The verdict is in. Whatever the deficiencies of the black baseball leagues as a source of reliable statistics, no one now doubts that when the best black players assembled for the annual East-West games, which for a generation paralleled the white All-Star games, the concentration of ability on the field was second to none. This work brings together for the first time the painstakingly assembled history of those games, including reconstructed play-by-plays and accurate statistical records. Larry Lester recaptures the vigor of black communities' united attention to the event, describes the players whose talent brought them to this pinnacle of achievement, and discusses the maneuvers of promoters, gamblers, and petty tyrants who cast an occasional shadow on the sunlit fields of Chicago. Larry Lester is the cofounder and former director of research at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri. He has served as a consultant for and contributed to a number of research projects, firms, and museum exhibits related to black baseball.
He is the coauthor of four books on black baseball, including most recently Black Baseball in Pittsburgh, and is the coeditor of The Negro Leagues Book. Joe Black was the starting pitcher in the 1950 East-West Game for the Baltimore Elite Giants. He started and won the first game in the 1952 World Series and won Rookie of the Year honors with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1952.
- ISBN10 0803280009
- ISBN13 9780803280007
- Publish Date 1 March 2002
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 25 February 2015
- Publish Country US
- Imprint University of Nebraska Press
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 500
- Language English