The Baltimore Elite Giants: Sport and Society in the Age of Negro League Baseball. Baltimore, Md.: The Johns Hopkins University Press, Pp. Notes.
Table of contents
Luke, a sociologist and baseball writer, narrates the story of one of the best-known teams in the Negro Leagues, the Baltimore Elite Giants, and documents its interaction with the city and its people during the long years of segregation. Luke highlights important games, relives the major performances of individual players, and discusses key decisions made by management. In addition, Luke describes the often contentious relationship between the team and Major League Baseball before, during, and after the major leagues were integrated.
In recounting the history of the Baltimore Elite Giants, Luke reveals how the team, its personalities, and its fans raised public awareness of the larger issues faced by African Americans in segregation-era Baltimore.
The Baltimore Elite Giants
In addition, the author supplies some rare black-and-white photographs, appendices on Negro League standings, a brief history of African-American baseball in Baltimore before the Elite Giants, club operating expenses in , and suggestions for further reading—all of which greatly enhance the book. Luke chooses two themes, which are interwoven throughout the book—the performance of the team and its individual players and the effects of segregation and discrimination on the business operation, the team, and its fans.
The author contends that in order for the team to exist, numerous details had to be worked out including the rental of ballparks, transportation difficulties, the scheduling of games, and various financial difficulties that were strongly influenced by the racial problems of the time.
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He points out that the integration of Major League Baseball opened up the Civil Rights movement of the s. However, for some African Americans, [End Page ] integration meant the end of a chance to play the professional game at any level and the loss of many jobs associated with the end of the Negro Leagues.
The author provides the reader with much new information that he has uncovered from African-American newspapers of the time, interviews with Baltimore residents and former players of the time, archival documents, and rare black-and-white photographs from private collections. I highly recommend the book to anyone interested in the history of the Negro Leagues and African-American baseball.
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It is a classic study of an important Negro League baseball team, and it provides many insights into the relationship between sport and society. The author reminds the reader of our segregated past and how far we have come since the days of segregation, discrimination, and racial exclusion. Intercity rivalries of black teams began to appear as early as the s, when Washington and Baltimore teams met on the Madison Avenue lot.
There were no organized professional leagues yet. There was also a business office at Madison Avenue. Now, the Giants were members of a major league team—the Negro National League. The original National Association of Base Ball Players formed in had banned black athletes, but by the late s, some African-American athletes played on white teams and several African-American players were on the rosters of white minor league teams.
The Baltimore Elite Giants posed in front of billboard advertisement for the th anniversary for Arrow Beer, c. Photograph by Paul S.
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Paul Henderson Photograph Collection. The team was founded in Nashville as the Nashville Standard Giants in In its name was changed to the Elite Giants.
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The Giants became a member of the Negro Southern League in The next year the Negro National League went out of business and the Giants moved to Cleveland under the name Cleveland Cubs, where again they had a losing record. The team moved back to Nashville the next year. They moved again, this time to Washington, where they compiled a first year record fourth place. The team moved to Baltimore in and became the Baltimore Elite Giants.
Their thirteen years in Baltimore earned them the Negro National Title. Photograph by Paul Henderson. Bridgeforts returned the Giants to Nashville, but the team was dissolved after only one season there.