Black Diamond: The Story of the Negro Baseball Leagues by Patricia C. McKissack, Fredrick L. McKissack
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(Paperback)
- Age Range: 12 and up
- Pub. Date: September 1998
- 177pp
- Sales Rank: 68,121
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Product Details
- Pub. Date: September 1998
- Publisher: Scholastic, Inc.
- Format: Paperback, 177pp
- Sales Rank: 68,121
- Age Range: 12 and up
- ISBN-13: 9780590682138
- ISBN: 059068213X
Synopsis
A stirring tribute to the human drama, legendary heroes, infamous owners, low pay, and long bus rides that were the Negro Leagues. A 1995 Coretta Scott King Honor Book now in a striking Polaris edition.
Annotation
Traces the history of baseball in the Negro Leagues and its great heroes, including Monte Irwin, Buck Leonard, and Cool Papa Bell.
Children's Literature
Excluded from playing major league baseball until 1947, when Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers, African Americans set up their own leagues and followed great players such as Satchel Paige and Cool Papa Bell. A time line in the back sets these baseball accomplishments in a broader historical context and a bibliography points the way to other books on the subject.
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A Dream Deferredby EGHunter01
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June 25, 2009: Patricia C. McKissack and Fredrick McKissack, Jr. provide intriguing and valuable information on the history of the Negro baseball leagues. For a person that did not do well in history class, this book held my attention. The history of the leagues was fascinating and the time-line offered allowed me to "see" how the social environment in America had an impact on the Negro's ability to advance in baseball and other areas of life. Due to the political and social environment in America, at the time, many players' dream of playing major league baseball was deferred, yet they wanted to form leagues and use their skills. The player profiles in the book were helpful to me. You will learn of greats like James Thomas "Cool Papa" Bell, William "Yank" Yancey, Josh Gibson, Porter Moss, Satchel Paige, and many more. The pivotal point of the leagues came with the arrival of Jackie Robinson. If you do not know about the Negro leagues this book is quite informative and educational. It was worthwhile reading for me since I was unfamiliar with most of the players mentioned in the book. Grab this book if you want to learn a little history about major league baseball.
Book Reviewby Anonymous
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April 07, 2006: If you like baseball then you will be very interested in Black Diamond the story of the negro baseball leagues by Patricia McKissack and Fredrick McKissasck Jr. this book takes you back to the early 1900?s where the negro leagues were developed and played. This book will show you the many struggles black baseball and black players endured during their playing careers. You will learn about barnstorming clown parades. One of the many characters in this book is Rube Foster. Rube foster is the founder of the negro baseball leagues and is said to be the father of black baseball and founded the NNL(Negro National League).Rube Foster is a hall of famer for his endless struggle for black baseball rights. Josh Gibson, a negro league player, was said to be better than babe Ruth but never got a chance to play in the majors. You will learn in this book of all the great black players that never got a chance to play in the major leagues. The main conflict in this story is the black players trying to get into the major leagues but being excluded because of the color of their skin. They did everything to try to get into the big leagues, from pretending to be Cuban or like one black ball player did, say you?re a native American and paint your face like one. Only a few made it to the minor leagues but it was not until Jackie Robinson?s debut that they got to play in the big leagues. The great thing about this book is it takes you to a different world of baseball and does not focus on babe Ruth or Lou Gherrig. Instead you learn about the negro leagues and the many great players they had that you probably never heard of. It also reflects some of the players personality through quotes said about them and the style they played. Over all this book was pretty good. There is a lot of information in this book, sometimes too much but I love baseball so I enjoyed getting a new point of view in this book. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in baseball. Oh and one thing this book does is it throws statistics at you and if you don?t know what RBI means or batting average or slugging percentage is then you might find yourself very confused and not a clue of the importance.
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