One of the reasons I wanted to check Kansas City off the list of stadiums I've visited (other than because I'm trying to get to all 30) is because the Negro Leagues Museum is also in Kansas City. I finally got to make that trip, and it was well worth it! The Negro Leagues Museum has long been considered a must-see for baseball fans, and it's easy to see why. It's definitely something that any baseball fan will appreciate. And they'll almost certainly learn something, too. (Including why the museum is in this specific location. They didn't randomly choose Kansas City. It's two blocks from the exact spot where the Negro National League was formed in 1920.)
My favorite part of the museum is a very cleverly set up "baseball game" with 12 bronze statues of Negro League legends (all of whom are in the Hall of Fame). There are nine fielders playing each position, as well as a batter and an umpire. You can only access the "field" at the end of your visit, though. The 12th statue, meanwhile, is one of the first things you see. It's Buck O'Neil, the manager, looking through the window.
Every Negro Leagues player who's been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame has a locker with a jersey from his Negro Leagues team. There are plenty of blank lockers in the exhibit, too, so they've got room for those who are elected in the future. There's also a display of baseballs signed by Negro Leagues players. And, something that I think is very cool, Gold Gloves. In 2012, Rawlings awarded nine career Gold Gloves to Negro Leagues players. They're all on display.
Jackie Robinson obviously gets his due. And rightfully so. His MLB debut wasn't just an important moment in baseball history. It was one of the biggest moments in American history. But what about the first Black player on each of the other 15 original teams? As a part of the Jackie Robinson exhibit, the Negro Leagues Museum tells their stories.
Larry Doby, of course, was the first Black player in the American League, making his debut with Cleveland only a few weeks after Robinson in 1947. His Negro Leagues team was the Newark Eagles, whose owner, Effa Manley (the first and, so far, only woman to be elected to the Hall of Fame), negotiated Doby's contract with Bill Veeck. Manley was torn, though. She understood the importance of Black players in the Major Leagues, but she also knew that it would likely mean the end of the Negro Leagues, which were among the most successful Black businesses in the first half of the 20th Century.
Effa Manley isn't the only woman who played a prominent role in Negro Leagues history. Not even close. In fact, three women played in the Negro Leagues. Connie Morgan, Mamie Johnson and Toni Stone. That's something I never would've known had I not visited the museum! Each of them has a bronze bust recognizing her unique place in baseball history.
Another innovation that came about because of the Negro Leagues was night baseball. Kansas City Monarchs owner J.L. Wilkinson realized that people couldn't attend games during the afternoon while they were at work, so he purchased a lighting system that the Monarchs would travel with so that they could play night games. He'd also rent out the lights to other teams. This was in 1930, five years before the first night game in the Major Leagues.
As soon as you enter the lobby, there's a map and timeline depicting the history of the Negro Leagues, marking the locations of the teams, as well as who was in each of the various leagues in a given year. Then, James Earl Jones narrates a video before you walk into the museum itself, which goes through the early history of Black baseball prior to the Negro Leagues, including the well-known stories of Moses Fleetwood Walker and Branch Rickey's Ohio Wesleyan team, leading up to the creation of the Negro National League in 1920.
In 1933, the first East-West All-Star Game was organized by Pittsburgh Crawfords owner Gus Greenlee (another one of the most influential and significant Negro Leagues owners). The game was played in Chicago at Comiskey Park, two months after the inaugural MLB All*Star Game in the same ballpark. It quickly became the signature event of the Negro Leagues season and would be played every year until 1962, almost always in Chicago, usually at the end of the season. The Negro World Series was held sporadically (there were only 11 in history), so the East-West Game was the only annual spotlight event for Negro Leagues players.
They also acknowledge the unfortunate sign of those times and some of the conditions that those players had to endure during segregation, especially in the South. It's actually pretty crazy how they would go on barnstorming tours of Japan and Latin America and receive better treatment than they got at home. There are also some cool stories that came out of that, though. The Monarchs once refused to play if the team wasn't allowed to eat in the restaurant (which reminds me so much of that scene in Green Book). The restaurant owner relented. The Crawfords bought their own bus, both to make travel easier and to guarantee they had a place to stay. The craziest part of these stories? How many of the same people who refused them service also bought tickets for the game.
Negro League stars were just as big in Black communities as Major League stars were in White communities. And there are plenty of photos of African American celebrities from the day such as Lena Horne and Joe Louis throwing out the first pitch at Negro Leagues games. Jesse Owens was a regular (exposing the hypocrisy of cheering for Black athletes at the Olympics while segregating them at home). He'd usually participate in some sort of promotional race, as well.
And, of course, there's an entire exhibit dedicated to Satchel Paige. He's arguably the most famous Negro Leagues player and, without a doubt, the greatest pitcher in Negro Leagues history. He was also quite a showman! Satchel Paige was the biggest draw in the Negro Leagues and was the headliner of the barnstorming tours against Major League players. (Major Leaguers were prevented from wearing their team uniforms in these barnstorming games, so they formed their own "All-Star" teams to go against Paige's team of Negro Leaguers.) It's widely assumed that if Satchel Paige were younger, he, not Jackie Robinson, would've been the one to break the color barrier.
No man has done more to preserve the history of the Negro Leagues than Buck O'Neil. So, it's only fitting that there's also an area dedicated to O'Neil. Arguably the star of the Ken Burns Baseball documentary, O'Neil was instrumental in getting the museum off the ground and served on its Board of Directors until his death. His family donated memorabilia to the museum in 2012, 10 years before he was, at long last, inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Throw in all of the jerseys and hats representing the various Negro Leagues teams, and you have such an authentic, loving tribute to an important era in baseball history with a story that needs to be told. The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum does that and then some! If you're ever in Kansas City (and even if you aren't), it's well worth the trip.
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