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How the Major Leagues Colonized the Black and Latin Game
Beacon Press
March 2011
On Sale: March 1, 2011
220 pages
ISBN: 0807048054
EAN: 9780807048054
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
From an award-winning writer, the first linked history of African Americans and Latinos in Major League Baseball
The colliding histories of black and Latin ballplayers in the major leagues have traditionally been told as a story of their shameful segregation and redemptive integration. Jackie Robinson jumped baseballβs color line to much fanfare, but integration was painful as well as triumphal. It gutted the once-vibrant Negro Leagues and often subjected Latin players to Jim Crow racism. Today, Major League Baseball tightens its grasp around the Caribbeanβs burgeoning baseball academies, while at home it embraces, and exploits, the legacy of the Negro Leagues.
After peaking at 27 percent of all major leaguers in 1975, African Americans now make up less than one-tenthβa decline unimaginable in other menβs pro sports. The number of Latin Americans, by contrast, has exploded to over a quarter of all major leaguers and roughly half of those playing in the minors. Award-winning historian Rob Ruck not only explains the catalyst for this sea change; he also breaks down the consequences that cut across society. Integration cost black and Caribbean societies control over their own sporting lives, changing the meaning of the sport, but not always for the better. While it channeled black and Latino athletes into major league baseball, integration did little for the communities they left behind.
By looking at this history from the vantage point of black America and the Caribbean, a more complex story comes into focus, one largely missing from traditional narratives of baseballβs history. Raceball unveils a fresh and stunning truth: baseball has never been stronger as a business, never weaker as a game.
 Media BuzzAll Things Considered - March 13, 2011
Marketplace - PRI - March 1, 2011
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