Negro Leagues Research Articles

Black Baseball History Matters

Black Baseball History Matters Brian Carroll (bio) Marked by empty ballparks, cardboard cutouts, and broadcasters covering games from home, the COVID-19-shortened 2020 Major League Baseball season finally kicked off. Many things were missing, but a few things were new, including a BLM logo in sans serif type painted on pitcher's mounds. Since its origin in 2013 and, in particular, in the wake of of the deaths in short succession of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and George Floyd prior to baseball's delayed Opening Day, the Black Lives Matter movement went global. At home, the country convulsed in protest and even riots. Confederate monuments came down. Signs and banners went up. MLB (finally) took notice. If we can agree that Black lives matter, and apparently we cannot, we might recognize that, "the African-American community is not just making this up. … it's real, and there's a history behind it" as then-President Barack Obama told a convention of police officers in 2015.1 History matters, too, but who is authorized to tell that history makes all the difference. To empower Black lives and people of color going forward, a clear, candid look at the past is required. For a meaningful national conversation about systematic oppression, at least some grounding in the histories of US education systems, housing, job opportunities, healthcare, policing, and mass incarceration, just to name a few, is a prerequisite. History very much matters. Black baseball history very much matters. To pave a way to a more inclusive future in baseball, one that meaningfully addresses the continuing decline of Black players in baseball, we need a better understanding of the past and of the very different worlds we historically created and inhabited. Usually, it's up to us to go find that history—one day per season dedicated to the life and legacy of Jackie Robinson, as wonderful as that day might be, is woefully insufficient. But sometimes, the history comes to us. Larry Lester, cofounder of the Negro League Baseball Museum, author, researcher, and master statistician, came to my community in Rome, Georgia, to help us recognize the centennial anniversary of the Negro National League, an organization founded in 1920 that began sustainable, organized, professional Black baseball in America. In focusing our attention on a chapter of [End Page 8] local history almost entirely overlooked, and certainly excluded from the "official" histories of the area including the downtown Rome Area History Center, Larry reasserted the importance locally of the experiences of this community's Black ballplayers, real people who excelled on the sandlots and playing fields of this area more than a half-century ago, many of them still alive, and whose families typically know little of their achievements. Speaking across the gulfs of race, class, and age, Larry presented from the pulpit of decades spent researching the Black players, lobbying on their behalf, placing markers on their graves, and ensuring an ever more accurate statistical record of their play. He made a compelling case for why it is important that all Americans better apprehend just what Jackie Robinson accomplished when he broke big league baseball's color barrier in the mid-forties and, as a result, endured a first season of hatred, opposition, and racism, even from his own teammates. In fact, one of Larry's pleas was for us to seek this apprehension as American history, not simply as Black history, quarantined as the latter so often is into one month of the year. Following his presentation, I had this conversation with a native of the area, someone who had grown up playing baseball right here in Rome: "I grew up playing baseball here; there was no Black baseball then," he said, wild-eyed, with gray hair sneaking out from under his red baseball cap. "Oh, really?" I asked. "When did you play?" "Late fifties, early sixties." "Dude, that was the heyday of Black baseball in this area. The heyday." "I never saw it. Where did they play?" "Down by the river, where the Rome High team plays now and over in Celanese. In Lindale, right next to where Pepperell High School is today, in what's an empty lot. And...

Oscar Charleston: The Life and Legend of Baseball’s Greatest Forgotten Player by Jeremy Beer

Reviewed by: Oscar Charleston: The Life and Legend of Baseball’s Greatest Forgotten Player by Jeremy Beer Thomas Wolf Jeremy Beer. Oscar Charleston: The Life and Legend of Baseball’s Greatest Forgotten Player. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2019. 472 pp. Cloth, $29.95. On August 9, 1976, more than two decades after Oscar Charleston’s death, the great Negro Leagues ballplayer was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. At the induction ceremony, Charleston’s sister, Katherine, remarked that Oscar’s “life was baseball” (331). Jeremy Beer’s splendid biography tells the story of that complicated and fascinating life. For nearly forty years, Charleston excelled as a player, manager, and scout. For two seasons, he worked as an umpire in the Negro National League (306). He bridged several generations of players and saw the sport change, both in [End Page 228] terms of how it was played and in who was allowed to play at the Major League level. As a player, he moved from team to team, and league to league, playing not only in the states, but also internationally in the Philippines, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic. Although he is best known for his performance as a Negro League player in the early twentieth century, he also played nine seasons of winter ball in Cuba and often competed against the best white major leaguers in exhibition games. The statistical record is incomplete, though Beer has done an impressive job of documenting Charleston’s twenty-six seasons as a professional ballplayer. The book includes a statistical appendix that provides data on nearly seven thousand at-bats, though Beer acknowledges that some unknown number of Charleston’s at-bats are missing from this tabulation. The appendix also notes that Charleston compiled a 606-535 record as a manager. To assess Charleston’s skill and place in the game, Beer offers anecdotal tributes from his contemporaries, the players, and sportswriters who saw him in action. Respected for his skills, leadership, and baseball intelligence, he earned the admiration of his competitors. Many likened Charleston to other great outfielders of his era, specifically Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker: Cobb for his competitive nature; Speaker for his abilities as a defensive centerfielder. The Chicago Defender sportswriters accorded him the highest possible honor, frequently referring to him as the “colored Babe Ruth” (124). The comparison to Ruth doesn’t quite hold up, at least in terms of their respective numbers as power hitters. Beer’s appendix credits Charleston with 209 home runs, a far cry from Ruth’s total of 714. Charleston’s other key stats—batting average, slugging percentage—more closely resemble the numbers put up by Cobb and another contemporary, Rogers Hornsby. Granted, Charleston’s stats are only a fragment of his entire record, and it is a challenge for any baseball researcher or analyst to evaluate players across eras or, in Charleston’s case, to compare his performance in the Negro Leagues with the skills of his contemporaries in the white major leagues. Thus, some of the richest and most compelling testimony in Beer’s narrative comes from his description of Charleston’s success in games played against white all-star teams. Over the years, Charleston competed in exhibition games against players like Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Lefty Grove, Al Simmons, and Walter Johnson. From all accounts presented here, Charleston demonstrated that he had the flair and abilities of the greatest Major Leaguers. No less an authority than Bill James concurs. In his Historical Baseball Abstract, James ranks Charleston as the fourth greatest baseball player of all time, surpassed only by Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, and Willie Mays (11). Charleston’s career began five years before the Negro Leagues were formed [End Page 229] and continued through the early years of integrated baseball. Beer documents the rough times these teams confronted at their inception, noting the financial and logistical challenges faced by owners and players during an era when brawls were common, and umpires sometimes carried firearms to protect themselves from angry fans or competitors (113). In later years, as a scout for Branch Rickey, Charleston discovered and recommended Roy Campanella to Rickey, who signed the future Hall...

