Bergino Baseball Clubhouse

“Desegregation in baseball was hard on everybody.”  -Monte Irvin, Hall of Famer An extraordinary history of the Negro Leagues and the economic disruptions of desegregating a sport Roberta Newman and Joel Nathan Rosen examine how the relationship between black baseball and black businesses functioned, particularly in urban areas with significant African American populations.  Inextricably bound together by circumstance, these sports and business alliances faced destruction and upheaval. Once Jackie Robinson and a select handful of black baseball’s elite gained acceptance in Major League Baseball and financial stability in the mainstream economy, shock waves traveled throughout the black business world.  Though the economic impact on Negro League baseball is perhaps obvious due to its demise, the impact on other black-owned businesses and on segregated neighborhoods is often undervalued if not outright ignored in current accounts.  We know about the great individual players who played in the Negro Leagues