How baseball shaped Black America during Reconstruction

For years, Black players were tacitly banned from professional football leagues

In 1902, Charles Follis was the first Black player to play in a professional football game, and Black players were allowed in years after other leagues banned them. A "gentleman’s agreement” led to the league banning Black players in 1933, until four Black men reintegrated pro football in 1946.

Thousands of Black men held local, state, and federal offices during Reconstruction

Between 1865 and 1877, more than 1,500 Black Americans served in local, state, and federal offices—including 16 in Congress. This unprecedented political participation largely ended after Reconstruction as Jim Crow laws and racial violence suppressed Black voting.

Major League Baseball, explained

Major League Baseball is America’s oldest professional sports league. Alongside triumphs, the league has faced scandals, including drug abuse and steroid use, shaping its path over the decades. Today, MLB embraces new rules, international talent, and a growing connection to legalized sports betting.

Listen to firsthand accounts of how Black Americans fought to end slavery and shape Reconstruction

This podcast explores the actions of Black Americans who fought for freedom before, during, and after the Civil War—highlighting their key role in abolition and the Reconstruction era.

Jackie Robinson, who broke the MLB's color barrier, made his debut in 1947

In the early 1940s, Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey began scouting Negro League players to break baseball’s long-standing color barrier. Jackie Robinson was signed in 1945 and made his major league debut on Opening Day 1947 against the Boston Braves.

100 moments that shaped baseball history

Published in 2018 by baseball historian Jacob Kornhauser, this list examines the defining moments throughout more than a century of play on the field, from Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Dock Ellis purportedly throwing a no-hitter while on acid to Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier.

Cricket used to be America's pastime

Before baseball, American football, basketball, or hockey ever organized in the US, there was one sport which could be found up and down the East Coast: cricket. The second-most popular sport in the world, cricket is mostly ignored by Americans, despite its prevalence in early American history. Learn more about the forgotten role cricket played in the US with this article.

Integration of Latino players in MLB

The Senators’ spectacular losing record obscures one of the most important stories in baseball history: the club’s role in integrating Latino players into the major leagues

Examining golf's problems with race

In 1961, the PGA removed the "Caucasian-only" membership clause, marking the last major professional sports organization to desegregate. But unlike other sports, golf didn't see an influx of Black players following the change. This article from The Ringer's Lex Pryor examines golf's complicated history with race and gender, showing both the progress made and the challenges that remain.

In 1975, a Major League Baseball clause that kept players legally tied to their teams after retirement was dismantled

Players fought the "reserve clause" for years, citing the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, but to no avail—in fact, the Supreme Court ruled professional baseball was neither interstate nor commerce in 1922. Players effectively unionized in 1966, and by 1975, an arbitration panel ruling led to the dismantling of the reserve clause, which had been the only antitrust exemption in professional sports.

Why ‘Shoeless Joe’ Jackson was banned from Major League Baseball

Few baseball stars are more infamous than "Shoeless Joe" Jackson, one of the game's greatest hitters. Jackson was part of the Chicago White Sox team (notoriously dubbed the "Black Sox") accused of fixing the 1919 World Series. This resource breaks down the criminal trial that investigated those allegations. Curiously, Jackson and his teammates were acquitted, but Major League Baseball commissioner Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis still banned them from the league for life.

Before 1920, a single baseball was used throughout a game

During the Deadball Era, pitchers doctored a baseball with spit, nail files, and licorice for a competitive edge, leading to discolored, mangled, and lopsided baseballs by the game's end. This concluded in 1920 when Cleveland Indians star shortstop Ray Chapman was hit in the head by a ball too dirty to see and died. The rules were changed to require an umpire to replace a dirty baseball and outlawed the spitball.

The end of Reconstruction paved the way for Jim Crow segregation

After federal troops withdrew in 1877, white Democrats regained control of Southern governments, dismantled Reconstruction reforms, and imposed segregation laws. By the 1890s, Jim Crow statutes had entrenched racial discrimination and Black disenfranchisement across the South.

Fourteen ways to make baseball cool again

Baseball, while commonly known as America's pastime, gets a bit of a bad rap for being long, slow, and boring. Here are fourteen fun ideas to make the sport more interesting to combat dwindling attendance.

The Great Migration helped transform Harlem into the epicenter of Black culture

Starting in 1910, millions of Black Americans moved from the South to escape segregation, violence, and dismal work opportunities. They moved to urban areas in the North, Midwest, and West. Chief among them was Manhattan's Harlem neighborhood, which became an especially desirable location for Black people around 1910.

One of the earliest Memorial Day ceremonies was held by newly freed Black Americans in South Carolina

On May 1, 1865, roughly 10,000 people, mostly freed slaves, paraded around a Charleston racetrack where Union prisoners had been buried, predating the first national commemoration at Arlington National Cemetery by three years.

The food took root with Black Americans in the Civil War era

Because the technique requires little equipment and can tenderize tough or undesirable cuts of meat like ribs, barbecue took root among impoverished Black Americans in the late 1800s. When these communities moved north during the Great Migration, barbecue followed.

‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ became associated with sports at the 1918 World Series

The song is often played at the start of amateur and professional sports games, a tradition that historians say became popular during World War I. During the seventh-inning stretch of the first game of the 1918 World Series, a band started an impromptu version. Red Sox player Fred Thomas, on leave from the Navy, turned to salute the flag, and the crowd followed his lead.

