Kaufmann: Meet Phil S. Dixon, who helped save the history of black baseball
From Gina Kaufmann at KCUR Radio on February 23, 2020, on SABR member Phil S. Dixon:
In February 1920, the owners of eight independently owned black baseball teams met in Kansas City at the Paseo YMCA and the Negro National League was born. It was not the first all-black baseball league, but it’s the one that modernized the negro leagues and it was the last before integration.
The Negro Leagues Baseball centennial is being celebrated this year all over the country. But if it weren’t for a Kansas City man who grew up in the same neighborhood as a handful of former players for the Kansas City Monarchs, we might not even know this history.
As a kid in the 1960s, Phil Dixon lived near the Fairfield District of Kansas City, Kansas. He was a huge baseball fan, but nothing he read about baseball history ever mentioned the guys he knew from his neighborhood.
“In the books I was reading, the black players started with Jackie Robinson,” says Dixon. “That’s where it started for many people. But when you talked to the average fan, they knew better. So I got curious.”
Read the full article here: https://www.kcur.org/post/meet-kansas-city-man-who-helped-save-history-black-baseball-america#stream/0
Originally published: February 24, 2020. Last Updated: February 24, 2020.