Lawrence D. Hogan - The Forgotten History of African American Baseball

Larry Hogans The Forgotten History of African American Baseball is a compelling eye-opener of a narrative that anyone hoping to get the full story of baseball in America should read. It is a story in which truly heroic individuals overcome evilpersonified by Jim Crow and Judge Lynchand prevail. Hogan brings those heroes back to life in a most readable book.

Paul Dickson, author of Bill Veeck: Baseballs Greatest Maverick and a 2013 Chadwick Award recipient

The Forgotten History of African American Baseball is an important addition to the chronicles of baseball. It brings alive a forgotten era in our social history, by bringing alive the remarkable men whose passion and pride knew no bounds.

Dave Kaplan, Director, Yogi Berra Museum & Learning Center

Historian Larry Hogan basks in baseballs shadowed fields. He is a national treasure, and with The Forgotten History of African American Baseball he culminates decades of inspired investigation andbest of all for readersgreat tales too long untold. My cap is off to him.

John Thorn, Official Historian of Major League Baseball

Professor Hogan is a dedicated historian, passionate about casting a light on the people and the sport of baseball in eras that were marked by the segregation and injustice that prevailed across America. Yet, if you know him like I do, I see hes connected the dots, not only through research but by immersing himself in the people, places, and times to clearly represent these fascinating and almost bygone times. Hes woven the fabric of this historical quilt together from both research and relationships with those players and individuals who lived through those times.

Whether those referenced here are little known or prominent, because of them all Ive been able to build a great life through the game of baseball. I respect and honor those people and their contributions. So, thank you Dr. Larry Hogan for this latest reflection and tribute to the Negro Leagues. To me, the institution, the teams, and the people involved are national treasures.

Dave Winfield, National Baseball Hall of Fame 2001, developer of the 2008 MLB Negro League Draft and Tribute to the Negro Leagues

Larry Hogans The Forgotten History of African American Baseball stands firmly on the formidable shoulders of earlier historical studies on the life and times of modern black Americans under pressure, those who created a veritable world within a world. Their now nearly vanished world of baseball was at once a metaphor for talent and achievement, rituals, and black identity during the Jim Crow era. It was also a world that far too many Americans know little of. Hogan sheds a brilliant light on what is now known about black baseball, now ennobled as an enduring contribution to American culture, memory, and the national pastime.

Clement Alexander Price, Board of Governors Distinguished Service Professor of History, Rutgers University, Newark Campus

LAWRENCE D. HOGAN

Copyright 2014 by Lawrence D. Hogan

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hogan, Lawrence D., 1944
The forgotten history of African American baseball / Lawrence D. Hogan.
pages cm
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-313-37984-0 (hardback) ISBN 978-0-313-37985-7 (ebook)
1. Negro leaguesHistory. 2. African American baseball playersHistory. 3. BaseballUnited StatesHistory. I. Title.
GV875.N35H64 2014
796.357dc23 2013034015

ISBN: 978-0-313-37984-0
EISBN: 978-0-313-37985-7

18 17 16 15 14 1 2 3 4 5

This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an eBook.
Visit www.abc-clio.com for details.

Praeger
An Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC

ABC-CLIO, LLC
130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911
Santa Barbara, California 93116-1911

This book is printed on acid-free paper

Manufactured in the United States of America

The more I met Alexander Crummell, the more I felt how much that world was losing which knew so little of him. In another age he might have sat among the elders of the land in purple bordered toga; in another country mothers might have sung him to the cradles.

He did his workhe did it nobly and well; and yet I sorrow that here he worked alone, with so little human sympathy. His name today, in this broad land, means little, and comes to fifty million ears laden with no incense of memory nor emulation. And herein lies the tragedy of the age; not that men are poor, all men know something of poverty; not that men are wicked, who is good? Not that men are ignorant, what is Truth? Nay, but that men know so little of men.

W. E. B. Du Bois, Of Alexander Crummell From The Souls of Black Folk , 1903

The legacy left by the enslaved ancestors of blues-oriented contemporary U.S. Negroes includes a disposition to confront the most unpromising circumstances and make the most of what there is to go on, regardless of the oddsand not without finding delight in the process or forgetting mortality at the height of ecstasy.

Albert Murray From Stomping the Blues

To the extraordinary men and women of the black press for the legacy of grace and dignity you have left us in your record of great deeds and hard struggles.
To the extraordinary men and women of black baseball for the legacy of grace and dignity you have left us in your record of great deeds and hard struggles.