Leagues Apart: The Men and Times of the Negro Baseball Leagues

by Lawrence S. Ritter, Richard Merkin (Illustrator)

"As handsome a book on the Negro Leagues as any child could hope to see, this focuses on 21 players, from Smokey Joe Williams to Cool Papa Bell to Jackie Robinson. Ritter writes with feeling about the history of the Negro Leagues, how Negro baseball differed from the majors, and what it contributed to the sport, but the main focus is on individual players...Illustrations are outstanding."--Booklist. "A worthwhile addition to any young ballplayer's library."--Publisher's Weekly.

Genres: Baseball

1 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 1995

Reviews

[Scott Parker]

Leagues Apart: The Men and Times of the Negro Baseball Leagues was a fun book to read. It focused on individual athletes that played in these leagues during that time. I especially enjoyed the author's descriptive writing.

[Pauline]

Often books written for children or youth are the best ones for adults who want the simple knowledge without so much extraneous information. Here was a quick book with facts everyone should know—especially baseball fans. I’ve read quite a bit about the Negro Leagues and still learned some new things. Since I was young, I’ve always loved the history of the negro leagues—some of my all-time favorite players got their start there. I’ve always felt it was our (today’s baseball fans) responsibility to remember and honor these men who had such courage, grit, guts to do what they did even when baseball wasn’t fair to them. Mr. Ritter has another winning book here and I appreciated his comment at the end of the book that expresses my feelings as well, “it’s too late to compensate these fine athletes for what they lost through no fault of their own, but the least we can do is remember their names and honor their memories.”

[Hope Gockenbach]

Leagues Apart is a non-fiction book about 21 African American baseball players. All were a part of either the Negro American League or the Negro National League until the 1950s when they began integrating black and white baseball players. This book does a great job honoring the skill that these players had. Many of them joined the major league when it finally became acceptable, but many of them did not get the chance, and this book did a wonderful job remembering the ones who never got the chance. I think that this is a great book for kids to read when they are going through the history of the 40s and 50s. It does a good job pointing out the flaws in American thinking at that time. It was an ugly time in history and to have many African American baseball players excel is an amazing thing to read about. I love how the author points out the point in history when the National League President Ford Frick stood up to the white baseball players who were protesting integration and told them that one citizen had as much right to play as another. I think this book did a good job honoring the history of baseball, specifically the Negro Leagues, and I would highly recommend that children see this book.

[Jon Van]

I love this book because it brings good information about the Negro Leagues and some of the stars of that league. Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson were some of the best players baseball has ever seen and I think that they are mostly overlooked because they spent most of their time in the Negro Leagues. This book is on the biography and multicultural shelf and shows great traits of idea and organization. I would use this book to read to the class for a baseball theme or during Black History Month. I would also have it available on the bookshelf for students to read at any time.

Reading level: 5.2