Cracks in the Outfield Wall

The History of Baseball Integration in the Carolinas

Chris Holaday

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Year: 2024
• eBook ISBN:
  9781469678863
• Print ISBN:
  9781469678856
  9781469678849
• Subtopic: North American History

The best-known story of integration in baseball is Jackie Robinson, who broke the major league color line in 1947 after coming up through the minor leagues the previous year. His story, however, differs from those of the many players who integrated the game in the Jim Crow South at all professional levels. Chris Holaday offers readers the first book-length history of baseball’s integration in the Carolinas, showing its slow and unsteady progress, narrating the experience of players in a range of distinct communities, detailing the influence of baseball executives at the local and major league levels, and revealing that the changing structure of the professional baseball system allowed the major leagues to control integration at the state level. Holaday illuminates many smaller stories along the way, including desegregation in Little League and American Legion baseball, the first Black players to play in the tiny foothills town of Granite Falls, North Carolina, and the pipeline of Afro-Cuban players from Havana to the Carolina leagues.

By showing how race and the national pastime intersected at the local level, Holaday offers readers new context to understand the long struggle of equality in the game.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Author’s Note
• Introduction
• AMERICAN LEGION, EPISODE I
• ONLY AN ISSUE FOR THE AMERICANS
• AMERICAN LEGION, EPISODE II
• EXHIBITIONISTS AND BARNSTORMERS
• TRUE BEGINNINGS
• ON THE ROCKS IN GRANITE FALLS
• ALONG THE COASTAL PLAIN
• THE CUBAN CONNECTION
• TROUBLE IN THE TRI-STATE
• BILL WHITE
• AMERICAN LEGION, EPISODE III
• BLACK PIRATES AND LUCKIES (ALMOST)
• FRANK ROBINSON
• THE CUBAN CONNECTION, CONTINUED
• TROUBLE IN THE TRI-STATE, AGAIN
• THE SAD TALE OF TOM ALSTON
• MVP
• SATCHEL
• THE UNDEFEATED
• THE CONUNDRUM OF CURT FLOOD
• SALLY SURVIVES A THREAT
• THE OTHER JOHN KENNEDY
• BLACK BULLS
• CHARLESTON
• JACKIE PAYS A VISIT
• .400
• TONY O
• SPARTANBURG RETURNS— AND INTEGRATES!
• KINGS OF THE CAROLINA LEAGUE
• AMERICAN LEGION, EPISODE IV
• STADIUM SEATS
• LEGACY
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index