- Adrian Burgos,
University of Illinois professor
Sixty-five April 15ths ago, Jackie Robinson made his major league debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers. As the baseball world knows, this was an immeasurably important debut. We know the story of Robinson and baseball’s color barrier. We know about the death threats he received, the abuse he took from fans, the fellow players who despised his presence, and the intense scrutiny of his every move, on the field or off.
To ensure that the baseball and social importance of April 15, 1947 is not forgotten, Major League baseball created Jackie Robinson day in 2004. Since 2004, MLB has celebrated Robinson by featuring his number, 42, on balls, the field, players’ uniforms, and umpires’ uniforms. After the initial celebration, Commissioner Bud Selig declared that every April 15th would belong to the memory of Jackie Robinson.
Baseball has gone to great lengths to honor Robinson’s legacy as the breaker of the color barrier. As I learned on Thursday, however, baseball’s racial history is more complex than one player breaking down the wall. Many players’ stories of struggle against baseball’s racial inequality are untold.
Adrian Burgos, a baseball historian and University of Illinois professor, gave me my first “a-ha!” moment on Thursday as he spoke at Milner Library.
“The first [non-American] to play professionally in the United States was Steve Bellán,” Burgos said.
OK, so who was Steve Bellán?
Bellán was a Cuban-born third baseman whose wealthy family sent him to the United States to play baseball and get a college education. He made well on only the former, as he left school after three years to play third for the Troy Haymakers, and all-white pro team. The amazing aspect of Bellán’s pro career is when in occurred. Bellán’s big league debut happened in 1871.
I wasn’t the only one in the room who was visibly surprised to learn that Jackie Robinson wasn’t the first non-white to play in the Majors. As Burgos spoke, the room learned that the color barrier was a seriously malleable thing, and that 54 Latin Americans played in the Majors before Robinson’s debut in 1947.
As Burgos explained, whether a player played in the Majors or in the Negro Leagues truly depended on the hue of his skin. Bellán, for instance, was light-skinned and fluent in English, which allowed him to play among whites. Not every Latino ballplayer was as fortunate. Both Latinos and American-born black players tried to manipulate the color line by branding themselves as Americanized Latinos.
The first example of such a team was the Cuban Giants from Babylon, New York.
“The first well-known team of African-American players was formed in 1885, and they called themselves the Cuban Giants,” Burgos said. “There was not a single Cuban on this team—it was entirely U.S.-born blacks, and one man from the Virgin Islands.”
The Cuban Giants and other non-white teams did this to draw in fans. Black baseball fans were already more inclined to support a non-white team, but what about white fans? As it turned out, the Cuban Giants drew them in, too.
“They understood Cubans came in a whole range of colors, from the lightest to the darkest. So, if they went out into the public and presented themselves as Cubans—in some reports, they chattered in pseudo-Spanish, coaches gave out signals in gibberish—people played with the charade. All of that was to bring in the fans,” Burgos said.
Almost immediately, I felt like I’d been personally cheated. Black players, as I already knew, were denied access to the Majors. For Latino players, playing in the Majors was only possible if they were deemed presentable enough to white fans. They needed to appear white enough.
The players who didn’t appear white enough had to give the crowd some kind of gimmick if they wanted to draw in fans. They were talented ballplayers—doubtlessly talented enough to play in the Majors—but they had to be a sideshow in order to attract fans.
Baseball diehards and historians should be cognizant of baseball’s complex racial history, not just Jackie Robinson’s symbolic color line crossing. The Negro Leagues, which existed parallel to the Majors for over 30 years, are in many ways the blueprint for modern, integrated baseball.
“The Negro National League that was formed by Rube Foster [in 1920] failed numerous times. Every time that Rube Foster incorporated [the league] he always had a Cuban team. He always had an international vision,” Burgos said.
As the days of exclusion and formal racial policies are gone, the international vision of equality in baseball is closer to reality. Still, baseball has problems. In particular, the amateur draft is an issue, because only Latin-American players are not draft-eligible. Latino prospects don’t see nearly as much guaranteed money as American-born players.
“The process of incorporating Latinos is about acquiring labor cheaply. And what they do is use the [Latin-American] summer leagues to refine that talent. If you can sign eight Dominicans for $-100,000 and one of them makes it, that’s like a 20th round pick in the amateur draft,” Burgos said.
Baseball is moving closer to equality, as Puerto Rico recently became draft-eligible. Much work remains to be done before any idealist’s vision is manifested, though. Until it does, Jackie Robinson day should serve as a reminder—that equality is made possible only by the actions of courageous and selfless individuals.