Black Baseball, 1858-1900

Black Base Ball: Players, Teams, Managers, Owners and Umpires, 1858-1900 is a comprehensive look at black participation in the national pastime. It provides biographical lists: team rosters and team biographies, player biographies, umpires and games officiated, and addresses of team managers and team secretaries. It documents well-known organizations like Washington's Mutuals, Philadelphia Pythians, Chicago Uniques, St. Louis Black Stockings, Cuban Giants and Chicago Unions, and lesser known aggregations like Wilmington Mutuals, Newton Black Stockings, San Francisco Enterprise, Dallas Black Stockings, Galveston Flyaways, Louisville Brotherhoods, and Helena Pastimes. Player biographies make connections between teams across the country and trace movements across the country. Essays frame the biographies, arguing that social and cultural events shaped black baseball. Waiters and barbers formed the earliest organized clubs and developed local, regional and national circuits. Players belonged to white and colored clubs. Umpires officiated colored, white, and interracial matches. High schools nurtured young players and transformed them into powerhouses, like Cincinnati's Vigilant Base Ball Club. A special essay devotes attention to visual representations of black baseball, and the artists who created them; including colored artists who were also baseballists.