AN EXTRAORDINARY HISTORY OF THE NEGRO LEAGUES AND THE ECONOMIC DISRUPTIONS
OF DESEGREGATING A SPORT
Roberta J. Newman and Joel Nathan Rosen have written an
authoritative social history of the Negro Leagues. This book
examines how the relationship between black baseball and
black businesses functioned, particularly in urban areas with
significant African American populations-Chicago, Detroit,
Indianapolis, Kansas City, Newark, New York, Philadelphia,
and more. Inextricably bound together by circumstance, these
sports and business alliances faced destruction and upheaval.
Once Jackie Robinson and a select handful of black baseball's elite gained acceptance in
Major League Baseball and financial stability in the mainstream economy, shock waves traveled
throughout the black business world. Though the economic impact on Negro League
baseball is perhaps obvious due to its demise, the impact on other black-owned businesses
and on segregated neighborhoods is often undervalued if not outright ignored in current
accounts. There have been many books written on great individual players who played in
the Negro Leagues and/or integrated the Major Leagues. But Newman and Rosen move
beyond hagiography to analyze what happens when a community has its economic footing
undermined while simultaneously being called upon to celebrate a larger social progress.
In this regard, Black Baseball, Black Business moves beyond the diamond to explore baseball's
desegregation narrative in a critical and wide-ranging fashion.
ROBERTA J. NEWMAN, Brooklyn, New York, is master professor in the Department of
Liberal Studies at New York University. Her work has appeared in the journals Cooperstown
Symposium: 2009-2010 and NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture. JOEL NATHAN
ROSEN, Allentown, Pennsylvania, is associate professor of sociology at Moravian College
in Bethlehem. He is coeditor of A Locker Room of Her Own: Celebrity, Sexuality, and Female
Athletes; Fame to Infamy: Race, Sport, and the Fall from Grace; and Reconstructing Fame: Sport,
Race, and Evolving Reputations, all published by University Press of Mississippi.