Negro Baseball Leagues have contributed to the history of America by integrating African Americans and Whites and having a baseball league just for African Americans. The first ever Negro League was the Negro National League created by Rube Foster. The league was composed of six teams in the beginning then eight teams towards the end, most of the teams that were in the Negro National League were from cities that have a higher population of African Americans. The league was a huge success from the very beginning but it slowly started to die out due to financial problems. A couple of years later the Negro National League had a opponent called the Eastern Colored League it was created by a white man named Nat Strong. The league consisted of six …show more content…
They did not play in harmony though, many African American players faced abuse from white teams as well as their fans. One of the things that the white baseball players would do is throw balls at African Americans heads. Another thing that white baseball players did to the African Americans was spiking them in the baseball path or stepping on their ankle when African Americans were playing on the field. Some African Americans started wearing shin guards at the game so they would not get hurt as bad. Most African Americans did not let the name calling or the abuse get to them, all they wanted to do was play baseball. The reason why white baseball players treated the African Americans so badly is because they feared that people would stop enjoying baseball, causing the sales for the games to go down which would lead to them having their salaries lowered. The International League team owners started to stop signing African Americans on their teams due to the white players thoughts on African Americans being there. That is when the color line for baseball was drawn. The International League let the African Americans who were still on white major teams stay on the white team that they were …show more content…
Mr. Foster is called the father of African American Baseball. Rube was a star pitcher before he decided to start the Negro National League. The Negro National League was formed in the 1920’s and it consisted of eight African American teams. Rube’s goal for the League was for it to eventually lead to integration (Having Whites and African Americans play together again in Baseball). The biggest events that every African American baseball player looked forward to was the Negro League World Series and All-Star “East-West” Game. The first ever Negro League World Series was in 1924 against the Kansas City Monarchs and the Hilldale Club. African Americans did not play in good conditions, many African American teams had to pay high rent at the stadiums they played at, and most nights they had to sleep on the bus. Most teams had to drive over night to get to their next game. Many teams played roughly 220 games a season and the players only made around $200 to $1,000 a month, depending on how good of a player they were and what position they played. The Negro National League did not last forever, the Negro National League eventually ended in 1931 due to bankruptcy. The NNL would get money from the sales of the tickets for the games but that's the only way they made money. The NNL then had to split the money to the teams in the league so they could pay their