KANSAS CITY — As anybody who has visited Fenway Park can respect, there are some historic venues that each sports activities fan ought to attempt to go to. Locations like Wrigley Discipline in Chicago, Lambeau Discipline in Inexperienced Bay, and in the event you’re a school basketball fan, Allen Fieldhouse on the College of Kansas.
Evidently, when information broke this previous summer season that UConn and Kansas males’s basketball had agreed to a home-and-home and that my Huskies can be flying out to Lawrence in December, I knew I needed to be there.
Upon reserving my flights, I shortly realized the journey offered one other bucket record alternative.
Kansas Metropolis is residence to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, which for greater than three a long time has preserved and informed the historical past of Black baseball in America. I’ve all the time wished to go to, so final month I reached out to Bob Kendrick, the president of the NLBM, and he was gracious sufficient to satisfy me and present me round after I flew in on Tuesday.
The very first thing you see once you stroll in is the Discipline of Legends, which options 10 life-sized bronze sculptures of Negro Leagues greats organized on a mock baseball diamond. However guests can’t simply stroll onto the sector, not straight away. As Kendrick put it, they’re segregated from the sector by a display of rooster wire — very like Black followers was at Main League Baseball video games, and in a bigger sense like these gamers have been denied the chance to play in MLB.
The one option to attain the sector is by continuing by the displays and studying the story of the Negro Leagues.
“I believe this is among the most unbelievable tales of hope, braveness, willpower, ardour within the annals of American historical past,” Kendrick mentioned. “These tremendously proficient and brave athletes cast a wonderful historical past within the midst of an inglorious time in American historical past, and their story involves life right here.”
Initially established in 1920 by Corridor of Fame participant, supervisor and government Rube Foster, the Negro Leagues offered a house for Black gamers to showcase their abilities through the pre-integration period. Foster’s Negro Nationwide League was the primary of seven leagues now acknowledged as main league caliber by MLB, and whereas the leagues confronted frequent challenges and adversity, they existed for practically 40 years, together with for greater than a decade after Jackie Robinson famously broke MLB’s coloration barrier in 1947.
All through their existence, the Negro Leagues held their very own World Collection and their very own All-Star recreation referred to as the East-West Sport. The leagues innovated quite a few developments, together with the Kansas Metropolis Monarchs turning into the primary to play night time video games utilizing synthetic lighting in 1930, 5 years earlier than the Cincinnati Reds did so at Crosley Discipline in 1935.
The leagues additionally welcomed gamers from Latin America and even featured three girls. The primary of them, Toni Stone, was signed to switch Hank Aaron after he left the Indianapolis Clowns to hitch the Boston Braves.
Outdoors official league video games, Negro League golf equipment incessantly held barnstorming exhibitions. The Philadelphia Royal Giants held a tour of Japan seven years earlier than Babe Ruth famously visited the nation, and the aforementioned Clowns grew to become baseball’s equal of the Harlem Globetrotters.
The Negro Leagues entered a interval of decline after Robinson debuted for the Dodgers, as a result of as soon as the colour barrier was damaged Black gamers began getting extra alternatives. Larry Doby grew to become the second Black participant to hitch an MLB roster, signing with the Cleveland Indians weeks after Robinson’s first recreation. Different golf equipment adopted swimsuit till the Pink Sox grew to become the final MLB group to combine, calling up Elijah “Pumpsie” Inexperienced in 1959.
However whereas Robinson’s arrival in Brooklyn precipitated the top of the Negro Leagues, his wider impression was a lot better. Kendrick asserts that Robinson’s breaking the colour barrier wasn’t simply part of the Civil Rights Motion, however the starting of it.
Robinson’s debut predated main Civil Rights moments like President Harry Truman’s integrating the armed forces in 1948, Rosa Parks’ refusal to maneuver to the again of the bus in 1955 and the March on Washington in 1963. His presence on the game’s greatest stage sparked nationwide dialog and debate, which over time led to better societal change.
Past his function in shaping American historical past, Robinson owns the excellence of being one in every of 44 individuals related to the Negro Leagues to earn induction into the Baseball Corridor of Fame. One other is Buck O’Neill, whose profession in baseball as a participant, coach, supervisor and government spanned eight a long time and who performed an integral function within the NLBM’s founding in 1990.
O’Neill was inducted posthumously into Cooperstown in 2022 as a part of the identical class as David Ortiz, however he practically earned the decision whereas nonetheless residing as a part of a particular poll in 2006. Although 17 Negro League gamers have been elected, O’Neill fell one vote brief, and Kendrick mentioned having to interrupt the information to his 94-year-old buddy was one of many hardest issues he’s ever needed to do.
However, Kendrick mentioned, somewhat than be offended or bitter, O’Neill as a substitute expressed gratitude for the consideration and saved the concentrate on the 17 gamers that have been elected, even providing to talk on their behalf at their induction ceremony in Cooperstown. He died two months after giving his speech.
Initially opened in a small single-room workplace by O’Neill and different former Negro Leaguers, the museum has grown through the years and now occupies a ten,000-foot area adjoining to the American Jazz Museum. Kendrick mentioned they hope to increase once more and are elevating cash to construct a brand new facility that may triple the museum’s dimension and permit them to spend money on new state-of-the-art applied sciences to higher inform the Negro Leagues’ story.
As Kendrick and I reached the Discipline of Legends and the top of our tour, he referred to as out the lineup of all-time Negro League greats preserved in bronze. Legends like Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson and Cool Papa Bell, who both by no means received the possibility to show themselves on the MLB stage, or didn’t till effectively after their prime.
There’s a lot we will be taught from these gamers and their tales, and I’d definitely suggest any baseball fan pay the museum a go to ought to they ever discover themselves in Kansas Metropolis. However as Kendrick put it earlier than we parted methods, the story of the Negro Leagues is far greater than baseball.
“For many who are baseball followers you’re going to satisfy some new baseball heroes, however what I like about this museum that you just don’t need to be a baseball fan,” Kendrick mentioned. “As a result of in the event you’re a fan of American historical past you’re going to like this museum, and in the event you’re a fan of the underdog overcoming adversity to go on to greatness, you’re going to like this museum.”