Let’s Play Two: The Legend of Mr. Cub, the Life of Ernie Banks by Ron Rapoport

Reviewed by: Let’s Play Two: The Legend of Mr. Cub, the Life of Ernie Banks by Ron Rapoport Kevin A. Johnson and Jennifer J. Asenas Ron Rapoport. Let’s Play Two: The Legend of Mr. Cub, the Life of Ernie Banks. New York: Hachette Books, 2019. 454 pp. Cloth, $28.00. As long time Chicago Cub fans, who have a brick commemorating our wedding anniversary in the Ernie Banks section of the Wrigley Field brick plaza, we were delighted to read Ron Rapoport’s book about the life of Mr. Cub. Of course, Ernie Banks is a Hall of Famer known for his big smile and his famous phrases, “Let’s play two!” and “It’s a beautiful day for a ballgame.” Both were his reminders of the beauty and privilege of playing the game of baseball for a living. These phrases make even more sense after reading Rapoport’s book. The beginning of the book documents Ernie Banks’s humble beginnings, economic hardships, challenging family life, and racism while noting Banks’s aversion to conflict and optimistic outlook on life. Through it all, Banks was hard working, independent in spirit, and conflict averse. Two examples are telling. At sixteen years old, Banks was “hired to mop floors in a hotel, but when the boss began telling him what to do, he quit and went home without collecting his pay. ‘They can keep the money,’ he told his mother. A later job as a bellman in a nearby hotel went more smoothly, perhaps because his superiors left him alone” (27–28). And, Banks certainly wouldn’t confront his mother. She didn’t want him playing football: “‘That game is too rough for you,’ she said. ‘I don’t want you playing anymore.’ Ernie enjoyed football, but he didn’t protest. It was easier to obey his mother than to argue with her. It would not be the last time he would walk away from confrontation” (33). As Mr. Cub grew older, he experienced increasing hardships with his family. One after another, five of Banks’s brothers died at a young age. In 1962, he sought to help his brother Sammy, trying to convince Sammy to join him at his offseason home in California. There Sammy could “get a new job, meet some new people, start over.” Banks even offered to drive to Dallas so that the two could return to California together, but Sammy declined: “Aw, man, I don’t want to go out there.” A few days later, Banks learned his brother had been at a party where he was shot in the head by someone “playing with a gun, stupidly pointing it at people.” Rather than anger or sadness, Banks described the disappointment he felt: “Some people just get stuck in time and places, Banks thought as he flew home for the funeral” (42–43). The book also covers some of Banks’s memorable moments in the Negro League, learning and playing with other baseball greats, like legendary Buck O’Neil. Banks would field ground balls “over and over again, in the withering Kansas City heat” (57) Banks also learned tips for turning double plays. “When [End Page 232] the runner on first base is coming at you” O’Neil explained, “Just look dead at him and start that ball right at his face. He’s going to get out of the way and it’s a perfect strike to first base” (57). Banks had a passion for those practices more than the Monarchs’ games, “‘I always liked digging for the gold rather than the gold,’ he said. ‘Without Buck, I don’t think I would have made the big leagues so quickly” (57). When Jackie Robinson took interest in Mr. Cub, Banks “thought he must be living in a dream.” When asked why Robinson took interest in him, Banks replied, “Why, I don’t know, but he really cared about me . . . The most important thing he told me was to listen. Don’t talk, just listen” (64). Banks learned a lot from Robinson, including “tips about making double plays—get rid of the ball faster, make your throws high enough so the second baseman can make...

“A Different Way to Relate”: Curiosity and Risk in Feminist Teaching and Scholarship

"A Different Way to Relate"Curiosity and Risk in Feminist Teaching and Scholarship Heather R. White (bio) Keywords American religions, feminist pedagogy, lesbian rabbi, Jewish feminist Click for larger view View full resolution Rebecca T. Alpert Click for larger view View full resolution Heather R. White Rebecca T. Alpert is a professor of religion and an affiliate faculty in the Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies program at Temple University, where she also currently serves as the senior associate dean of Academic Affairs in the College of Liberal Arts. Alpert is a scholar of American religious history and a pathbreaking Reconstructionist rabbi. She was ordained in 1976 as one the first [End Page 55] female rabbis and was also among the first group of "out" lesbian and gay rabbis in the Reconstructionist movement, a development that she chronicles in her award-winning book Like Bread on the Seder Plate: Jewish Lesbians and the Transformation of Tradition (1997) and coedited volume (with Sue Elwell and Shirley Idelson) Lesbian Rabbis: The First Generation (2001). Alpert has continued to write and speak as a public scholar, queer feminist, and rabbi in a self-consciously progressive tradition; her work addresses Reconstructionist approaches to tradition; critical antiracism, marriage and sexual ethics, and Zionism and Palestinian solidarity, among many other issues. Alpert's scholarship has also influentially shaped the academic subfield of religion and sports. Her historical monograph Out of Left Field: Jews and Black Baseball (2011) received the Robert Peterson award for Best Book in Negro League History and was featured in the National Jewish History Museum's 2014 exhibition Chasing Dreams: Baseball and Becoming American. Alpert's work in this field also includes another award-winning book, Religion and Sports: An Introduction and Case Studies (2015) as well as a forthcoming coedited volume (with Art Remillard), titled "Gods, Games, and Globalization." Alpert is also an award-winning teacher and mentor who has written critically and insightfully about the challenges of the classroom.1 I met Alpert in 2004, when I was a graduate student writing a dissertation in LGBT religious studies. She visited my campus to give a lecture on the history of Jewish lesbian feminism. I knew her then as the author of Like Bread on the Seder Plate, a book that influentially helped me envision how to write in the field of LGBTQ history at a moment when the scholarly bibliography on this topic was still sparse. In the years since, I have come to know her as a generous scholar and mentor, a person whose practical, even-keeled candor is cut with equal parts of empathy and humor. I am one of many young scholars whom Alpert has taken by the elbow for a postdissertation lap through the American Academy of Religion (AAR)/Society for Biblical Literature (SBL) book exhibit in order to introduce us and our work to academic publishers. I also witnessed Alpert's transformative pedagogy at the Summer Institute (a week-long program for graduate students working in religion, theology, and queer studies), where I participated as a mentor.2 It was thus with great delight that I accepted the request to interview Alpert for JFSR. The interview below began as an informal conversation, where we agreed to focus on pedagogy, and then expanded into broader reflection on the shaping influence of teachers on Alpert's life and work. [End Page 56] Heather: What experiences of learning or of being a student have most shaped your sense of your role in the classroom and with your students? Rebecca: This is actually the same question I ask on the first day of class when I teach new graduate students about the importance of reflective teaching. Many of us who have decided to work in higher education have done so because we loved learning and being in the classroom, and it's important to remember who inspired us. So, I can certainly tell you about my favorite teachers: Mrs. Farrar, my fifth-grade teacher, who opened up new worlds to me in the 1950s by having us learn about, research, and meet leading figures in the African American world like Crispus Attucks, Mary McCloud Bethune, Jacob Lawrence, and Kwame Nkrumah...

