The Negro Leagues are Major Leagues

In the season finale, Curtis talks to Gary Gillette, an author, SABR member, and the co-founder and chair of the board of directors of Friends of Hamtramck Stadium. Hamtramck Stadium, home to the Detroit Stars, is one of five Negro League home ballparks that are still standing today. As of July 31, 2012, Hamtramck Stadium was officially placed on the National Register of Historic Places, and a State of Michigan Historic Marker was dedicated at the site in 2014.

Curtis and Gary talk about the history and importance of baseball stadiums, going into why there are so few historic ballparks remaining, as well as why the number of remaining historic Negro League parks is especially low. They also discuss Hamtramck Stadium, and why the history and context around the park is so interesting, while branching out into some larger discussions of the history of Detroit, the economics of running a Negro League club, and a lot more.

To learn more about the effort to restore Hamtramck Stadium and support the work being done there, head to https://www.hamtramckstadium.org/  

Hopefully, this episode piques your interest in visiting a Negro League ballpark. Gary wrote an article for our site reviewing all the parks that are still extant and available to visit https://www.baseball-reference.com/articles/still-standing-gary-gillette.shtml

He also contributed this great historiography of Black baseball https://www.baseball-reference.com/articles/historiography-of-black-baseball-gary-gillette.shtml

On today's episode, Curtis talks to Dr. Leslie Heaphy, who teaches sports history at Kent State University and has contributed to several books, including The Encyclopedia of Women in Baseball. Their topic today is the history of women in baseball, specifically Black baseball.

The conversation starts with a broad history of women in the game, as spectators, reporters, and players, before moving on to the Negro Leagues, where Dr. Heaphy talks about some of the women who played the game, owned the teams, and helped run the leagues. They touch on Effa Manley, who is currently the only woman in the Baseball Hall of Fame, and discuss the difficulties of researching this topic.

You can read Dr. Heaphy's piece on women in Black baseball on Baseball Reference: https://www.baseball-reference.com/articles/women-in-the-negro-leagues-leslie-heaphy.shtml

Also, congratulations to DOCTOR Curtis Harris on successfully defending his dissertation this week! 

In the conclusion of our three-part miniseries about the rise, maintenance, and eventual fall of the color line in the American and National Leagues, Curtis is joined by Michael Lomax, an author and retired professor of sport management. They discuss the journey that led to Jackie Robinson taking the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, ending decades of segregation in professional baseball.

But the process of integrating the AL and NL wasn't a smooth one, and it largely happened on the terms of the white owners, at the expense of the Black people who owned, managed, and operated Negro League ballclubs. Curtis and Michael also discuss the day-to-day operations of Negro League clubs, the business behind successful baseball teams, and why the Negro Leagues ultimately came to an end.

You can read Michael's piece on the business and legacy of Black baseball on our site https://www.baseball-reference.com/articles/a-black-baseball-legacy-michael-e-lomax.shtml

This week, we continue our three-part series on how the color line was drawn, maintained, and ultimately brought down, as Curtis speaks to Todd Peterson, a researcher and the editor of the book The Negro Leagues Were Major Leagues. Todd talks about what inspired him to pursue Negro League research and the process of putting together the book with likeminded researchers. He then shares some of the statistics he's found that show how the quality of play in the Negro Leagues was on par with the American and National Leagues. Curtis and Todd also talk about how the leadership of the American and National Leagues went to great lengths during this period to keep baseball segregated, the difficulties researchers face in trying to track down data from exhibition and barnstorming games, and why it's important for all baseball fans to learn the story of the Negro Leagues.

You can buy The Negro Leagues Were Major Leagues from the publisher or wherever you get your books https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/the-negro-leagues-were-major-leagues/

Todd also contributed a piece to Baseball Reference with more stats that show the Negro Leagues were Major Leagues https://www.baseball-reference.com/articles/negro-leagues-major-leagues-todd-peterson.shtml

In the first of a three part look at how the color line was established, maintained, and ultimately brought down, Curtis talks to Ryan Swanson. Ryan is an associate professor at the University of New Mexico, focused on sports history. He wrote the book When Baseball Went White, a history of the origins of baseball’s segregation and the mechanics of its implementation.

Ryan and Curtis talk about how the history of early baseball, in the 1860s and 1870s, is deeply intertwined with the politics of Reconstruction, and how the missed opportunity of the latter is reflected in the conscious choice by baseball's white leaders to construct the color line. They also discuss how segregation was indeed a conscious choice and why white officials decided that a segregated game would be easier to sell to a post-war audience. And in between they touch on the formation of the earliest Black baseball clubs, how the post-war drive to create and join community groups led to a boom in baseball teams, and how sports and politics are closely intertwined.

You can order When Baseball Went White from Nebraska Press or wherever you get your books https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9780803235212/

Learn more about Ryan's work on his website https://www.ryanswanson21.com/

On this episode, Curtis talks to Gary Ashwill, a baseball historian who has studied the Negro Leagues, minor leagues, and Cuban baseball. Most relevantly, Gary is the lead researcher for Seamheads, the team that researched and assembled the Negro League statistics database that is now being hosted on Baseball Reference.

Gary tells us about the difficulties and challenges faced by him and other researchers as they went about trying to piece together the record of statistics for Negro League teams and players from nearly 100 years ago. Gary also touches on why he first got interested in the history of the Negro Leagues, how the Seamheads database came together, and why it matters for all baseball fans.

Check out Gary's work at https://www.seamheads.com/NegroLgs/index.php

You can also read a piece by Gary about the process of putting together the database on our site https://www.baseball-reference.com/articles/building-the-seamheads-negro-league-database-gary-ashwill.shtml

And of course, you can see all of the Seamheads data on https://www.baseball-reference.com/

On this episode, Curtis talks to Dr. Ray Doswell, the curator and education director at the Negro Leagues History Museum in Kansas City. The museum, established in 1990, has been one of the most important resources for information and history about the Negro Leagues. Dr. Doswell talks to us about how he became interested in baseball, the day-to-day operations of the museum, the surprising parallels between the era when the National Negro League was established and today, and some of his favorite pieces in the museum's collection.

All baseball fans should plan a trip to Kansas City to visit the Negro Leagues History Museum! To learn more about the museum or make a donation so they can continue their work, head to https://nlbm.com/

Today's guest is Sean Gibson, great-grandson of Hall-of-Famer Josh Gibson. The elder Gibson hit nearly 800 home runs in a historic career and he holds the record for the best single-season OPS in major league history.

Sean speaks with us about how he learned about his famous great-grandfather, some of the stories his family told him about "Big Josh", his work as Executive Director of The Josh Gibson Foundation, and the movement to rename the NL MVP after Josh Gibson.

You can sign the petition and join the movement to rename the MVP award after Josh Gibson at https://jg20mvp.com/

Learn more about The Josh Gibson Foundation and support their work at https://www.joshgibson.org/

In June 2021, Sports-Reference dramatically expanded its database of statistics related to Negro League Baseball. However, the story of Black baseball goes beyond plate appearances and innings pitched. These Black ballplayers were major league quality but were not treated as such by the American and National Leagues. These African Americans were citizens of the United States, but were not treated as such by the government of their own country.

This is The Negro Leagues are Major Leagues, a podcast from Sports Reference. In the weeks to come, join sports historian Curtis Harris as he interviews a range of historians, researchers, activists, and others about a broad range of topics related to the Black baseball experience.

In Episode Zero, we provide a preview of some of the guests who will be coming in future episodes. Then, Curtis explains a little more about his background and provides an introduction to the major themes of this podcast. Look for Episode #1 on Thursday, and then new episodes every Thursday after that.