Cold Open

It’s July 27th, 1919, at Lake Michigan in the South Side of Chicago, Illinois.

A teenage boy cools off in the water with four friends. They spent most of the previous day building a raft, now they’re happily floating on it out on the lake, taking turns jumping in the water.

The teenager turns away as one of his friends, Eugene, cannonballs into the lake to create the biggest splash yet.

A moment later though, the teenager is soaked by another spray of water. Puzzled, he looks around and frowns when he sees a man on a nearby breakwater, holding a rock in his hand and shouting angrily.

Before the teenager can warn his friends, the man throws the rock at the raft and stoops to pick up another. The teenager realizes with a start that he and his friends have drifted far from where they launched and crossed an informal line marking where the water is divided. Everyone in Chicago knows that this side of the line is for whites only—but the teenager and his friends are Black.

The boys on the raft begin paddling as hard as they can to get back to the Black-only part of the lake as the white man on the breakwater continues to hurl rocks at them.

After a few moments, they’re far enough away that the man can’t hit them anymore. But when the teenager looks back, he sees his friend Eugene lying face down in the water, a cloud of red blood swirling around his head. The man on the breakwater is still throwing rocks at Eugene’s motionless body—only now, his expression of anger has been replaced by one of triumph.

By the time a lifeguard reaches Eugene Williams, it’s too late to save him. The 17-year-old Black teenager has drowned. Soon, police arrive and the rock thrower is identified by eyewitnesses—but officers leave the scene without arresting him. In a country where racial tension has been smoldering for decades, Eugene’s death marks just another occasion when the killing of a Black American goes unpunished—and the Black population of Chicago has had enough.

Within hours, a riot will begin in Chicago, which will end a week later with thirty-eight people dead. But Eugene’s death will also inspire a more peaceful response, and one South Sider will turn to sports to challenge racial discrimination by forming America’s first successful Black-only baseball league on February 13th, 1920.

Introduction

From Noiser and Airship, I’m Lindsay Graham and this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast—every day—we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is February 13th, 1920: Baseball’s Negro National League is Formed.

Act One

It’s October 1909, at South Side Park baseball stadium in Chicago, ten years before the death of Eugene Williams.

30-year-old Black baseball pitcher Andrew “Rube” Foster curses as the batter connects with his pitch and jets toward first base.

Rube’s team, the Leland Giants, have a 5-2 lead in the final inning of the game. It’s a familiar position. As one of the country’s top baseball teams, the Giants are used to winning—but there’s no team Rube wants to beat more than today’s opponents. The Chicago Cubs won the last two World Series—but Rube and his Giants teammates are unable to compete for that title because of the color of their skin.

For more than twenty years, Major League Baseball has enforced the color line—an informal ban on Black players competing in the country’s top professional league. The only way Black Americans can play competitive baseball is in much smaller Black-only amateur leagues, or one of a handful of integrated minor leagues. But Black teams in these leagues face difficulties. White teams have better playing facilities, more sponsorship, and bigger crowds. And without these advantages, Black baseball teams struggle to pay the bills. Team owners bicker with each other, fighting for the opportunity to play occasional exhibition matches against white teams.

Today’s game between the Leland Giants and the Chicago Cubs is one of those rare games, but it’s also an opportunity for Rube to prove that Black players are just as good as the country’s top white baseball players—and that athletes like him deserve a place in the major leagues.

As the Giants throw the ball back from the outfield, two Cubs players who were on base reach home. A third player slides into score just as he’s tagged with the ball, and the umpire calls him safe. But Rube is certain that the player should be out. He confronts the officials, arguing his case—but while Rube and the umpires are distracted, another Cubs player sneaks home. Rube is apoplectic with rage as the umpire declares that the score is now 6-5 to the Cubs.

The Cubs go on to win the game, and Rube takes the loss hard. He blames the official for favoring the white team and fixing the game so it's impossible for the Giants to win. But over the days that follow, Rube decides that rather than fume, he’s going to do something about it. He concludes that his team will never succeed as long as it’s reliant on money from exhibition games against white teams—Black baseball needs to be better run and self-sufficient.

Over the next few months, Rube splits with the owner of the Leland Giants and founds a new team that he calls the Chicago American Giants. And when the Chicago Cubs move out of South Side Park and into a newly built stadium, Rube makes a deal with the South Side Park owner to base the American Giants there instead. It gives Rube superior facilities to other Black teams, which in turn attracts the best players and more paying spectators.

Soon, Rube’s American Giants are recognized as the best Black team in baseball. And for four years, they dominate the opposition, winning three-quarters of their games in front of capacity crowds. Such is their success that the American Giants catch the eye of a Black businessman who’s keen to replicate Rube’s model. Charles Taylor buys the Indianapolis ABCs and moves the team to better facilities while paying better wages to attract better players. It’s not long before the ABCs become the American Giants’ primary competition. And over the next few seasons, the American Giants and the ABCs face off in annual games that Black newspapers hype up as championship title matches. But the games often descend into violence.

In 1915, a brawl leads to one game being abandoned. The following year, Rube clashes with officials over a disputed ruling and refuses to finish the game. This constant bickering leaves the Black baseball community fractured. So to avoid future disputes between the two best Black teams, some newspapers call on Rube and Charles to agree to an official all-Black championship series, with rules and regulations agreed-to in advance.

Despite their differences, Rube and Charles will both agree. And the solution they devise won't just improve the championship games but all of them, as the two men will come together in a pact that will lift up Black baseball as a whole—by creating a new league.

Act Two

It’s February 13th, 1920, in a YMCA building in Kansas City, Missouri; ten years after the formation of the Chicago American Giants baseball team.