Bone's Gift by Angie Smibert

Reviewed by: Bone's Gift by Angie Smibert Melanie Kirkwood Smibert, AngieBone's Gift. Boyds Mills, 2018 [256p] (Ghosts of Ordinary Objects) Trade ed. ISBN 978-1-62979-850-9 $17.95 E-book ed. ISBN 978-1-68437-136-5 $7.99 Reviewed from galleys R* Gr. 5-8 It's 1942 in Appalachian Virginia, and the draft for World War II is leaving the mines stripped of workers and families stripped of fathers. Twelve-year-old Bone, whose father is among the drafted, is being sent to stay with her hyperreligious aunt and cousin while he is away. Bone has a Gift—when she touches an object, she can see the stories associated with it, and she's known for being a great storyteller. When she finds a note saying that her mother's Gift may be what killed her, Bone grows afraid of her own abilities. This mystical mystery makes good use of its World War II backdrop, with sure-fire markers of the times ranging from Pearl Harbor to Negro League Baseball. It also effectively evokes the Appalachian culture with written dialect and a cultural emphasis on storytelling that'll snag even history-resistant readers. Readers will definitely invest in Bone's journey with her mama's butter-yellow sweater, trusting that it will lead her to the answers she desires—a truth that'll change just about everything. No worries about what's to come for Bone and her family, though; Bone's Gift is just the opening installment of the Ghosts of Ordinary Objects trilogy. MK [End Page 354] Copyright © 2017 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

A Bitter Partnership: The Black Press’ Contentious Relationship with the Negro Leagues in the Struggle to Integrate Major League Baseball

In the 30-year campaign to integrate Major League Baseball, the relationships between African-American newspapers and the Negro Leagues developed in three distinct phases. What began as a harmonious partnership where the two institutions worked together to publicize and improve the quality of the Negro Leagues gave way to bitterness and resentment, as each questioned the other’s role in integrating the sport. By the early 1950s, however, some black sportswriters attempted to revitalize the Negro Leagues after recognizing that the integration of the sport had damaged this distinctly African-American social and economic institution. Analysing the contradictory and complicated attitudes and actions of black journalists as they worked with and later disassociated from the Negro Leagues demonstrates the black press’ shifting relationship with the Negro Leagues and illustrates the conflict among African-American journalists over how to transition from a segregated environment to an integrated one.

No League of Their Own

This article examines the experiences and representations of three black women who played baseball in the Negro Leagues in the 1950s. The article demonstrates the way the Negro League owners, the black press, and black male sportswriters used varying representations of athletic black womanhood to sell game tickets and generate business for a league in decline. Ultimately, the article argues that the recovery of the women in the 1990s romanticizes their civil rights–era athletic participation and obscures the physical and symbolic labor they performed as professional athletes.

National Pastime: U.S. History Through Baseball by Martin C. Babicz and Thomas W. Zeiler

Reviewed by: National Pastime: U.S. History Through Baseball by Martin C. Babicz and Thomas W. Zeiler David Lucander Martin C. Babicz and Thomas W. Zeiler. National Pastime: U.S. History Through Baseball. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017. 277 pp. Cloth, $36.00. The game of baseball and the United States are so intertwined that pointing this fact out is a veritable cliché. From its beginnings in the antebellum era, baseball has been “a window through which we can examine and clarify American history” (ix). This remains as true for us today as it was for Walt Whitman in the 1850s. Then and now, the game reflects many of the developments that made modern America. Some of the parallels between sport and society include the professionalization and specialization of labor, the rise of various reform movements, demographic shifts, globalization, and the spread of revolutionary technologies that changed the way we consume media. Martin C. Babicz and Thomas W. Zeiler’s National Pastime: U.S. History Through Baseball is a fact-laden survey of the game’s history that seeks to wed baseball history and American history in a neatly organized single-volume. This is the newest installment in the increasingly prestigious American Ways Series and is rooted in academia, but the book is a crossover text that targets a general reading audience. The fifteen generally chronologically arranged chapters are roughly twelve pages each, making it an unintimidating read and a quick study for those who are specialists in sports history. There are only two endnotes in the entire monograph, but a lengthy bibliographical essay directs readers to the vast amount of readily accessible books used in the research for this study. Roughly half of the book’s fifteen chapters are devoted to baseball’s early history, with names like Henry Chadwick, Alexander Cartwright, Alexander Spaulding, and Cap Anson being central to the narrative. This early history is essential, but the disproportionate emphasis on the game’s earliest era could be difficult for younger readers to connect with because this past seems so far [End Page 184] removed from the game that they know. Absent from this is even a mention of recent Hall of Famers Nolan Ryan or Carlton Fisk and the cultural significance of their personas. This imbalance also manifests in the omissions of generationally famous moments such as Dirk Denkinger’s missed call in the 1985 Cardinals-Royals World Series, the significance of curse-breaking championships by the Red Sox and Cubs, and the deep symbolism of Mariano Rivera’s retirement as the last player to wear uniform number 42. “Babe Ruth and the Roaring Twenties” is one of the book’s strongest chapters. In this section, the authors most concretely connect the subject of baseball with broader societal events. Babe Ruth “personified” much of what we know about this era by being “big, loud, and rambunctious, like the decade itself ” (89). This period of previously unprecedented prosperity is marked by the rapid growth of cities, a tremendous rise of immigration, the flaunting of excess, and technological innovations in mass media. All of this led to the creation of celebrity, and Babe Ruth fit the bill perfectly. Another especially strong section is a chapter on the Negro Leagues. Jackie Robinson has unquestionably attained iconic status as an American hero, but the general public is veritably unaware of the African American ballplayers and business people who came before him. The authors fill this lacunae by shining the spotlight on Gus Greenlee, Satchel Paige, Cool Papa Bell, and Josh Gibson. These figures should be household names and carry the kind of cultural esteem that Babe Ruth, Cy Young, and Stan Musial enjoy. By contextualizing the Negro Leagues within the history of Plessy v. Ferguson, the Great Migration, and the Harlem Renaissance, Babicz and Zeiler tell a story of survival and resilience in the face of Jim Crow. Various appendices constitute over forty pages of National Pastime. These franchise histories, and charts of playoff results are interesting to have on hand, but this valuable space could have been allocated to incorporate more detailed historical analysis. For instance, the short-lived Player’s League is discussed alongside the 1892 Homestead Steel Strike...

