Baseball During The 1900's

Baseball has been America’s pastime since the late 1800’s. White men were the only ones who played the sport. Major League Baseball denied the access of allowing black players to play on the same field as the white players. They believed it would increase the amount of black fans coming to the stadiums and push away the white fans from coming to watch baseball anymore. In 1945, a new commissioner of baseball was hired, Happy Chandler, and he was more supportive of integrating the major leagues. People were very supportive in integrating black baseball players into the Major Leagues; however, many others were angry of the changes happening to baseball since it would be a difference in their culture. African-Americans were already being treated
America was still very much a racially segregated country (Hardman 1). It was ruled after 1888 that African-Americans were not accepted into either the major or minor leagues (Hardman 1). Nonetheless, African-Americans still played in organized teams and leagues during the 1890’s. According to an article, Baseball: The Negro League, Banned from white professional baseball, African-Americans were playing in loosely organized teams and leagues during the 1890’s, but the most systematic structuring for the black game came with the founding of the National Negro Baseball League in 1920. (Baseball: The 1)
The American Negro League formed in 1929, but collapsed after the season (Baseball: The 1) The Negro Leagues gave African-Americans the chance to continue their career as a ballplayer, despite not being allowed to play in the big show. After the major leagues became integrated in 1947, interest in the negro Leagues faded (Hardman 1). In 1948, the Negro National League officially
Several people in major league baseball tried to finally end segregation in baseball, but they all failed. No one succeeded until Brooklyn Dodger’s general manager Branch Rickey set his “great experiment” into motion (Breaking 1). Mr. Rickey interviewed a young, outstanding athlete from the all-black league that Branch Rickey established. The twenty-six year old, who was playing shortstop for the Montreal Royals, Jackie Robinson. Branch Rickey interviewed Robinson for three hours to see if he was the right man, with superlative skills as a ballplayer, who also had sufficient self-control to endure, with dignity, the torment and abuse he would suffer (Baseball in 1).
Rickey asked Robinson many questions and what his reactions might be. For example, he asked for his reaction if the opposing player purposely spiked at him and then called him racial names. Robinson remembered saying, “Are you looking for a Negro who is afraid to fight back?” Rickey answered, “I’m looking for a ballplayer with guts enough not to fight back,” (Baseball in