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Loading... We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball| 878 | 89 | 24,765 | 
(4.48) | 22 | Using an "Everyman" player as his narrator, Kadir Nelson tells the story of Negro League baseball from its beginnings in the 1920s through the decline after Jackie Robinson crossed over to the majors in 1947. Illustrations from oil paintings by artist Kadir Nelson. |
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| Epigraph |
"We are the ship; all else the sea."
—Rube Foster, founder of the Negro National League, owner of the Chicago American Giants  | |
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| Dedication |
For Buck O'Neil, an inspiration | |
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Foreword
From the time I can remember, baseball has been my passion. 1st Inning
Beginnings
"I ain't ever had a job, I just always played baseball."—Satchel Paige
Seems like we've been playing baseball for a mighty long time. | |
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We had some white umpires from another league call our game, once. Those poor fellows didn't know what to do with themselves. They made so many mistakes, they came over and apologized after the game, said they could help it. They'd never seen our type of baseball. Said if they played like we did in the majors, they'd have to make the parks bigger to seat all the fans. We played a different brand of baseball from the majors. Negro baseball as fast! Flashy! Daring! Sometimes it was even funny. But always every exciting to watch. People would come early to the ballpark just to see us practice. We would whip that ball around the infield with such precision, they'd applaud. Pitchers threw anything and everything. Spitters, shine-balls, emery balls, cut balls—you name it. They cut that ball to pieces and had curveballs breaking about six-feet! Throw a new white ball to the pitcher, and it would come back brown from all the tobacco juice and what-have-you. You never knew what the ball was going to do once it left the pitcher's hand. In some places we traveled to, we couldn't get a glass of water to drink, even if we had money to pay for it—and back then, water was free! We played on some of the worst fields you could imagine. Once in a while, we'd play in a small town where they had just made the ballfield the same day we got there. Some ol' pasture. You had to pray the ball wouldn't land in some cow stuff. Some were so patchy—grass here, dirt there. Some didn't even have grass; and some where had as a rock, with pebbles all over the place. Those big-league teams made good money renting their parks to us, but don't you know that after paying them all of that money to play in their ballpark, we still had to suit up down the street at the local YMCA or someplace else, because they didn't let us use the locker rooms?
Makes you mad to hear players today squawk about jet lag, and all of this. Try sleeping in a car with your knees to your chest, crammed with eight other guys, only to play a game the next day. Players today just don't know how bad it could be. We look back and wonder, "How did we do all of that?" It's simple. We loved the game so much, we just looked past everything else. | |
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| Last words |
9th Inning
Then Came Jackie Robinson
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And most important, Jackie cleared the way for the rest of us to play in the majors, and in doing that, he helped bring the rest of the country closer to accepting Negroes as first-class citizens. (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.) | |
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▾References References to this work on external resources.  Wikipedia in English
None ▾Book descriptions Using an "Everyman" player as his narrator, Kadir Nelson tells the story of Negro League baseball from its beginnings in the 1920s through the decline after Jackie Robinson crossed over to the majors in 1947. Illustrations from oil paintings by artist Kadir Nelson. ▾Library descriptions No library descriptions found. ▾LibraryThing members' description
| Book description |
The story of Negro League baseball is one of racial discrimination and gifted atheletes that are determined to play the game they love. They endured segregation, hostile conditions, hatred, and low pay. Kadir Nelson's illustrations are so authentic they seem to jump of the page. I would highly recommend this book. | |
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