A Noble Game: A History of the Negro Baseball Leagues

The Negro Baseball Leagues were one of the first and most successful black businesses in the United States during the first half of the twentieth-century. Combing great athletic skill, shrewd marketing, and a professional spirit that was the equal to its white major-league counterpart, black baseball was so successful in its efforts to show a competitive game to a larger section of America, that ultimately its own success led to its spectacular downfall. When Jackie Robinson broke Major League Baseball’s “color wall” in 1947, the game of baseball was changed forever, and for the Negro Baseball Leagues, it was the beginning of the end. A Noble Game looks at the rise and fall of the Negro Baseball Leagues, what they meant to America in an age of segregation, and how their success was a powerful influence during the early days of the American Civil Rights movement. Including interviews with former Negro League stars and exhaustive research, A Noble Game is a rich study of what baseball meant to Americans - both black and white - in the decades before Jackie Robinson changed history. A Noble Game is the little-known story of how the first popular civil rights battle - and victory - occurred not in the courts or in the legislature, but on the baseball diamond.