The League is a comprehensive documentary on the history of Negro League baseball. As one would expect from a Sam Pollard doc, it’s well-sourced and reveals some less well known history:
- Rube Foster, remembered as a pitching great and inventor of the screwball, was the impresario and strategic mind behind the first Negro League.
- Effa Manley, the canny co-owner of the Newark Eagles, was a pioneering female AND African-American businesswoman with the spunk, if not the resources, to stand up to MLB.
- The Negro Leagues’ surprisingly brief lifespan and even briefer glory days.
- Why the immensely talented, even Ruthian, Josh Gibson wasn’t put forward to integrate MLB (like Jackie Robinson was).
- How MLB execs like Branch Rickey and Bill Veeck worked with the Negro Leagues (or not).
- The painful trade-offs from the long-awaited integration of MLB.
The League is the work of filmmaker Sam Pollard, who directed the more compelling MLK/FBI. The League will appeal to those with interests in baseball and/or civil rights. The League is streaming on Amazon.