The Forgotten History of African American Baseball by Lawrence D. Hogan (review)

Most fans of baseball history in general and black baseball history in particular are familiar with Lawrence Hogan’s book Shades of Glory: The Negro Leagues and the Story of African American Baseball. With funding from the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Shades of Glory reads as an updated companion piece to Robert Peterson’s Only the Ball Was White: A History of Legendary Black Players and All-Black Professional Teams. Both are interested in illuminating the history of blacks in organized baseball in the United States. If Shades of Glory’s goal is to expand the historical record, then The Forgotten History is the equivalent of sitting in a living room listening to the elders tell stories of revered friends, pleasant experiences, and painful memories. This book is a history, providing a standard chronological view of people, places, and events; however, as Hogan points out in the introduction, “it is also about the heart and soul of the black experience in America during the era of our nation’s color line” (xv).

Some of the names in the book are legendary, such as Rube Foster, Oscar Charleston, and Monte Irvin. Other names are less known, like Charles Douglass, Frederick Douglass’s son, who played for the Washington Mutuals; William “Doc” Lambert, who was “the most renowned black trainer in black baseball”; and Franklin “Doc” Sykes, who pitched in the early twentieth century, fought for fair player wages, was a licensed and practicing dentist, and worked toward securing an interracial jury for the infamous Scottsboro case. Some of the stories may sound familiar to readers, from the long home runs Josh Gibson hit to Buck O’Neil’s 2006 Hall of Fame speech, while others, like the personal remembrances of the Alvin White, are new and equally exciting. Hogan recounts that when he began doing research on black baseball in the 1980s, he was told that he should ask all of the veteran players to tell their “‘Satchel story’—because everyone had one and they were all good” (168). The Forgotten History reminds readers that every Negro League player has a story to tell, and reading these stories reminds the reader that there is still so much we do not know about black baseball and so much we likely will never know as many of the storytellers are no longer with us.

One of the many things The Forgotten History does well is that it weaves the history and story of the Negro Leagues into larger stories about black communities and American history. Nothing, not even baseball, occurs in a vacuum, and Hogan paints the picture that the Negro Leagues existed in a particular time and place and that they were greatly influenced by America’s embrace of white supremacy. The names and stories of people involved with the Negro Leagues are interspersed with brief stories of voter suppression, de jure segregation, and race riots. At the same time, The Forgotten History opens the door to vibrant black communities who interacted with or were appreciative of black baseball. Hogan connects the stories of black baseball to greats such as Louis Armstrong, Lionel Hampton, Lena Horne, Count Basie, and Sarah Vaughn and includes excerpts from the works of James Weldon Johnson, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, and Amiri Baraka (or LeRoi Jones).

What comes through throughout the text is a feeling that this is a deeply personal book. One of the final stories Hogan shares is a paper his son Matthew wrote about how his understanding and conception of race was informed by his father’s research on black baseball. The recollections of Al White stem from a ten-year friendship Hogan had with the late journalist: “If Al were here to be asked about this role to which he is assigned, I suspect he would be more than a bit incredulous and more than a bit protesting. … For myself, there is no question about the propriety of this choice, for it...