Kansas Baseball, 1858–1941 by Mark E. Eberle

Reviewed by: Kansas Baseball, 1858–1941 by Mark E. Eberle Charlie Bevis Mark E. Eberle. Kansas Baseball, 1858–1941. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2017. 400 pp. Paper, $27.95. In this extensive survey of baseball played by many types of teams, Eberle undertakes an ambitious effort to document the growth of the sport in the state of Kansas that ranges the full spectrum from amateur and semipro to professional (both minor and major league). Divided into two parts, “Early History of Baseball in Kansas” and “Historical Baseball Parks in Kansas,” this book is not just a study of baseball from a single-state focus. The author’s insights extend to towns and cities in every state through his lens that intersects baseball and community development. As Eberle aptly notes, “In many towns, the local baseball team was an important source of community pride and unity, perhaps even a surrogate for the competition among towns vying for advantage in economic growth and prosperity” (32–34). [End Page 186] In Part I of the book, Eberle examines seven varieties of baseball teams to illustrate the diversity of the sport within the state, utilizing hard-to-locate research from the basements of archives and microfilm cabinets of local libraries. In addition to white-male town teams, minor-league teams, and barnstorming major-league teams, Eberle reviews teams comprised of women, African Americans, American Indians, and Mexican Americans. In each chapter Eberle toggles between a comprehensive review of the team type and a related broader theme or biographical sketch of a player. This combination helps to extend the applicability of the material beyond Kansas. Excursions into the history of Sunday baseball and night baseball in Kansas are highlights of Part I. In the chapter on town teams, Eberle provides an overview of Sunday baseball legality, where ball games on the Lord’s Day were “nestled between church services in the morning and evening” and played amid “strong sentiment into the early 1900s opposing any type of organized recreational activities on the Sabbath” (37). Even after the Kansas Supreme Court in 1909 officially sanctioned Sunday baseball, local municipal ordinances continued to stifle Sunday games in some locales. Eberle’s analysis of the first-ever minor-league night game in April 1930 at Riverside Park in Independence, Kansas, is also enlightening, as this game ushered in the era of baseball under artificial lights, which began “as a novelty, but became a necessity during the 1930s” (139–140). How the portable lighting system of the Kansas City Monarchs, a Negro League team, found its way to permanent installation at Larks Park in Hays, in western Kansas, is also intriguing. Biographical sketches add context to what some readers may view as an overly dry review of teams and games in each chapter in Part I. Most compelling are the portraits of John “Topeka Jack” Johnson, an African American, and Emmett “Chief ” Bowles, an American Indian. Eberle’s lengthy examination of how Blue Rapids, Kansas, came to be a stop on the 1913 cross-country barnstorming tour of the New York Giants is a fascinating look at baseball’s role in community development. Of the four dozen playing sites on the tour, Blue Rapids, a small rural community in northeastern Kansas, “was the smallest town to host a game and was the only town in Kansas to do so” (154). In Part II of the book, Eberle examines the nine oldest ballparks in Kansas that are still in use today, which provides a valuable look at how Depression-era relief programs (especially the WPA) fueled ballpark construction and gave longevity to baseball in the state. Beyond the construction details of the grandstand built at each ballpark, Eberle provides a history of baseball in the city or town where the ballpark is located. These nine chapters are perhaps the greatest strength of the book, as each chapter is a case study of how baseball [End Page 187] played a fundamental role in community development, culminating in the ballpark as physical manifestation of those development efforts. For example, the baseball team in the town of Chanute, in southeastern Kansas, started out as a town team, progressed to a minor-league...

