Carrying Jackie's Torch by Steve Jacobson

According to Steve Jacobson in Carrying Jackie's Torch, the story of integrating major league baseball did not end with Jackie Robinson surviving his first year with the Brooklyn Dodgers. For the next dozen years an unpublicized quota kept the number of black players down , and the men who followed the Dodger second baseman faced entrenched discrimination. In some cities, not all in the South, they had to eat in kitchens while their white teammates ate in dining rooms. They were restricted to certain cars of trains. They were not allowed into many of the team hotels. Abuse from the bigots in the stands and hate mail dogged them whenever they excelled.

In separate chapters in Carrying Jackie's Torch, Jacobson tells the stories of eighteen players and Emmett Ashford, the first black umpire in the major leagues. Several of the players are lesser known, but many are stars, like Ernie Banks, Frank Robinson, Bob Gibson, and Henry Aaron. The saddest of the tales are those of Charlie Murray, who found the discrimination in the minor leagues unbearable, and Curt Flood, who challenged the baseball reserve clause that kept players enslaved to their teams.

Jacobson says that he wants current players, with their big salaries and many perks, to read about these men who made modern baseball possible. He also argues that integration of baseball and other sports was essential to the success of the civil right movement. Public and school libraries should own this book.

Jacobson, Steve. Carrying Jackie's Torch: The Players Who Integrated Baseball - and America. Lawrence Hill Books, 2007. ISBN 1556526393