Racial history of pro baseball
The baseball world that the young Jackie Robinson knew consisted of a whites-only system of the eight-team National and American leagues, as well as hundreds of Minor league teams.
Blacks played in the "Negro Leagues," which developed after 1900 as an alternative to the segregated white game.
Following the notorious Black Sox Scandal of the 1919 World Series, commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis incorporated more of a power-hitting game, which became the dominant playing style, and ballparks became much larger. Ball clubs began to heavily scout promising talent, but black and white players met only in rare non-league games. Robinson gets his break
A segregated league was not what Robinson had in mind. However, without a college degree, and no real trade skills, he decided to pursue his dream of playing pro ball.
During spring training with the Kansas City Monarchs, Robinson thought he had hit the jackpot when he signed on at a salary of $400 a month. It was during his one-year stint with the Monarchs that Brooklyn Dodgers president, Branch Rickey, scouted him, and with some undercover …show more content…
Doubleday then went on to become a Civil War hero, while baseball became America's beloved national pastime. References to games resembling baseball in the United States date back to the 18th century. Its most direct ancestors appear to be two English games: rounders (a children’s game brought to New England by the earliest colonists) and cricket. Cartwright’s changes made the burgeoning pastime faster-paced and more challenging while clearly differentiating it from older games like cricket. In 1846, the Knickerbockers played the first official game of baseball against a team of cricket players, beginning a new, uniquely American tradition.
The baseball world that the young Jackie Robinson knew consisted of a whites-only system of the eight-team National and American leagues, as well as hundreds of Minor league teams.
Blacks played in the "Negro Leagues," which developed after 1900 as an alternative to the segregated white game.
Following the notorious Black Sox Scandal of the 1919 World Series, commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis incorporated more of a power-hitting game, which became the dominant playing style, and ballparks became much larger. Ball clubs began to heavily scout promising talent, but black and white players met only in rare non-league games. Robinson gets his break
A segregated league was not what Robinson had in mind. However, without a college degree, and no real trade skills, he decided to pursue his dream of playing pro ball.
During spring training with the Kansas City Monarchs, Robinson thought he had hit the jackpot when he signed on at a salary of $400 a month. It was during his one-year stint with the Monarchs that Brooklyn Dodgers president, Branch Rickey, scouted him, and with some undercover …show more content…
Doubleday then went on to become a Civil War hero, while baseball became America's beloved national pastime. References to games resembling baseball in the United States date back to the 18th century. Its most direct ancestors appear to be two English games: rounders (a children’s game brought to New England by the earliest colonists) and cricket. Cartwright’s changes made the burgeoning pastime faster-paced and more challenging while clearly differentiating it from older games like cricket. In 1846, the Knickerbockers played the first official game of baseball against a team of cricket players, beginning a new, uniquely American tradition.