In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

DANIEL A. NATHAN CHASING SHADOWS THE BALTIMORE BLACK SOX AND THE PERILS OF HISTORY When knowledgeable baseball fans hear the phrase “Black Sox,” they usually think of the eight members of the Chicago White Sox, most famously out>elder “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, who were implicated in the infamous 1919 World Series game->xing scandal.1 This is certainly appropriate , because the Black Sox scandal, as the event soon became known, was an extremely in?uential moment in baseball history. It contributed to the hiring of baseball’s >rst commissioner, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, and it established a zero-tolerance policy for gambling. Moreover, for many people the scandal was a signi>cant moment of betrayal, disillusionment, and crisis. As the Chicago writer Nelson Algren put it, the Black Sox were “Benedict Arnolds! Betrayers of American Boyhood, not to mention American Girlhood and American Womanhood and American Hoodhood.”2 Due to folklore, scores of articles and books, several >lms, and the ongoing controversies about whether Joe Jackson and Pete Rose should be in the Baseball Hall of Fame, the Black Sox scandal has retained its resonance, its ability to stoke debates and >re imaginations.3 The banished Chicago game->xers, however, are not the only Black Sox worth remembering and contemplating. For di=erent reasons, the Baltimore Black Sox, a long-defunct Negro League team, also deserves our attention, especially the extraordinarily talented 1929 squad, which earned a ?eeting and now forgotten moment of glory by winning the >rst and only American Negro League pennant, taking both halves of the closely contested split season. Winning that pennant may have been a bittersweet achievement for some of the Black Sox, simultaneously heroic and hollow, exciting and dispiriting, a validation of their talent and competence, and yet a painful reminder of their second-class status as citizens and ballplayers. Denied the opportunity to play in the major leagues due to racism, the Black Sox were also denied the opportunity to play in the Negro League version of the World Series because the Negro National League champion Kansas City Monarchs the baltimore black sox 53 would not play them, owing to an ongoing feud between the rival leagues.4 The 1929 Black Sox, nevertheless, further distinguished themselves by soundly beating a team of white major and minor leaguers in an exhibition series. Soon thereafter, the American Negro League collapsed and the team was relegated to barnstorming. The Black Sox struggled to survive, joined the short-lived East-West League, changed ownership, folded in 1933, and eventually faded from most memories.5 Today, most baseball fans have never heard of the Baltimore Black Sox and, even though scholarly attention to the Negro Leagues has ?ourished for more than a generation, most historians do not give them much consideration . Thirty->ve years ago, former Black Sox out>elder Crush Holloway insisted: “Those were great players back then. But nobody knows about us any more. If you put all these stories in the sporting pages, they could read all about it and understand how it was. But that’s lost history, see? Nobody’s going to dig it up, it’s just past now, that’s all.”6 In many ways, Holloway’s lament still rings true. The Black Sox’s fate was and is unsurprising. Invisible to most white Americans, Negro baseball leagues were popular and socially signi>cant institutions for many African Americans in the years between the two world wars and into the early 1950s. Yet, because they were frequently undercapitalized and hindered by social conditions that did not allow them to ?ourish , Negro League teams often failed, even in the heyday of black baseball, a phenomenon that intensi>ed with the coming of the Depression. So, despite their on->eld success, the Black Sox’s failure as a business was predictable, perhaps even inevitable. Being forgotten is more common than not. In the long run, most of us will not be remembered. Regardless of our best e=orts, doing something truly memorable and lasting is di;cult, in part because of the vagaries of memory and history. Further, being forgotten, although unfortunate and sometimes sad, is not necessarily tragic, even if one has accomplished something exceptional, something that is usually celebrated and commemorated . In my view, forgetting baseball players does not rise to the level of tragedy. Yet any form of glory is rare, and usually hard earned. This was especially true for African Americans in the late 1920s, when the United States...

Share