Whirty: A look at the desegregation of the PCL
From SABR member Ryan Whirty at Home Plate Don’t Move on January 28, 2019:
Founded in 1903, the Pacific Coast League is one of the country’s oldest, most venerated and most tradition-laden professional baseball circuits. Because of its historical existence “out West,” far from many other pro leagues, the now-Triple-A PCL has arguably the richest, most distinctive and most idiosyncratic histories of all the high-level leagues.
Regionally revered and geographically molded, the tale of the PCL involves its own unique, and until now unheralded stories of racial integration. In a region that, throughout the early and mid-20th century, featured a racially and culturally diverse population — and, therefore, a similarly diverse baseball scene — that made the desegregation of the PCL, from the time John Ritchey debuted with the San Diego Padres in 1948 to Artie Wilson and Bob Boyd joined the Seattle Rainers in 1952, a fascinating tale.
That story has just been illuminated and fleshed out by Amy Essington, a lecturer at California State University at Fullerton and Cal Poly Pomona and the executive director of Historical Society of Southern California (among other roles), whose book, “The Integration of the Pacific Coast League: Race and Baseball in the West,” was published last June by the University of Nebraska Press.
Read the full article here: https://homeplatedontmove.wordpress.com/2019/01/28/a-look-at-the-desegregation-of-the-pcl/
Originally published: February 4, 2019. Last Updated: February 4, 2019.