Andrew “Rube” Foster, the owner of the American Giants, sits around the table with seven other Black baseball team owners. Rube has called his fellow bosses here today because he’s got an ambitious proposal.

Six months ago, the drowning of Eugene Williams in Lake Michigan sparked a race riot in Rube’s hometown of Chicago. The riot’s underlying cause was the inherent unfairness of racial segregation, but it’s made Rube even more determined that the Black community should be able to survive on its own—and that Black-only baseball should thrive independently of the White major leagues. Rube’s Chicago American Giants have proven it’s possible for the Black community to support a successful and self-sufficient baseball team. And now, Rube wants more Black teams to follow his example—and he’s got a plan for them to follow.

Rube talks the owners through the structure of a new baseball organization he’s calling the Negro National League or NNL. Under the NNL, eight all-Black baseball teams from the Midwest will play multiple games against each other, and the team at the top of the standings at the end of the season will be crowned the NNL Champion. Hearing the plan, the other team owners nod their heads in agreement. They’ve all seen what Rube has achieved with the American Giants and want to replicate that success for themselves. So, by the end of the meeting, all present have voted to join the new league. And there’s only one man who can run it. Rube accepts their invitation to be the league’s president, with Charles Taylor, his old rival from the Indianapolis ABCs, appointed as vice president.

Less than three months later, the first game of the new NNL takes place. But the new league is soon undermined - by its own president. Rube can’t let go of his famous competitive streak, and other team owners soon complain that Rube has fixed the schedule so his Chicago American Giants get more than their fair share of home games. Their protests only grow when the American Giants finish at the top of the standings and win the first NNL pennant. But despite all the grumblings from the other owners, there’s no disguising that Rube’s NNL is a success - it’s the first all-Black professional baseball league to complete a full season without folding. Rube’s rivals just hope that in the years to come he can learn to be more even-handed.

Those hopes so are soon dashed. Just the following year, Rube undermines his own competition yet again. As league president, Rube allows his team to sign the best player from the Detroit Stars, despite a league rule meant to stop teams poaching each other’s players. Rube also comes under fire for arranging another schedule in which the American Giants play more games at home and at better times than their opponents, who are forced to spend more money on travel. Thanks to Rube’s one-sided running of the league, the American Giants win the next two NNL pennants—but one of their opponents is fast-closing the gap, and in 1923, the Kansas City Monarchs win the first of three consecutive titles.

Then, in 1926, Rube is nearly killed by a gas leak while in Indianapolis. Recovery is difficult and he begins a slow decline before finally dying in 1930. By then, the Great Depression has taken hold in America. As unemployment and poverty rises, ticket sales in Rube’s baseball league fall, and revenue for the teams slumps. The teams and owners come under increasing financial pressure, and in 1931, the NNL folds.

But by then, Rube’s League has proven that Black-only baseball can thrive in America. During the twelve years that the league operated, several copycat leagues were formed in other regions of the United States, including the National Southern League and the Eastern Colored League.

And two years after the NNL collapses, another Black team owner revives the idea—but unlike Rube Foster, Gus Greenlee operates this second National League in a nonpartisan manner. Under Gus, the schedule doesn’t favor any particular team and owners benefit from the more equitable share of gate money.

Soon, Gus will begin to cooperate rather than compete with rival Black leagues too. From 1942, Gus will invite the champion of the new Negro American League to play against the champion of his league in the Negro World Series. But by then, some Major League Baseball teams will be looking at the Black leagues as a potential source of talent, and the long-established color line will soon be shattered.

Act Three

It’s September 30th, 1948, at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama; fifteen years after the NNL was resurrected by Gus Greenlee.

17-year-old Willie Mays holds his bat high and waits for the pitcher to throw the ball. Willie’s Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro American League are tied three-apiece with the Homestead Grays—but recent events mean that games like these no longer feature all of the best Black baseball players in America.

One year ago, Jackie Robinson made his major league debut for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Jackie was the first Black man to play in Major League Baseball in more than sixty years, and his appearance generated huge amounts of publicity. Since then, Jackie has been followed by several other top Black players, including Larry Doby and Satchel Paige, both of whom played for teams in the NNL.

Now, as young Willie takes an at-bat, he knows that scouts from major league baseball are sure to be watching, and a good performance could be his ticket to the major leagues.

The pitcher winds up and lets lose a fast ball, Willie swings—and connects knowing it’s a clean hit. The ball shoots up the middle of the field and one of the on-base Black Barons runs for home, scoring easily.

The run that Willie batted in wins the game for the Black Barons, but it’s the only game they win in the series. Instead, the Homestead Grays are named the Negro World Series champions and Willie returns to high school. Two years later, he graduates. As a highly-touted baseball prospect, he immediately signs a pro contract—but not with a Black team. Instead, Willie goes straight to the major leagues with the New York Giants.

Willie will go on to have a Hall of Fame career. By the time he retires in 1973, baseball will be fully integrated and the Black-only leagues will be a thing of the past. But in 2020, Major League Baseball will announce that seven Black league players are to be retrospectively awarded major league status. This will grant official recognition to competitions that provided an outlet for Black players when they were barred from joining white teams—and the first of these newly designated major leagues will be the NNL, a pioneering experiment that was formed in Kansas City, Missouri, on February 13th, 1920.

Outro

Next on History Daily. February 14th, 1349. After being blamed for the spread of Black Death, hundreds of Jews are executed in the Strasbourg Massacre.

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Muhammad Shahzaib.

Sound design by Mischa Stanton.

Music by Lindsay Graham.

This episode is written and researched by Scott Reeves.

Edited by Dorian Merina.

Managing producer, Emily Burke.

Executive Producers are William Simpson for Airship, and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.