In 1971, twenty-four years after Jackie Robinson first took the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers and well over a hundred years after the first black men began to play what would become the National Pastime, the National Baseball Hall of Fame created a special committee to recognize African-American athletes who played during baseball’s segregated period.  Subjected to the Jim Crow laws and attitudes of the times, these players were never given the opportunity to showcase their talents in the white major leagues.

 This “Hall of Fame Committee on Negro Baseball Leagues” selected only a representative nine players to illustrate the accomplishments of many great but unrecognized black players.  The token team of ebony stars included:  Satchel Paige, pitcher; Josh Gibson, catcher; Buck Leonard, first baseman; Martin Dihigo, second baseman; Judy Johnson, third baseman; Pop Lloyd, shortstop; Cool Papa Bell, leftfield; Oscar Charleston, centerfield, and Monte Irvin, right field.

 In the nearly two decades since the special committee disbanded after creating its “All-Star team,” the Hall of Fame’s Committee on Baseball Veterans has selected only two more Negro Leaguers:  Andrew “Rube” Foster, who founded the first league and was unaccountably overlooked in the initial process, and Ray Dandridge, the marvelous third baseman, who won most of his fame with the Newark Eagles.

 The Negro Leagues, therefore, are represented at Cooperstown by a single player at eight positions, two third basemen and an organizational figure.  This is a good start, but common sense (not to mention the memories of many fans and baseball figures) dictates that there were many more Hall-of-Fame-worthy Negro League players.  The message received, for example, is that only one pitcher from the black leagues was worthy of selection.  I would expect this phenomenal individual’s record to show all wins and no loses, because of his total domination.  Without argument, Paige was a great pitcher, but he was not alone, as he reminded everyone during the induction ceremonies, saying:  “There were may Satches and many Joshes.”  He later added, with homespun wisdom:  “Oh, we had men by the hundreds who could have made the big leagues, by the hundreds, not by the fours, twos or threes.  We had a lot of Satchel Paiges out there—men who could throw the ball as hard as me.  Ain’t no maybe so about it.”