Coloring America's Pastime: Sporting Life's Coverage of Race & the Emergence of Baseball's Color Line, 1883–1889

Abstract

This study explores how race was covered within Sporting Life, one of the nation's first specialty sports publications, from the journal's inception in March 1883 until an unwritten “color line” was drawn in mainstream professional baseball in December 1889. Drawing on historian Barbara J. Fields's argument that race is a social construction, this study asks: How did Sporting Life construct race during the first decade of its existence? The researcher examined a census of Sporting Life issues between March 1883 and December 1889 for references to race. Overall, 169 articles from 348 issues of the weekly journal were identified and analyzed. Prior scholars have argued that Sporting Life was a progressive mouthpiece, encouraging the inclusion of African Americans in the National League and American Association, or an indifferent reflection of popular societal portrayals. This study uncovers a finer degree of nuance in its coverage of race. As a cultural forum, Sporting Life both perpetuated and contested dominant racial ideologies in its coverage of the emergence of baseball's system of segregation.