From Publishers Weekly
Racist major league baseball policies expunged the box scores for most Negro Leagues players, but black newspaper sportswriters kept careful record of the immensely popular all-star games of the 1930s and '40s. Lester (Black Baseball in Pittsburgh) has assembled 20 years of headlined articles, photos, game stats and league records into a sort of Negro Leagues all-star game almanac a year-by-year reconstruction of every East-West game from 1933 to 1953, with Lester's own historical notes offering context for each year's entries. Most of the text is actually composed of extracts from the sports pages of the Chicago Defender, Pittsburgh Courier, Baltimore Afro-American and other urban black newspapers. These columns are supplemented with occasional stories by white sportswriters (usually from left-wing newspapers of the era). In the '30s, the East-West "classic" drew 50,000 black and some white fans often more than major league games. By the time Jackie Robinson integrated the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, the East-West game had suffered mismanagement and personality problems, and began to lose both its loyal black audience and financial backers. There is an authentic, time capsule quality about Lester's collection and more than enough raw stats to fuel hot stove leagues across the country for many an evening.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Lester highlights black baseball's leading event, the East-West All-Star Game, which was held for just over two decades. His volume contains a fine chapter on Gus Greenlee, the visionary owner of the Pittsburgh Crawfords, who helped to establish the "national showcase" that featured stars from Satchel Paige to Jackie Robinson. Also included are contemporaneous game reviews, box scores, and voting results. Essential for baseball aficionados and public libraries.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