Long before Major League Baseball began allowing instant replay for balls and strikes, an umpire reluctantly used the technology to determine whether a hit was a home run, a move that inadvertently ushered in a new era for the sport.

How one Texas Western team changed college hoops

Texas Western, featuring college basketball's first all-Black starting five, stunned No. 1 Kentucky in 1966. Coach Don Haskins shrugged off the issue of race, but he received 40,000 pieces of hate mail after the game. This in-depth history relives the Miners' speed-driven triumph, their snub from Ed Sullivan, and a quiet revolution that sparked integration across the South's courts.

How did segregation in the US affect blood donations?

When the US established its first nationwide network of blood banks in 1941 with the hopes of restoring the dwindling reserves of military members, it was quick to emphasize blood donated by Black Americans wouldn't coat the veins of white servicemen. Historians say this policy was meant to appease white Southerners who believed Black blood was inferior to their own.This policy was leaked to the press that same year.

New Orleans' Congo Square birthed what would become jazz

The city's enslaved people congregated in the city square on Sundays, bringing together the musical traditions of their disparate cultures through drum circles, communal dancing, and call-and-response singing. The rhythmic style that evolved in the area would eventually give rise to ragtime and, subsequently, jazz.

Congress plays baseball together in a bipartisan charity game dating back to 1909

First organized in 1909 by Rep. John Tener, a former pro baseball player, the Congressional Baseball Game pits Democrats against Republicans to raise money for charity—and offers a rare behind-the-scenes look at lawmakers mixing rivalry with camaraderie.

Walter Camp revolutionized American Football

When Walter Camp was introduced to the game of football in the late 1800s, the rules weren’t set, the field wasn’t uniform, and the game was brutal. Camp joined early rules committees and was instrumental in shaping the modern game. Read this deep dive into Camp’s early life and influences, and find out how he established the line of scrimmage and the series of downs.

The original basketball was hand-sewn

When the first basketball landed in a peach basket in 1891, it didn't look like the leather Wilson ball you see on today's NBA courts. The basketball evolved from the nondribbling days, when a hand-sewn ball with stitching like a football was used.

Hughes wrote for and about everyday Black Americans

Early in his career, Hughes was often disregarded by prominent white literary critics and criticized by Black intellectuals for his sometimes negative portrayal of Black life. Hughes, though, was unconcerned, saying that he wrote for the “workers, roustabouts, and singers, and job hunters” of New York, Washington, Chicago, and other Black hubs.

Watch a 1934 short film starring jazz legend Cab Calloway, a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance's music scene

Exploring the Larry Bird punch that almost changed March Madness

In 1939, baseball star Lou Gehrig delivered his inspirational 'Luckiest Man' speech after retiring due to the health condition that now bears his name.

The word 'jazz' evolved from 'jasm,' 19th-century American slang for 'energy'

Abraham Lincoln was almost assassinated weeks before his inauguration as he traveled from Illinois to DC through Baltimore in 1861; it took two independent claims for Lincoln to be convinced the threat was real

Jimmy Carter signed a 1978 bill that legalized home brewing, a move credited with kick-starting the craft beer industry.

The US first hosted the World Cup in 1994, a tournament that lives in soccer infamy for its poor planning and the murder of Colombian player Andres Escobar, who'd accidentally scored on his own net.

The story of Dollree Mapp, whose legal challenge over her 1957 conviction for possessing "obscene material" led to a major strengthening of the Fourth Amendment

The American cockroach is actually from Africa, an apparent hitchhiker aboard ships carrying enslaved people, with evidence suggesting the bug may have arrived in the New World as early as the 1600s.

Explore an interactive map of battles from the American Revolution, along with detailed summaries of each engagement

A small portion of The Winstons' 'Amen, Brother,' an obscure '60s gospel record, is the basis for thousands of hip-hop tracks, making it one of the most sampled records ever that's informally known as 'the Amen break.'

A researcher recently discovered an interview from 1967 between groundbreaking journalist Joan Didion and the Grateful Dead, years before the band became an institution.

Hear about the 250-year history of the United States Postal Service, complete with some of its strangest deliveries, important innovations, and the figures that made it an American institution.

Before the current East Wing ballroom project, only two White House renovations in the past 100 years cost more than $10M.

The Brothers Grimm were lawyers before they were storytellers, and became interested in fairy tales as they began investigating how rules and customs had been passed down through cultures.

Apollo astronauts left items in the moon's 'toss zone,' including golf balls, family photos, and bags of human waste, to make room for lunar rocks.

Bone marrow (soft tissue found inside certain bones) generates roughly 500 billion new blood cells each day

Play the role of a student in a game where you try to navigate college and remain debt-free, selecting different income levels, high school experience, race, ethnicity, and more.

The 19th-century painters of the Hudson River School were among the first American romantics, with portraits that displayed the natural beauty of the young country.

Power lines are dotted with large, brightly colored balls to improve the visibility of these thin wires to helicopters and small planes and help prevent potential crashes.

Cultural norms about how to handle the bodies of loved ones in communities in West Africa have hampered Ebola responses.

Some coin denominations have ridges etched on their sides, partly to prevent counterfeiting, in a practice called 'reeding.'

According to the physics of black holes, our 4D reality may be a hologram—a projection of information coded on a 2D surface on the edge of the universe.

The Great Salt Lake's distinct dual coloration results from high-salinity organisms that only live in the northern portion and produce a purple protein.