The History of Integration in Major League Baseball
Abstract:
Over the course of time in baseball’s history, one big barrier has stopped the nation’s pastime from being a great game. The issue of race in America during its early years of the 20th century not only was a transcendent ideology nationally but intertwined within professional sports. Baseball, which was the nations rallying call following both World Wars and was continually one of the nation’s favorite sports as the years moved on into the 1960’s and 1970’s, operated upon a segregated system, where people of color could not play with their white counterparts. With racism running rampant during the 1950’s and 1960’s, two athletes would change the playing field forever. Jackie Robinson and Roberto Clemente, through both their on the field and off the field personas would go on to foster a new generation of baseball and sport, by globalizing what was once an American game, into a worldwide sport. Without both pioneers, baseball and professional sports would not be what it is today.