Segregation In Baseball

The 1930s and 1940s were know for the campaign against desegregation of the game of baseball. The black baseball players were ultimately deprived from playing in the big leagues with the white ballplayers during the time of segregation. Not only were colored players prohibited from playing on white teams, but their games were often cancelled simply because the white major league teams “refus[ed] to play against a colored ball club” (Lamb 67). Often times, there were many black players who were equally as good as the white players in the major league, but were only paid “ten,twenty, or thirty dollars a game, depending on the crowd and the take” (Lamb 58). Since the African American ballplayers were seen as not good enough to play alongside the whites in the major league because of the racial prejudice, they were forced to help oneself to a reputation that would earn them little to no recognition. …show more content…
The association between the club and press altered because the baseball teams became increasingly skeptical in the black press. The black press ultimately lost all trust from the players because they “criticized baseball for it haphazard organization” (Lamb 66). The owners of the teams responded to the press’s criticism by prohibiting them from league meetings. However, on September 8, 1933, the black press promoted the East-West all-star game because it was the “single most important black sports event in America” (Lamb 69). The sportswriters used the game as a way to inquest the discrimination in baseball. The extravagant game was hard for even the white players and fans to