Black Baseball's National Showcase

The verdict is in. Whatever the deficiencies of the black baseball leagues as a source of reliable statistics, no one now doubts that when the best black players assembled for theøannual East-West games, which for a generation paralleled the white All-Star games, the concentration of ability on the field was second to none.

This work brings together for the first time the painstakingly assembled history of those games, including reconstructed play-by-plays and accurate statistical records. Larry Lester recaptures the vigor of black communities' united attention to the event, describes the players whose talent brought them to this pinnacle of achievement, and discusses the maneuvers of promoters, gamblers, and petty tyrants who cast an occasional shadow on the sunlit fields of Chicago.