Sol White's History of Colored Baseball with Other Documents on the Early Black Game, 1886-1936

By Sol White

Book Overview

America and baseball are rediscovering the game played by African Americans before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947. We now know a great deal about the Negro Leagues of 1920 on, and their great stars--Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, and their contemporaries.

But what of the pre-1920 black game? From the onset in the 1880s of the "gentleman's agreement" that barred blacks from playing in white leagues, that game is nearly invisible. Financially shaky, with sporadic media coverage even in black newspapers and completely overlooked by the mainstream, Negro teams of this era played on for love of the game and in hopes that their skills would receive their due.

In 1907, Sol White, a remarkable African-American ballplayer, successful manager, and baseball loyalist, wrote a small volume on the history of the black game. Part fund-raising effort, advertising brochure, team hype, celebration of black baseball, and throughout an implicit and explicit challenge to racism, Sol White's History of Colored Base Ball is the source of much of what we know of the events in the organized black game of that time.

The original was poorly printed, and copies are exceedingly rare (known and rumored copies number only four). This edition republishes the full 1907 edition (with the even rarer supplement), completely reset for legibility, and reproduces all the original's illustrations, including the advertisements that speak volumes on the social world of the day. Fifteen additional documents from 1886 to 1936 augment the picture of the black game and our record of Sol White himself.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0803297831
• ISBN13: 9780803297838
• Release Date: June 1996
• Publisher: Bison Books
• Length: 190 Pages
• Weight: 0.84 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

"To the players and managers of the past and present

and the patrons of colored baseball, to them I dedicate this book." And what a book it is. Originally published in 1907, Sol White is not just writing from a historian's perspective of the pre-NLB era, he was a major contributor as a player, manager and team owner on some of the best clubs from that era. With an emphasis on box scores and photographs, the great teams, players and memorable games are chronicled in this 1996 reprint of the original book - with only minor editorial corrections - a supplement & additional articles by White and other writers. The original small run of copies was poorly printed and an end note explains the reproduction process for clarity. A lenghty introduction by Jerry Malloy not only encapsulates the key areas in White's book, but provides a better understanding of a time when Jim Crow stepped into the batter's box of the professional game. White was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006. What he gave to future generations of fans & historians through the book is a grand slam.

Thank you, Cooperstown!

When author Sol White was among the 17 people who were selected this week by the Baseball Hall of Fame, I got curious about this book of his. Until now, few people have known of it. Presumably and hopefully, the Hall of Fame selection will change this. The book, originally published in 1907, was apparently the first major attempt at a history of black baseball, written by a man who was heavily immersed in it for many years straddling the turn of the last century. As a player, he appears to have been at least excellent and possibly great -- an infielder who played all four positions and hit in the .300's with fair power. White's commentary about himself as a player is very routine and modest; most of what we gather of his playing is from the lengthy introduction written by Jerry Malloy for the 1995 re-printing. The original book is preserved and included in this edition. Much of that original edition was "non-text" -- photos, box-scores, and delightful print-ads. The text portion is full of fascinating detail belying its brevity -- and VERY well written. Much of it is a series of dry year-by-year accounts of what happened in black baseball, really exactly like what we see in the "mainstream" annuals of the period like the Spalding guides. But there are also some sections that are quite activist, getting into the segregation issue and the plight of the black player. Additionally there are interesting sections on hitting, pitching, and managing, some of the them written by other authors. This edition also includes copies of newspaper and magazine articles on black baseball from later as well as earlier years, including an article written by White in 1930 for the Amsterdam News. There are many wonderful old photographs of teams and individual players, of a type rarely seen elsewhere. From the photos we see that the author seems to have had a strong resemblance to the recent player Chris Chambliss, which I mention just to help give a visual image of him. Perhaps the Hall of Fame's selection committee gave Sol White some extra credit for his writing. If so, it was well deserved. Thank you, Cooperstown, for helping to bring this book back into view.