Mattingly
07-27-2006, 04:20 PM
http://graphics10.nytimes.com/images/2006/07/27/sports/27hall450.jpg
Frank Grant played for the Cuban Giants in the 1890’s.
Some say he was the best black player of the 19th century.
http://graphics10.nytimes.com/images/2006/07/27/sports/27hall650.2.jpg
National Baseball Hall of Fame
Frank Grant, second from right in front, with the Buffalo Bisons in 1887. When he was signed, a local newspaper described
him as a “Spaniard.”
Breaking a Barrier 60 Years Before Robinson (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/27/sports/27hall.html)
In 1886, the Buffalo Bisons, a top minor league baseball team, signed a versatile infielder from Massachusetts named Frank Grant. The next day, a local newspaper announced Grant’s arrival by describing him as “a Spaniard.”
Grant was in fact one of five African-Americans playing in the otherwise all-white minor leagues that year, on teams from Kansas to Connecticut. Their presence was accepted if not widely acknowledged in the 1880’s, passed off with a wink and a nod, a dodge that labeled players like Grant as Spaniards, Portuguese or Arabs.
The ruse did not hide what historians now concede, that some 60 years before Jackie Robinson famously broke organized baseball’s color barrier, integrated teams of white and black athletes played hundreds of professional games. African-Americans even played in the major leagues.
To most Americans, the history of black baseball means the Negro leagues, an enterprising, culturally rich response to the Jim Crow-era segregation in professional baseball. But blacks played professional baseball for decades after the Civil War, long before the Negro National League began in 1920.
On Sunday in Cooperstown, N.Y., the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum will induct by special election 17 stars and team owners who predate modern professional baseball’s integration in the mid-1940’s.
Frank Grant played for the Cuban Giants in the 1890’s.
Some say he was the best black player of the 19th century.
http://graphics10.nytimes.com/images/2006/07/27/sports/27hall650.2.jpg
National Baseball Hall of Fame
Frank Grant, second from right in front, with the Buffalo Bisons in 1887. When he was signed, a local newspaper described
him as a “Spaniard.”
Breaking a Barrier 60 Years Before Robinson (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/27/sports/27hall.html)
In 1886, the Buffalo Bisons, a top minor league baseball team, signed a versatile infielder from Massachusetts named Frank Grant. The next day, a local newspaper announced Grant’s arrival by describing him as “a Spaniard.”
Grant was in fact one of five African-Americans playing in the otherwise all-white minor leagues that year, on teams from Kansas to Connecticut. Their presence was accepted if not widely acknowledged in the 1880’s, passed off with a wink and a nod, a dodge that labeled players like Grant as Spaniards, Portuguese or Arabs.
The ruse did not hide what historians now concede, that some 60 years before Jackie Robinson famously broke organized baseball’s color barrier, integrated teams of white and black athletes played hundreds of professional games. African-Americans even played in the major leagues.
To most Americans, the history of black baseball means the Negro leagues, an enterprising, culturally rich response to the Jim Crow-era segregation in professional baseball. But blacks played professional baseball for decades after the Civil War, long before the Negro National League began in 1920.
On Sunday in Cooperstown, N.Y., the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum will induct by special election 17 stars and team owners who predate modern professional baseball’s integration in the mid-1940’s.