Baseball and the Color Line

School Library Journal

Gr 7 Up-This title takes a more scholarly approach than other books published on the subject in the past few years. Over half the text is devoted to looking at the game in the late 19th century when a number of blacks made appearances in the various professional leagues, before the color line was totally enforced. Unlike Robert Gardner and Dennis Shortelle's The Forgotten Players (Walker, 1993), the McKissacks' Black Diamond (Scholastic, 1994), Michael Cooper's Playing America's Game (Dutton, 1993), and Jacob Margolies's The Negro Leagues (Watts, 1993), Gilbert gives scant attention to the Negro Leagues, concentrating on the efforts of those who tried to integrate the all-white professional leagues. Major players and other figures in this effort, and those who fought integration, are featured throughout the text. The author also ties prejudice in baseball to that found in American society at the time. Black-and-white archival photos, source notes, and appendixes are included. While less anecdotal and somewhat drier than the aforementioned titles on the Negro Leagues, Baseball and the Color Line provides a different focus and thus is deserving of consideration.-Tom S. Hurlburt, La Crosse Public Library, WI