Strategies to Save National Treasures

Strategies to Save National Treasures David J. Brown (bio) National Treasures. From a preservation perspective, the name quickly brings up images of iconic homes of presidents and business titans, the hallowed ground of battlefields, and elegant established neighborhoods from Charleston to San Francisco. But what if America’s National Treasures also brought to mind the badly deteriorated studio of an internationally acclaimed potter, who moved to California to escape the madness of 1930s Europe? Or a small village that lays claim as the country’s most successful utopian community, but now faces threats from a weakened levee system? Or the last known Spanish-period waterworks remaining on American soil, threatened by a decades-old plan that would obliterate the historic landscape? Or a deteriorated baseball stadium that once hosted the greats of Negro League baseball. Four years ago, when the National Trust for Historic Preservation refocused in order to expand the scale and implications of its work, the National Treasures program was at the heart of a new strategic plan entitled Preservation10X. The plan was framed as a way to increase our work and influence by a factor of ten. The National Treasures portfolio was developed to guide the Trust in engagement at places that tell the broad story of America. The work has been focused where the preservation implications are national in scope, the threats are critical, and the National Trust can make a unique contribution to the preservation solution. The Trust built its portfolio beginning with places where it was already engaged, such as Charleston, Chimney Rock and the White Grass Dude Ranch in Grand Teton. Soon, however, the Trust staff reached out to partners and others to identify a broader collection of places that allowed us to focus on the national implications of preservation and tell a more diverse American story. Four years later, we have a revolving portfolio of more than 50 National Treasure sites that are the focus of National Trust advocacy campaigns. This issue of Forum Journal examines how [End Page 3] the National Trust and a variety of partners have saved—and yes, occasionally failed to save—America’s National Treasures. Click for larger view View full resolution Richmond’s Shockoe Bottom is an example of the National Trust’s outreach to new communities and preservation allies. This recently named National Treasure was the center of Richmond’s slave trade, which played a pivotal role during the peak years of the nation’s interstate slave trade. Much of Shockoe Bottom has been razed and paved over, nearly forgotten by mainstream historians. Nevertheless, for many descendants of the enslaved, Shockoe Bottom remains sacred ground associated with suffering, injustice and resistance to slavery. PHOTO BY DAVID HERRING Guided by more than 60 years of experience, we are taking direct action to protect these places and promote their history and significance, while collaborating with local preservationists to help advance the cause of preservation nationally. In this issue of Forum Journal, our authors identify strategies that have helped save these places that help define us as Americans. National Treasures represent the diversity of our nation’s built history and remind all of us of the importance of preserving the irreplaceable places that tell America’s stories. From historic buildings to cultural landscapes, National Trust National Treasures are unique, movement-defining places of action—some of them iconic, others less familiar—that will galvanize support and spark greater public understanding of how preservation contributes to vibrant communities. Pond Farm is one such National Treasure. A modest property in Sonoma County’s Russian River Valley, Pond Farm was the home and studio of a nationally prominent ceramicist, Marguerite Wildenhain, who moved to America to escape Nazi persecution. Since Marguerite’s death in 1985, her home and barn have been unoccupied, and the elements and lack of routine maintenance have taken their toll. Pond Farm is located in Austin Creek State Recreation Area, and the ongoing funding crisis for California State Parks [End Page 4] continues to pose a direct threat to Pond Farm’s survival. Across the country, similar places that tell the stories of endurance and triumph are struggling for survival as government funding for preservation evaporates. Several...

Queen of the Diamond: The Lizzie Murphy Story by Emily Arnold McCully (review)

Reviewed by: Queen of the Diamond: The Lizzie Murphy Story by Emily Arnold McCully Elizabeth Bush McCully, Emily Arnold Queen of the Diamond: The Lizzie Murphy Story; written and illus. by Emily Arnold McCully. Ferguson/Farrar, 2015 [32p] ISBN 978-0-374-30007-4 $17.99 Reviewed from galleys R 5-8 yrs Lizzie Murphy, who played first base in semi-professional ball at the beginning of the twentieth century, was unquestionably a baseball pioneer—the first woman to play against major leaguers in an exhibition game; the first player to participate in all-star games in both leagues; the first woman (and white, at that) to play in a Negro League game. Although most of these facts are included in McCully’s closing notes, the text is more concerned with Lizzie’s childhood and the launch of her career. Readers meet a talented little girl, an all-round athlete, who elbowed her way into her big brother’s games by toting around the equipment and waiting for her break. Against the advice of her mother, who appreciated her daughter’s talent but saw no future in women’s baseball, Lizzie made it onto a men’s semi-pro team and, as McCully’s narration showcases as its climax, challenged the team’s manager to pay her the wages he withheld from her debut appearance. This focus subtly extends the story’s interest from a girl-makes-good historical set piece to an accessible bit of consciousness-raising regarding gender and wage parity; Lizzie was the team star—and certainly not above making money on the side selling her own baseball cards—but wasn’t about to fall for a manager’s argument that “you’ll quit to get married someday. These fellows have to earn a living.” Line and watercolor paintings convey the Rhode Island environment in which Lizzie got her start, as well as the contrast between her shirtwaist and boater everyday garb and the men’s uniform she audaciously wore on the field. A brief list of sources is included. [End Page 411] Copyright © 2015 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

A Calculus of Color: The Integration of Baseball's American League by Robert Kuhn McGregor

Reviewed by: A Calculus of Color: The Integration of Baseball's American League by Robert Kuhn McGregor Thomas Mueller Robert Kuhn McGregor. A Calculus of Color: The Integration of Baseball's American League. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2015. 214 pp. Paper, $39.95. A Calculus of Color should not only be required reading in every baseball history class, but every twentieth-century American history class. It is an outstanding piece of work as the author examines the integration of baseball, in the American League, utilizing the racial history of America as a backdrop. For example, there are sections on the great African-American migration and how racism is interconnected with the economic structure of the United States, which the author connects to baseball history. The author focuses on the American League to answer why it was a "poor second when it came to claiming black stars … [and] … home to the last team to integrate" (15). The author begins with a comprehensive summary of racism against African American players and the rise of the Negro Leagues with a discussion of the "colored line" that barred African Americans from playing in the majors. [End Page 234] The Negro Leagues had some of the best baseball players of all time and the author also provides a glimpse into their stories. One of the most interesting parts of the book was the discussion of Negro Leagues' business plan. There were the obvious economic issues due to the "buying power" of African Americans being less than that of whites, and team owners increasing salaries to keep their players from jumping to other teams or leagues. Also, very few Negro League teams had their own stadium, which meant some teams had to pay rent to play in stadiums of the white-only major leagues. This rent obviously cut into the profits of the Negro League teams. Besides economic issues, there were issues with the media. White newspapers were not covering the Negro Leagues and the high-profile African American newspapers were weekly and focused more national coverage. This meant fans did not have a daily update of their favorite Negro League team. This part hit home with the reviewer. He remembered reading the sports page every day of child to follow his baseball team, reading the box scores, etc. Without that constant coverage of every game the reviewer wondered one would lose touch with team and thus minimize the fan base. As the narrative continues the author analyzes the integration of the American League from a business framework. The author separates the teams into championship teams, just below championship teams, and the cellar dwellers. Integration was tied to the power structure of the American League teams that would complete for the AL title versus those below them. The author examined the salaries, profits, and attendance and posited that Chicago, Baltimore, and Cleveland benefitted from integrating by vaulting past the other teams (Detroit and others) who were slow to integrate. The author then examines each of the American League teams' road to integration. The first team was the Cleveland Indians with the signing of Larry Doby. The section compared owner Bill Veeck's "integration policy" with the Dodgers general manager, Branch Rickey. Veeck did have discussions with Rickey on integration, however Veeck had his own way of doing things. Veeck compensated the Negro League team for Doby's services, unlike the Dodgers, but kept the signing of Doby secret. Rickey's approach was more out in the open, so the whole team was brought along. The author continues with the Indians' signing of Satchel Paige which helped relieve the pressure on Doby. The Cleveland story intersects with the Chicago White Sox and Minnie Minoso, a Cleveland signee who would be remembered because of his time with the White Sox. However, his story adds another layer to America's racial history. Minoso was Cuban but the prejudices against African American ball-players [End Page 235] were extended to include black Latino players. The author explains that the "roots" were different but the discrimination was the same. The book continues by examining the rest of the American League's integration by describing three teams, the Philadelphia Athletics, Washington Senators and...

