Negro League Baseball: The Rise and Ruin of a Black Institution (review)
- Negro League Baseball: The Rise and Ruin of a Black Institution
In recent decades it has become crystal clear that professional sports, notwithstanding fans' never-ending preoccupation with the on-field (or on-court) heroics of gifted athletes, must be viewed in the context of business enterprise. Thus, Neil Lanctot's thoughtful [End Page 189] and exhaustively researched book is a timely addition to the historiography of both sports and business history. Also, for the sake of full disclosure (which the author acknowledges in the preface), I have also written about the Negro Leagues and provided Professor Lanctot with requested photographs of two Negro League owners/officials. Nevertheless, I did not see the actual manuscript until it appeared in book form.
Besides effectively recounting the Negro Leagues' rise and ruin as a black institution, Lanctot has effectively used the Negro Leagues as a window to assess the social and political mind-set of mid-twentieth-century African Americans. Specifically, Negro League Baseball provides a cogent analysis of African American sentiment regarding impending racial desegregation and what impact this would have on historic race enterprises (such as the Negro Leagues).
From the standpoint of business, the Negro Leagues, as Lanctot's painstaking research makes abundantly clear, could not compete with their Major League counterparts. Similar to many historic African American enterprises, teams associated with the Negro National and American Leagues were marginally funded enterprises that catered to a relatively impoverished African American consumer base. Enhanced employment opportunities for African Americans during World War II did, in the short-term, increase the profitability of Negro League franchises. Yet, perhaps ironically, the improving economic status of African Americans, along with their improving social and political status in post–World War II America, helped set the stage for the subsequent dissolution of the Negro Leagues.
In the years following World War II, African Americans were encouraged by favorable Supreme Court decisions and presidential executive orders that directly attacked Jim Crow. Moreover, to demonstrate their readiness for the desegregation of American society, many blacks began to consciously disassociate themselves from racially defined institutions. Thus, "several organizations including the Negro Newspaper Publishers Association, National Negro Bankers Association, and Colored Intercollegiate Athletic Association consciously eliminated Negro or Colored from their titles, hoping to suggest a more integrationist philosophy" (p. 304).
In this setting, the Negro Baseball Leagues, the most visible of historic African American institutions, found itself fighting an increasingly futile battle to survive. In fact, Jackie Robinson's successful 1947 debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers so totally captured the attention of African Americans that the Negro Baseball Leagues quickly became an "afterthought" to most blacks. African Americans' reaction to Jackie Robinson, in fact, seemingly verified the contemporary belief (held by many) that post–World War II blacks "valued [End Page 190] the success of individuals within an integrated setting far more than the preservation of institutions" (p. 312).
By the mid-1950s, the only Negro League team that maintained any semblance of financial stability was the Indianapolis Clowns. The Clowns were able to withstand the abandonment of black fans by consciously catering to white audiences. Similar to the Harlem Globetrotters in basketball, the Clowns combined baseball prowess with buffoonery. In fact, the Clowns "continued to operate as a novelty act as late as 1984, featuring a variety of gimmicks including midgets, comedy routines, and players clad in grass skirts" (p. 384).
In his concluding chapter "The End of a Business," Lanctot cogently discusses the disappearance of the Negro Leagues in the context of the diminished status of other historic African American institutions such as hospitals, banks, and insurance companies. Moreover, he perceptively asserts, "Although desegregation theoretically rendered black baseball and other separate institutions superfluous, many African Americans still remain far from 'integrated.' . . . [S]ome of the moderating institutional supports that once alleviated the plight of blacks have disappeared leaving a void in the [black] community" (p. 394).
Although the extinction of the Negro Leagues is linked to broader social forces (such...
