In 1970, Robert W. Peterson, the author of Only the Ball Was White, one
of the first and most influential books on the Negro leagues, wrote:
‘‘Negro baseball was at once heroic and tawdry, a gladsome thing and a
blot on America’s conscience.’’ When this appraisal was first made, every
team in the Major Leagues had been ‘‘integrated’’ for at least ten years,
and, as Peterson notes, ‘‘Negro baseball had virtually been forgotten.’’
This was perhaps willful on the part of many white people. At the time,
Leroy ‘‘Satchel’’ Paige (1906–82) and Josh Gibson (1911–47) had neither
been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame nor had they been
transformed into national icons, and there was a general ignorance, even
among most sports fans and scholars, about the Negro leagues.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.