Home » Education & Career » History For Children » "We Played Baseball"

"We Played Baseball"

© Meg Greene Malvasi

"Brooklyn announces the purchase of the contract of Jack Roosevelt Robinson from Montreal." So read the brief press release issued by Branch Rickey, the general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, on April 9, 1947. The announcement revealed nothing of the significance of the event. It did not mention that Robinson was black. Nor did it mention that Robinson was the first African-American player whose name had appeared on the roster of a Major League ball club since the 1880s. Lastly, the announcement failed to mention this historic breaking the of "color line" in baseball that would be of infinite importance to other African Americans.

Until Robinson paved the way, black baseball players labored in obscurity, mere curiosities in American sporting life. However great their talent, they were reduced to entertaining white spectators who paid to see them clown around. Nearly all the summer resorts along the eastern seaboard, such as Newport, Cape Cod, Nantucket Island, and Martha's Vineyard, for example, sponsored black baseball teams composed of busboys, gardeners, and waiters from local hotels. Sometime during the 1880s, the waiters of the Argyle Hotel in Babylon, New York formed what is considered to be the first of these teams. They called themselves the Cuban Giants and chattered gibberish on the field that was supposed to pass for Spanish.

The Giants provided the model for the other black baseball clubs of the time. They "barnstormed" (traveled from town to town making brief stops) throughout the eastern United States playing against local semi-pro teams and occasionally against a big league squad. Sometimes sporting different names, the Giants also played in the minor leagues. The team was a member of the Middle States League in 1889, and again in 1890 after the association had been renamed the Eastern Interstate League. When the league disbanded, the Giants joined the Connecticut State League, which also proved short lived. After the collapse of the Connecticut State League in the middle of the 1891 season the Giants returned to barnstorming, their career in organized baseball at an end. Holding no official league affiliation, the Giants now simply played any team willing to ante up money for a game.

The required travel, the unpredictable schedule, and the need to attract large crowds encouraged the most controversial aspect of black baseball: "showboating," or clowning, into the competition. As early as 1885, barnstorming teams like the Giants had already become famous for their comic antics on the field. A writer for Munsey's Magazine commented that the Cuban Giants "are comical cusses with a natural sense of mimicry. . . . they give a fine performance, worth the price of admission. They do not take the game of baseball as seriously as white folks do, but they are very innovative and they amuse."

The copyright of the article "We Played Baseball" in History For Children is owned by Meg Greene Malvasi. Permission to republish "We Played Baseball" in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.