Negro Baseball Leagues Essay Research Paper After

Negro Baseball Leagues Essay, Research Paper

After the Civil War, even though slavery had been outlawed, there was still a great

amount of tension between blacks and whites. The southern whites were bitter toward the

loss of their slaves, and although the north fought for the slaves freedom, they did not

want them to have equal priveledges. As a result of this, segregation was born.

Segregation is the seperation of two different groups, in this case, black and white people.

Blacks and whites were separated in many ways such as having different bathrooms and

drinking fountains and even schools and churches.

Baseball is usually referred to as the national pastime . The word nation is

defined as a people, usually inhabitants of a specific territory, who share common customs.

One would assume that this means everyone was included, but in reality, they were not.

When the Major Leagues formed, all of the players were white, European

descendants. The National Association of Baseball Players would not allow any teams,

which consisted of one or more Negro players, to join.

All of these newly freed former slaves wanted to play baseball, but were prevented

from doing so, against white teams. So they played each other. Commonly referred as

blackball , it was played as an attraction at county fairs and carnivals. Teams eventually

would travel to other cities to play other black teams. Blackball quickly found its way

across the country, in both major cities and rural farmlands.

With the growing popularity of Blackball across the country, leagues were formed

by entrepreneurs. The leagues usually included teams in a surrounding region, because is

was too costly to travel across the country.

The team in Philadelphia was called the Hilldale Field Club, or the Hilldales. The

Hilldales was a popular amateur team that began in 1910 (Clark & Lester 28). In 1911, Ed

Bolden took over the team. He was a clerk in the Philadelphia Post Office. The Hilldales

played in Darby, Delaware County (Clark & Lester 29). Bolden advertised games in the

Philadelphia Tribune, which was a black newspaper. The advertisements brought crowds

of up to 3000 people to the games (Ribowsky History 94).

In 1914, Bolden was able to schedule three games with the Philadelphia Athletics.

This was a major hurdle that his team overcame, because it shows that they at least were

recognized as a team by the Athletics, Philadelphia s professional team (Ribowsky

History 94).

Bolden did not want to stop there. He wanted people not only to respect his team,

but to also prove that blacks are not different than whites, in baseball, and as a people.

Bolden fined any of his players who fought on the field, and prohibited them from having

anything at all to do with alcohol (Ribowsky History 95).

In 1917, The Hilldales turned pro, and all of the big eastern teams came to Darby

to play them. Also, many white major league teams came to play the Hilldales also,

because of the way that they presented themselves so respectably (Ribowsky History

96).

During the first world war, the major leagues were suffering major losses at the

box office because of the large amount of players fighting in the war. The losses of men to

the war was not the major problem, however. The problem was the fact the Phillies and

Athletics fans did not go to the games any more. The fans were going to Hilldale park and

mixing in with the black fans there. The whites had begun to realize how blackball was

much more entertaining. There were stolen bases, faster running, and a larger amount of

scoring. The Hilldales regularly outnumbered the Phillies and Athletics in their box office

sales (Ribowsky History 97).

In 1920, a man named Rube Foster formed a league called The Negro National

League , and invited Bolden to join (Ribowsky History 100). Bolden would not enter

his team into the league however, because he was still upset by a recent loss to one of

Fosters teams. Also, Foster had ignored Hilldale for years (Ribowsky History 101).

When Bolden refused a second time to enter the league, Foster refused to allow any of

the teams in the Negro National League to play the Hilldales, along with the Atlantic City

Bacharach Giants, the Lincoln Giants, and the Brooklyn Giants, all of whom declined his

offer. Because of this, the Hilldales ended up playing mostly white teams (Ribowsky

History 103 & 110).

In 1921, Bolden joined the Hilldales into the Negro National League. That

October, the first Negro World Series was played in Darby, between the Hilldales and the

American Giants. The Hilldales won the series 3-2-1, accomplishing yet another milestone

(Ribowsky History 113).

When the Hilldales went on a road trip, they had so little money that they could

not afford hotels in other cities, even the ones that the black players were allowed to stay

at. Most of the time they slept

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