King Solomon “Sol” White wrote about the plight of the late 19th Century and early 20th Century African-American professional baseball player, of which he himself experienced. Born June 12, 1868 in Bellaire, Ohio, White played with teams in the minor league system of white professional baseball in the 1880s. In the 1890s when the color line became solidified banning African-American and dark-skinned Hispanics, he then played with a number of the best Negro baseball teams and later the co-owner/manager of the Philadelphia Giants, one of the best black teams of the early 1900s. His book written in 1907, “History of Colored Baseball”, gives a picture of obstacles he and other African-American professional baseball players faced as the game began its journey to become “the National Pastime”.
In 2006, Sol White and fifteen other individuals from the Negro League baseball era were inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. I profile the 2006 inductees in my book “Last Train to Cooperstown: The 2006 Baseball Hall of Fame Inductees from the Negro League Baseball Era”. The following is a book exert from my profile of Sol White:
“In 1890 Sol White played for the Monarchs of York,
Pennsylvania. The team’s owner, J. Monroe Kreiter, had also
attracted many of the players from the previous year’s Cuban
Giants. Failing in their attempt to get higher salaries from the
Giants’ owner, John M. Bright, the players were easily lured away by
the money that Kreiter offered. The Monarchs represented the city
of York in the Eastern Interstate League. It would be one of the last
breaks in the color line.
White played briefly in 1895 with Fort Wayne, Indiana of the
Western Interstate League. It would be the last time he played on an
integrated team. As the 1890s came to a close there were no black
players in organized white baseball. The ‘invisible color line” had
been set and would stay intact for over 40 years.
With the door to Major League professional baseball closed for
African-American players, Sol White continued his career in the
1890s with teams that were a part of Negro League baseball’s
early beginnings. They were African-American teams that played
small town white semi‐pro teams, other black teams, and anyone
that wanted to play them. No official Negro League existed at that
time. He played for the Cuban Giants in 1893 –1894, the Page
Fence Giants in 1895, the Cuban X Giants in 1896 –1899, and the
Chicago Columbia Giants in 1900. All of which were top African
American professional teams of that period.
In 1902 White joined forces with white sportswriter H. Walter
Schlichter to start a new black team, the Philadelphia Giants. As co-owner,
team manager, and one of the team’ top players, White
built what some called one of the best black teams of the new
century’ first ten years. Some of the best black players of that time
such as Frank Grant, Pete Hill, Charlie Grant, Grant “Home Run Johnson”
Philadelphia Giants (Sol White fifth from left on back row)
To read more about the Negro League baseball era Last Train to Cooperstown
