Here’s an article I just had published in NUVO, the alt-weekly in Indianapolis, about the Hoosier Blackstockings, the city’s first African-American team. They came and went 125 years ago, 1889, back when base ball was spelled with two words:
http://www.nuvo.net/indianapolis/the-indianapolis-blackstockings/Content?oid=2806572#.U0bv7xxiDg5
By the end of the 1880s, the curtain of segregation had completely fallen on America’s still-evolving pastime, but numerous black, or “colored,” teams had cropped up all over the eastern half of the country, from NYC to St. Louis to New Orleans.
In this story, I reference two authors who, roughly a century apart, have done yeomen’s work to detail and preserve this early African-American baseball scene. One is Hall of Fame player, manager, owner, historian and journalist Sol White, who in 1907 published published this seminal tome:
http://books.google.com/books/about/Sol_White_s_history_of_colored_base_ball.html?id=oA2CAAAAMAAJ
I’ll write more on Mr. White soon.
The other writer is a modern one — Northern Illinois professor James Brunson, who is probably the country’s leading authority on 19th century African-American baseball and who has been a huge mentor to me. His most recent work is this:
http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Early_Image_of_Black_Baseball.html?id=hGD_1iPQh6gC
Check them out if you can.
The Negro Leagues Up Close 