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'Pride Against Prejudice' Negro Leagues exhibit recalls struggle against segregationPosted: Sunday February 02, 2003 6:28 PMLITTLE FALLS, N.J. (AP) -- Josh Gibson belted 962 home runs -- 248 more than Babe Ruth. When Satchel Paige beat the legendary pitcher Dizzy Dean in a 1934 all-star exhibition, Dean, who had just won 30 games for the St. Louis Cardinals that season, called him the greatest pitcher he had ever seen. And the 1946 Newark Eagles, with a roster that featured four future Hall of Famers, is regarded as one of the greatest baseball teams ever. But their success, like that of the individual players in the Negro Leagues, went largely unknown for decades as baseball maintained a strict segregation policy that kept some of the best players of their era -- or any other, for that matter --from enjoying the same fame and fortune as white players. The history of that struggle is on permanent display at the Yogi Berra Museum & Learning Center, which recently acquired one of the country's largest and most historically significant collections of Negro Leagues memorabilia. Titled "Pride Against Prejudice: A History of the Negro Leagues," the exhibit, which opened in November, includes more than 300 bats, autographed baseballs, caps, jerseys, photographs, tickets, yearbooks and other items. Part of it is on view now; the rest will be on display when the museum expands in about two years in a gallery named in honor of Larry Doby, the first black to play in the American League. He broke in with the Cleveland Indians 11 weeks after Jackie Robinson smashed the color barrier with the National League's Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. The museum bought the collection for $300,000 from Richard Berg, a New York City composer and producer who founded the Negro Leagues Players Association in 1989 to try to provide pensions to former players. Appraisers say the items could fetch two to three times that amount if auctioned off separately, but Berg wanted it kept intact and in the New York metro area, particularly given the teams' history in Newark, Jersey City and Paterson, N.J. "Just think of how we were all cheated out of seeing and knowing about these ballplayers you never heard of who would have been household names," Berg said. "I feel cheated that I never saw Josh Gibson play ball and compared him to Babe Ruth." Berg amassed the collection from 1989 to 2002, acquiring items from auctions, memorabilia dealers and directly from players. He estimates its value at $500,000. "It was sitting in my closet gathering dust," he said. "I said, 'Why don't we get the money out of it and send it somewhere where people can enjoy it?' This stuff doesn't belong in anyone's closet." The collection includes a program from a 1924 game billed as "East Versus West for World's Colored Championship," pitting Hilldale, a suburban Philadelphia team, against the Kansas City Monarchs. The program, which cost 25 cents, is one of only two known to exist, and is worth at least $20,000, said Dave Kaplan, the museum's director. A "Negro Baseball Pictorial Yearbook" from 1944 features Buck Leonard tossing a ball next to a photo of a black GI tossing a hand grenade. The exhibit also includes a 30-cent bleacher ticket to the Sept. 30, 1934 "Colored World Series Classic" at Yankee Stadium; a rare autographed ball from slugger Oscar Charleston; a Newark Eagles cap and jersey worn by Hall of Famer Monte Irvin at a Negro Leagues tribute ceremony at Shea Stadium in 1992; and an autographed photo of a smiling James "Cool Papa" Bell, considered by many to be the fastest man ever to play baseball -- who routinely went from first to third on sacrifice bunts. There's also a Cuban baseball card of Hilldale pitcher Jesse "Nip" Winters, who pitched four complete games and posted a 1.16 ERA in the first Negro Leagues World Series in 1927. The card was made in Havana because no one in the United States manufactured baseball cards of black players.
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