J.L. Wilkinson and the Kansas City Monarchs by William A. Young

Reviewed by: J.L. Wilkinson and the Kansas City Monarchs by William A. Young J. L. Steele William A. Young. J.L. Wilkinson and the Kansas City Monarchs. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2016. 240 pp. Paper, $35.00. In recent years, there have been a substantial number of books written about the Negro Leagues and those who were a part of them. J.L. Wilkinson and the Kansas City Monarchs is as informative as any of them and is a fantastic addition to this segment of baseball literature. It is the long overdue story of one of the most significant men many baseball fans have probably never heard of. This important story needs to be told and William A. Young has done a phenomenal job in telling it. [End Page 236] Both the lack of record keeping in the Negro Leagues era, as well as the loss of many records which did exist, have made it difficult in many instances to establish factual narratives. Young has been very thorough in researching the surviving material to bring the important story of Baseball Hall of Fame member J.L. Wilkinson to life, as evidenced by seventeen pages of footnotes. Adding to this are extensive quotes from those who knew Wilkinson, including many who played for him as Kansas City Monarchs. Wilkinson was the team owner who first introduced stadium lighting and night games to professional baseball, doing so a full five years before a Major League game would be played under lights. In the words of Buck O'Neil, "I do believe that if it wasn't for [Wilkinson's] lights, Negro baseball wouldn't have survived the Depression" (77). He was also one the first if not the very first team owner to field interracial teams, doing so as early as the 1910s and doing it with great success, both on the field and at the box office. He is also credited with, among other things, resurrecting the career of Satchel Paige. One of the great lessons Young gives the reader is the fact that these and other decisions Wilkinson made weren't driven solely by profit but by the quality of man he was. The author has done an exceptional job of letting Wilkinson's record as a businessman, baseball man and human speak for itself without making personal judgments. That quality makes the reader wonder even more, why it took so long for the Major Leagues to integrate and what could have happened if he had been a big-league club owner in the first half of the twentieth century. Wilkinson's son Dick best summarized his father when he said, "He just lived baseball. That's all he did … He was the kind of guy who didn't care what color someone was. He just wanted to see how good they could play baseball" (182). That point is proven countless times in J.L. Wilkinson and the Kansas City Monarchs. This book will be appreciated by baseball historians and casual fans alike. The fifteen-page appendix includes team rosters and seasonal records for Kansas City Monarchs teams Wilkinson's ownership from 1920 to 1948. As noted by the author, there are obvious contradictions in some of the records but the research has been meticulous and he has noted any discrepancies. Scanning those rosters is a great reminder that J.L. Wilkinson had an eye for talent as well as any owner in the Negro or Major Leagues has ever had. This volume presents a lot of Negro Leagues history and features several photographs of players from that era. It is not only the story of an era of baseball history but a thorough biography of a remarkable man who was central to [End Page 237] that story. J.L. Wilkinson and the Kansas City Monarchs will be a worthy addition to the library of any baseball fan. Copyright © 2017 University of Nebraska Press

Legitimate Black Heroes: The Negro Leagues, Jackie Robinson, and the National Pastime in African American Literature

Legitimate Black Heroes: The Negro Leagues, Jackie Robinson, and the National Pastime in African American Literature

Integrating the Orioles, Baseball and Race in Baltimore by Bob Luke

Reviewed by: Integrating the Orioles, Baseball and Race in Baltimore by Bob Luke J. L. Steele Bob Luke. Integrating the Orioles, Baseball and Race in Baltimore. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2016. 203 pp. Paper, $29.95. As years go by and older generations pass, it is important that the stories and names involved with American's Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s be preserved, remembered and learned from. The same holds true in America's great game of baseball. While Major League Baseball celebrates Jackie Robinson Day each April 15, the history of integrating each of the big-league clubs can and should be an interesting study. Integrating the Orioles, Baseball and Race in Baltimore is that type of study. This book will appeal to readers on multiple levels. It is first, a book of baseball history. Fans of the game should enjoy this even if they are not fans of the franchise. Orioles fans will of course, be interested in learning more about how their team and city dealt with race relations. Those interested in the Negro Leagues will also find this book informative. Finally, as America continues to deal with issues regarding race relations in the twenty-first century, it is a book which will remind all readers of not only the struggles that have gone before but of those we still face. Well researched and drawing heavily from primary sources, the author promises in the Preface, "This book shows how one major league baseball team, the Baltimore Orioles, traveled the path to integration. This book also examines the push by civil rights organizations, Baltimore residents and several players to integrate the Orioles' front office which was, and is today, where the organizational power lies. The reader will also see the ongoing struggle for civil rights in the city of Baltimore, how racial tensions in the city affected the team and how the Orioles contributed to integration in the city" (1). It does exactly that. Luke begins the book with a history of black baseball in the city of Baltimore, beginning in 1874. From that point on, he does an excellent job of weaving the histories of the city, the game and the Orioles organization. He provides the reader with ample background information about the first- and second-generation African American players who played for the Orioles, [End Page 238] beginning with the first black Oriole, pitcher Jehosie Heard, in 1954. Readers are cautioned early on that this story is not about the Orioles' on-field play throughout the years. That, however, is not a negative. The focus instead is on the men both on and off the field who were a part of the civil rights struggles of the franchise. In most cases, thanks to extensive first-hand quotes, readers learn how many of those involved view that era through the lens of time. The book provides an honest look at the tardy pace in which the Orioles signed and promoted black players. It informs us that outfielder Dave Pope joined the team in June of 1955 and was the only player of color on that season's team, which finished in seventh place. Interestingly enough, at the same time, the Dodgers won that year's World Series with five black players. Luke points out, "Five other black players, including Puerto Rican-born Roberto Clemente, made their major league debut in 1955." The narrative essentially ends with the unveiling of Eddie Murray's statue at Camden Yards in 2012. It is then followed by an epilogue which includes coverage of the 2015 arrest of Freddie Gray and its results. It feels forced. Although there are still obvious racial issues in the city, it is difficult to tie them to the baseball team. Yet, that's what Luke seems to do. In noting that game attendance by blacks has decreased in the last thirty years, he writes, "The Orioles do not publicize attendance figures by race, gender, or ethnicity but it is a safe bet that black attendance is less than ten percent" (161). Of course, no team in any professional sports league announces attendance figures based on those parameters. He follows that by citing the...

