.496.1460 Lee lives in Washington, D.C. George Scales: One of the strongest-hitting 2nd basemen of his time and a .311 lifetime hitter, George played in the big-time for nearly 25 years with 6 different clubs. Foster still retains a strong interest in baseball. "Going into the late 1930s and the early 1940s, we see player salaries jump to an average of $300 to $400 each month with the stars like Josh Gibson and Satchel Paige getting about $600-$700 a month. Yet there was still a feeling that many more had been missed. She lives in Grand Rapids, Mich. FORBES: The players traveled, and they had nowhere to stay because of the discrimination. Newt still makes Kansas City his home. Jack Marshall: A star 2nd baseman for most of the top Chicago ballclubs, Jack still lives in the Windy City. I was wondering if there are any players left from those times, There's actually a good amount. Pre-integration players. Contact SABR, https://sabr.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/research-collection4_350x300.jpg, /wp-content/uploads/2020/02/sabr_logo.png. DOUG TRIBOU, BYLINE: In 1920, owners of independent Black baseball teams from the Midwest gathered in Kansas City, Mo. The records, as they proved with Suttles, are not static either. Sports Pulse: Players, celebs and politicians tip their hats in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Negro Leagues. Of these, nine have been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame and two of them (Greason and Mays) are still alive. But Minnie Forbes sympathizes with the many athletes who were good enough to play in the major leagues but never got a shot. They also decided not to count the interleague games which were an important part of Negro League seasons, especially in the 1940s. (Though many seasons featured approximately 50 league games, "Negro League teams played 150-175 games a year overall -- the rest of the schedule being filled up with games against white semi-pro teams, lower-level Minor Leaguers, minor Black teams, and other teams whose games we haven't counted yet," Ashwill explained.). Our reasoning for presenting offensive logos. It wouldn't even cost baseball that much money particularly since salaries of Negro League players began to increase in the 1940s as their play became so good they were practically impossible to ignore, and as Jackie Robinson started his trek towards history. An additional 35 or so players played on a Negro league team after 1950. 555 N. Central Ave. #416 Chicago Team History, Suttles pictured back row, far left. He now operates a sporting goods store on the South Side. Full-year historical Major League statistics provided by Pete Palmer and Gary Gillette of Hidden Game Sports. Accuracy and availability may vary. Marshall remembers occasionally playing 4 games a day when he was with the Philadelphia Stars and he says Satchel Paige was the fastest pitcher he ever saw. MINNIE. This page was last edited on 27 January 2023, at 00:27. The numbers do not do justice to his legend. They played during the decline of the Negro leagues, after the beginning of integration. Please enable JavaScript on your browser and try again. America's Pastime. Today, stars like Josh Gibson, Buck Leonard and Satchel Paige are enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame. TRIBOU: Bob Kendrick heads the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum there. Born September 3, 1924 Bill Greason is the oldest player on this list. During his long career, Frank played on 7 pennant-winners with the Kansas City Monarchs. The integration of Major League Baseball happened at the beginning of the 1947 MLB season when Jackie Robinson played his first game for the Brooklyn Dodgers.By the 1950s, enough black talent had integrated into the formerly "white" leagues (both major and minor) that the Negro leagues themselves had become a . The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum estimates there are about 100 former players still alive. Black players earnedless because they were Jim Crow'd. He was known to be a great hitter, but I don't think it was fully appreciated how pivotal he was to the Monarchs' defense.. Cronkite School at ASU Phoenix, AZ 85004 Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson. And now I look back and I say, oh, my God. The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball. Every Sports Reference Social Media Account.