A Negro League Scrapbook

Featuring lively verse, fascinating facts, and archival photographs, here is a celebration of the Negro Leagues and the great players who went unrecognized in their time. Imagine that you are an outstanding baseball player but banned from the major leagues. Imagine that you are breaking records but the world ignores your achievements. Imagine having a dream but no chance to make that dream come true. This is what life was like for African American baseball players before Jackie Robinson broke Major League Baseball's color barrier. Meet Josh Gibson, called "the black Babe Ruth," who hit seventy-five home runs in 1931; James "Cool Papa" Bell, the fastest man in baseball; legendary Satchel Paige, who once struck out twenty-four batters in a single game; and, of course, Jackie Robinson, the first black player in Major League Baseball, and one of the greatest players of all time. Written by acclaimed author Carole Boston Weatherford with a foreword by Buck O'Neil, a Negro leagues legend whose baseball contributions spanned eight decades, this book is a home run for baseball and history lovers, and makes a great gift for both boys and girls.

The Story of the Negro Leagues covers the history of the Negro Leagues, their great pitchers and hitters, and the era of integration with Major League Baseball. Readers will learn the history of the Negro leagues beginning with baseball's beginnings with Abner Doubleday, to the first Negro League game between the Henson Base Ball Club and the Weeksville Unknowns. Follow the discrimination that led to the Great Migration that brought Southern blacks north, and visionaries such as Rube Foster and William Greenlee and their creation of the Negro Leagues including the Negro National League, Eastern Colored League, and the Negro American League. Enjoy vivid descriptions of legendary players including the first black player in organized baseball, John Fowler, and Moses Walker, the first black major leaguer. Players such as John O'Neil, Satchel Paige, Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, Ernie Banks, Roy Campanella, Larry Doby, Junior Gilliam, Minnie Minoso, James Bell, Josh Gibson, George Suttles Martin Dihigo, Connie Johnson, Charlie Grant are also included. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. SportsZone is an imprint of Abdo Publishing, a division of ABDO.

Henry Kimbro was one of Negro League's best on the baseball field, and one of the so-called worst off the field. During his career, he was described as the bad boy of the Negro League, evil, a loner, and was even dubbed the Black Ty Cobb of the League. These perceptions followed him to his death. Afterwards, his daughter was given a tattered sixty-year-old scrapbook that he kept during his life and directed by her mother to do something with it. She did, she wrote Daddy's Scrapbook, Henry Kimbro of the Negro Baseball League, A Daughter's Perspective. This book is a journey through Henry Kimbro's life as a baseball player, a successful African-American businessman, and a father who sent four of his five children through college. Stories are shared about how cruel discrimination during his youth influenced the temperament he was known for as an adult, and how playing in the Cuban League changed his life when he met his Cuban-born wife of 48 years. It also details his post-League years as a father, grandfather, and an inductee into the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame. This book travels full circle to give insight to who Henry Kimbro was as seen by his daughter who loved and respected him.

Great Hitters of the Negro Leagues covers the best batters in black baseball. Step up to the plate for vivid accounts of legendary players such as John Henry Lloyd, Dick Lundy, Willie Wells, Oscar Charleston, Oliver Marcelle, James Bell, Martin Dihigo, Ted Radcliffe, Walter Leonard, Norman Stearnes, Buck O'Neil, Josh Gibson, Raleigh Mackey, and Mule Suttles, as well as the great teams they hit for such as the Homestead Grays, Pittsburg Crawfords, and Kansas City Monarchs. Readers will learn about the players' backgrounds, accomplishments, and rise to fame, and the integration of many of these super sluggers into Major League Baseball. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. SportsZone is an imprint of Abdo Publishing, a division of ABDO.

Great Pitchers of the Negro Leagues covers the best arms in black baseball. Take the mound for vivid accounts of legendary players such as Satchel Paige, Rube Foster, Topsy Hartsel, Smokey Joe Williams, Chet Brewer, Bullet Joe Rogan, Jose Mendez, Dick Redding, Leon Day, and Hilton Smith, as well as the great teams they threw for such as the Union Giants, American Giants, Lincoln Giants, Dayton Marcos, Homestead Grays, Pittsburg Crawfords, and Kansas City Monarchs. Readers will learn about the players' backgrounds, accomplishments, and rise to fame, and the integration of many of these awesome aces into Major League Baseball. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. SportsZone is an imprint of Abdo Publishing, a division of ABDO.

The Negro Leagues' Integration Era covers the history of the Negro Leagues, its players' segregation from Major League Baseball, and their eventual integration. Readers will meet owners, players, and managers who were supporters of integration such as Branch Rickey, Bill Veeck, Clay Hopper, and PeeWee Reese, as well as those who held the Color Line such as Kenesaw Landis and Cap Anson. Black players to join the major leagues such as Jackie Robinson, Larry Doby, Don Newcombe, Sachel Paige, Dan Bankhead, Willard Brown, Hank Thompson, Roy Campanella, Monte Irvin, Willie Mays, Ray Dandridge, Minnie Minoso, Elston Howard, Ernie Banks, Hank Aaron and Pumpsie Green are introduced. Vivid descriptions of the legendary players and their stories explore the social impact of black baseball in segregated America. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. SportsZone is an imprint of Abdo Publishing, a division of ABDO.

Emily loves to play on her Little League baseball team. She visits the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York and learns about the Negro Leagues that were formed when black players were banned from major league teams. Emily's report includes information about the early players, the greatest superstars, and the story of Jackie Robinson, who broke the "color line" in 1947. This title captures all the fun and excitement of baseball, while also exploring the serious issue of segregation in America.

Although many Americans think of Jackie Robinson when considering the story of segregation in baseball, a long history of tragedies and triumphs precede Robinson's momentous debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers. From the pioneering Cuban Giants (1885-1915) to the Negro Leagues (1920-1960), black baseball was a long-standing staple of African American communities. While many of its artifacts and statistics are lost, black baseball figured vibrantly in films, novels, plays, and poems. In Invisible Ball of Dreams: Literary Representations of Baseball behind the Color Line, author Emily Ruth Rutter examines wide-ranging representations of this history by William Brashler, Jerome Charyn, August Wilson, Gloria Naylor, Harmony Holiday, Kevin King, Kadir Nelson, and Denzel Washington, among others. Reading representations across the literary color line, Rutter opens a propitious space for exploring black cultural pride and residual frustrations with racial hypocrisies on the one hand and the benefits and limitations of white empathy on the other. Exploring these topics is necessary to the project of enriching the archives of segregated baseball in particular and African American cultural history more generally.