Black Baseball, Black Business: Race Enterprise and the Fate of the Segregated Dollar by Roberta J. Newman and Joel Nathan Rosen (review)

BLACK BASEBALL, BLACK BUSINESS: Race Enterprise and the Fate of the Segregated Dollar. By Roberta J. Newman and Joel Nathan Rosen. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. 2014.Baseball's color line, instigated by the prevailing political and social climate, led to the emergence of the Negro Leagues and a web of businesses that made up a segregated economy, both de facto and de jure. Moreover, it an economic engine that powered a system comprised of more modest enterprises (3). Great Migration and black baseball conflated to shape business enterprise for black America during segregation in America. Rosen and Newman detail how the demise of the Negro Leagues at the hands of integration of white baseball in 1947 impacted black America more than many realized. In the mode of earlier books like Robert Peterson's Only Ball Was White: A History of Legendary Players and All-Black Professional Teams (1970) and Neil Lanctot's Negro League Baseball: Rise and Ruin of a Institution (2004), Rosen and Newman examine the early symbiotic relationship between black business and black baseball, particularly in core urban cities.The book is chronological. initial chapter Black Business and Consciousness in Context opens with an effective meditation on the Great Migration and Modernity as central to the rise of the New Negro and black baseball. authors focus on the influence of race women and men of the era advocating solidarity and community building. second chapter situates black baseball within an African American ecosystem of the 1920s. It examines the early history of the Negro League as a product that grew because of evolving populations in urban centers. third chapter The Depression, Business, and Baseball Revisited, 1930-1939 outlines the first wave of a thriving black baseball fueled ecosystem between the First World War and the depression.Newman and Rosen extend their examination into the very important 1940s. Their chapter The Second Wave and the Business of Baseball, 1939-1946 re-examines the exploitation and antagonisms between white booking agents and black entrepreneurs. fifth and sixth chapters chronicle Jackie Robinson's emergence and the implications of the desegregation of black baseball on black businesses. Of particular interest is a discussion of how breaching the color line in Major League Baseball gave the illusion of equality, but failed competitively within the mainstream. Finally, the authors detail the demise of the black ecosystem in the aftermath of desegregation, which undermined the financial stability of ancillary businesses that racism and segregated baseball produced. …

The set-up men: race, culture and resistance in black baseball

This book is an examination of cultural resistance to segregation in the world of black baseball. Through an analysis of editorial art, folktales, nicknames, manhood and the art of clowning, African Americans worked to dismantle Jim Crow through the creation of a cultural counter-narrative that centered on baseball and the Negro Leagues, that celebrated black achievement, and that highlighted the contradictions and fallacies of white supremacy in the first half of the twentieth century.

Changes in Cuba’s Migration Policy and Its Impact on Baseball

Baseball is an essential constituent of the Cuban national identity. For nearly a century, Cuban baseball players had joined high-ranking international leagues, including the Negro Leagues and Major League Baseball (MLB) of the United States. After the triumph of the Revolution in 1959, the professional practice of sport was banned in the country. On the other hand, the revolutionary government instituted migration rules that disallowed Cuban citizens to travel abroad freely. Until the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Cuban national baseball team reigned in amateur competitions worldwide. Sporting successes in general and those of baseball in particular, were managed by the government as a political tool; the government used to display the loyalty of the athletes as a triumph of the Cuban system. However, since the nineties there has been a growing departure of Cuban top baseball players who have had the target of entering in MLB franchises, disregarding that the Cuban migration policy had remained unwavering. On the other hand, after the enactment of changes in the Cuban migration policy in 2013, the unconventional departure of high performance baseball players has increased sharply. The relationship between the migration reform and the increased leakage of baseball players has not been studied by scholars. The relevance of this paper is that it is the first academic approach to that relationship. This paper discusses the migration reform in Cuba and focuses mainly on its impact on baseball.

Jackie and Campy: The Untold Story of Their Rocky Relationship and the Breaking of Baseball’s Color Line by William C. Kashatus (review)

