Whirty: A mystery Negro Leagues game in New Orleans
From SABR member Ryan Whirty at Home Plate Don’t Move on March 22, 2019:
In the first half of the 20th century, New Orleans had numerous brushes with baseball fame and significant influence on the national pastime across the country. Numerous hardball legends — including greats like Jackie Robinson and Willie Mays — thrilled Big Easy baseball nuts with their Herculean diamond exploits.
Just not the way you might think, however.
World Series games, All-Star contests and attendance at national league organizational confabs were staples of local hardball, but they happened behind the curtain of the color line.
Before Jackie Robinson and other African-American stars gradually integrated so-called organized baseball, including the major leagues, beginning in 1946, the all-black Negro Leagues arose and thrived in parallel to — but always separated from — the whites-only confines of organized baseball.
Read the full article here: https://homeplatedontmove.wordpress.com/2019/03/22/a-mystery-game-in-new-orleans/
Originally published: March 27, 2019. Last Updated: March 27, 2019.