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Title details for Under Jackie's Shadow by Mitchell Nathanson - Available

Under Jackie's Shadow

Voices of Black Minor Leaguers Baseball Left Behind

by Mitchell Nathanson
ebook
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1 of 1 copy available
Under Jackie's Shadow is a portal to the hidden world of Minor League baseball in the era just after Jackie Robinson signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947.
What was it like to be Black and playing in Spartanburg, South Carolina, in 1965, or Memphis, Tennessee, in 1973? What was it like to play for white coaches and scouting directors from the Jim Crow South who cut their professional teeth in the segregated game before Jackie Robinson ushered in the sport's integration? Or to be called into the clubhouse with your Black teammates one spring training morning in 1969 and told that to make the ballclub you'd have to beat out the Black men in that room, because none of you were ever going to beat out a white player, regardless? Or to spend a staggering eight seasons playing A-ball in the Midwest League, even winning a triple crown, while watching less-talented white teammates get promoted each year while you stayed behind? The thirteen players in Under Jackie's Shadow are going to tell you.
The players' experiences in baseball's Minor Leagues in the 1960s and 1970s do not comport with the largely celebratory tales the leagues like to tell about themselves. The Black Minor League players remained largely invisible men—most of whom couldn't be named by even the most devoted baseball followers. Based on Mitchell Nathanson's interviews, Under Jackie's Shadow uses the players' own words to tell the unvarnished story of what it was like to be a Black baseball player navigating the wilds of professional baseball's Minor Leagues following the integration of the Major Leagues. Harrowing, beautiful, and maddening, these stories are vital to our understanding of race not only in baseball but in the United States as a whole.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    April 1, 2024

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9781496239143

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9781496239143
      • File size: 3055 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Library Journal

      Starred review from March 29, 2024

      Jackie Robinson's signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 is often referred to as the event that broke baseball's color barrier. When being honored for that achievement 25 years later, Robinson remarked that he would be even more pleased if there were Black executives managing baseball teams. Inspired by Robinson's statement, sports law professor Nathanson (Villanova Univ. School of Law; The Ten-Minute Collapse: Black Friday and the Fall of the 1977 Phillies) asked many Black athletes who played in Minor League Baseball in the 1960s and 1970s to write about their own experiences with the mostly white executives and coaches in the game. The resulting 13 stories in this book paint a powerful, disturbing portrait of a culture of racism in baseball, and Nathanson shows that it's a widespread problem that continues to deny many Black players opportunities they deserve. The expertly written stories will surprise, sadden, and anger many readers. VERDICT This is a powerful work that shouldn't be missed. While it focuses mostly on lesser-known aspects of the culture of Minor League Baseball, it could become a referendum on the state of racism in the United States today. Highly recommended.--Steve Dixon

      Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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