Reviewed by: Jackie and Campy: The Untold Story of Their Rocky Relationship and the Breaking of Baseball’s Color Line by William C. Kashatus Robert A. Moss William C. Kashatus. Jackie and Campy: The Untold Story of Their Rocky Relationship and the Breaking of Baseball’s Color Line. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 2014, 234 pp. Cloth, $24.95. Every April 15, major-league ballplayers wear the number 42 commemorating Jackie Robinson’s first game with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. With each passing year, details of Robinson’s travails recede (although the recent film 42 vividly recalls them). William C. Kashatus intends Jackie and Campy to offer “an important corrective to what has become a sanitized retelling of their relationship and its impact on baseball’s integration process” (9). Kashatus mostly achieves his goal in clean and readable prose, but we needn’t accept the hyperbole of his subtitle. Standard biographies of Robinson (Rampersad) and Campanella (Lanctot) describe their mutual dislike, while the breaking of baseball’s color line is surely not an untold story. The virtue of Jackie and Campy is to highlight their relationship in the context both of the championship Dodgers teams and of the civil rights campaigns of the 1940s and 1950s. Kashatus paints Robinson and Campanella as ideological descendants of two archetypal figures in African American history: W. E. B. DuBois, the activist, and Booker T. Washington, the accommodationist. In this scheme, the seeds of strife between Jackie and Campy sprout from their opposite temperaments (combative versus stolid) and their differing strategies toward claiming their proper spaces in both baseball and the public sphere. Robinson was proactive and aggressive, while Campanella preferred exemplary displays of ability and performance. Their contrasting responses to civil rights inequities, “active defiance” versus “passive resistance,” exacerbated their conflict. Of course, there were also more personal irritants at work. Campy later came to feel that he should have been the first to break the color barrier, whereas Kashatus suggests that Robinson ultimately became jealous of Campanella’s three mvp awards and frustrated with his failure to speak out against discrimination. Jackie and Campy features capsule biographies of the principals and abbreviated histories of black baseball and Brooklyn. There is not much new in these sections, but they are integral to Kashatus’s portraits of Brooklyn and Branch Rickey: “Rickey believed that Brooklyn, with its racial tolerance, growing African American population, die-hard working-class fans, and penchant for the underdog was the ideal place … to integrate baseball” (30). Kashatus rebuts the canard that Rickey’s principal concern was monetary; in his view, Rickey’s motivation was ethical. As early as 1943, Rickey began to scout Negro League players for Brooklyn, [End Page 145] a search that would bring Robinson to the Dodgers in 1947 and Campanella in 1948. Kashatus contrasts the mostly favorable experiences of Robinson at Montreal and Campanella at Nashua, New Hampshire, in the minor leagues (where both players were league mvps) with the prejudice and discrimination while attending spring training in the American south. Robinson’s oft-recounted tribulations are rehearsed again: the 15–1 owners’ vote against integration, with Rickey the only proponent; the petition against Robinson drawn up by southerners on the Dodgers, quashed by manager Leo Durocher; the savage race-baiting by the Phillies, egged on by manager Ben Chapman; and the death threats in Cincinnati. When the Cardinals threw beanballs at Robinson, Durocher ordered retaliation against Stan Musial: “You’re the best player I know on the Cardinals. For every time he gets a knockdown pitch, it looks to me like you’re going to get two” (111). The lesson was learned. Robinson’s stoic endurance gradually engendered his team’s support, led by shortstop Pee Wee Reese, and eased the path for Campanella in 1948. The respect earned by Robinson carried over to Campy. Southerner Preacher Roe related that Campy would “say ‘Now you just do what ol’ Campy tells ya and I guarantee we’ll get by,’ and it’d be that way” (114). Although Jackie and Campy were friendly at first, roomed together on the road, and worked with disadvantaged youth in Harlem, their relationship began to unravel in 1949...

Nikkei Baseball: Japanese American Players from Immigration and Internment to the Major Leagues by Samuel O. Regalado (review)

Reviewed by: Nikkei Baseball: Japanese American Players from Immigration and Internment to the Major Leagues by Samuel O. Regalado Robert A. Moss Samuel O. Regalado. Nikkei Baseball: Japanese American Players from Immigration and Internment to the Major Leagues. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2013. 208pp. Paper, $25. In Nikkei Baseball, Samuel Regalado, professor of history at California State University–Stanislaus, offers a cultural and social history of Japanese immigration and acclimatization in the United States, as refracted through the prism of Japanese American (or Nikkei) baseball. His chronology stretches from the Meiji restoration in Japan in 1870 to the imported Japanese major-league players and their Nikkei counterparts of the late twentieth century and early 2000s. In between, we get a bird’s-eye view of Nikkei baseball as it developed in the cities and towns of the western United States: Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Stockton, Sacramento, Portland, and Fresno. Nikkei Baseball is highly detailed; its relatively short text is buttressed by 44 pages of notes, sources, bibliography, and index. It ably charts the growth of Japanese American baseball from the first all-amateur Nikkei team in San Francisco in 1903, through the development of regional Nikkei tournaments, which recapitulated the growth of baseball in nineteenth-century America, to the formation of Nikkei leagues in the 1920s. Regalado posits that during the Meiji restoration in Japan, the feudal Samurai code of bushido melded with Western ideas of competitiveness and modernity, so as to reorder Japanese society while preserving Japanese traditions and identity. Baseball, introduced to Japan in 1872 by Horace Wilson, an educational reformer hired by the government, came to be viewed as an accompaniment of patriotism, industrial productivity, team play, and modernization. In 1878, Hiroshi Hiraoka, an engineer who had observed baseball in the United States, organized the first team in Japan, the Shimbashi Athletic Club. By 1890, Japanese universities were fielding nines, and in 1905 the Waseda University team toured the US, playing college teams in Washington, Oregon, and California. When the Issei (first generation) Japanese immigrants came to America, [End Page 151] they brought baseball with them, and the generational aspect of baseball connected them with their children, the Nisei. To the Issei, the game “nourished traditional virtues of loyalty, honor, and courage” (52). In turn, the Nisei developed leagues and tournaments. By 1926, the Southern California Japanese Baseball League had formed, centered around the large Nikkei community of Los Angeles. In the Fresno area, Kenichi Zenimura organized a league of ten teams. Games were also played with Mexican American, Negro league, and Pacific Coast League teams. Trumpeted by the Japanese American press, sports—especially baseball—were seen as a bridge to assimilation and an escape from discrimination. In the absence of permitted advance in other spheres, baseball provided an outlet. The LA Nippons barnstormed Japan in 1931, compiling a record of 20–5, and the Tokyo Giants visited Los Angeles to play the Nippons in 1935 and 1936. The Nikkei experience mirrored similar pathways followed by other immigrant groups, for example, Jews and Italians. Regalado also devotes considerable attention to the emergence of talented Japanese teams in Hawaii. By 1920, an all Japanese American baseball league was in operation there, and the first Nikkei major leaguers came from Hawaii. Nevertheless, Nikkei baseball remained a mostly segregated game through 1941, when Pearl Harbor ended an era. The “bridge” to assimilation had failed; the Nikkei were considered a nation apart. In February 1942, President Roosevelt signed the relocation order affecting all Japanese Americans on the west coast, moving them first into evacuation centers and then into relocation camps, “places where nobody had lived before and no one has lived since” (102). In these dire circumstances, all sports, especially “barbed-wire baseball,” provided a virtual escape. Despite a shortage of equipment, and rude diamonds scraped from unforgiving surroundings, evacuee teams were in action by mid-1943. “To the evacuees, sport was not an ‘innocuous aspect of life;’ it was an essential component to their mental and emotional survival in the camps” (105). At the Jerome camp in southeastern Arkansas, population 8,500, games drew 2,000-4,000 spectators. By 1944, the War Relocation Authority had authorized intercamp...