Shades of Glory: The Negro Leagues and the Story of African-American Baseball

This is the product of lengthy research on the history of African Americans in baseball. It is commissioned by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and funded by a grant from Major League Baseball. With player profiles, game accounts, rich cultural history, a unique statistical component, and wonderful archival photographs, the book makes clear the enormous impact African Americans have had on the national pastime. A comprehensive, compellingly written, objective, and properly documented historical narrative on the history of African American baseball, Shades of Glory comprises reliable and documented statistical data on the various leagues (a significant selling point), biographical essays on members of the African American community who participated in or contributed to this baseball experience, artifacts, archival photographs, and thrilling game accounts. Long before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier of baseball in 1947, African Americans were stars in their own Negro Leagues. Storied names like Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, Oscar Charleston, and Papa Cool Bell have been inducted into the Hall of Fall for prodigious feats equal to their greatest white counterparts. Legendary teams such as the Kansas City Monarchs, Homestead Grays, and Hilldale Daisies played a brand of baseball matched only by the top teams in the major leagues, a fact regularly proven in exhibition games. Here in Shades of Glory emerges the history of these heroes, who forged their own paths to glory outside of mainstream baseball.