Well Said: Honoring the 100th anniversary of the Negro Leagues

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Negro Leagues — professional baseball leagues comprised mostly of African American players. The leagues were created in 1920 as a response to non-white players being kept out of major league baseball. “As long as there has been baseball, there have been African Americans playing baseball,” said Matthew Andrews, a teaching associate professor in the College of Arts & Sciences' history department. “But as baseball got organized, African Americans found themselves excluded from organized baseball.” Andrews and other historians study the Negro Leagues using primary sources like newspapers, but a large portion of the leagues’ history is actually unknown. On this week’s episode, Andrews shares the history of the Negro Leagues, tells some of the leagues’ stories that have survived the test of time and examines the true reasons that the leagues were created in the first place.