If you didn’t grow up in Pittsburgh (which boasted rival baseball greats the Homestead Grays and the Pittsburgh Crawfords) or watch Episode 5 of the 1994 Ken Burns docu-series “Baseball,” you may not know much about the Negro Leagues.
That’s about to change.Sam Pollard’s “The League” is an eye-opening slice of American baseball’s 154-year history.
In fact, the recent rule changes imposed on the Majors by Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred were inspired in part by the practices of the Negro Leagues: while Babe Ruth focused on home runs (like many players today), these extraordinary Black athletes favored a fast, hit-and-run, base-stealing game.“If you watch footage of Jackie Robinson from the ’40s and the ’50s, his style of play, his aggressiveness, all came from the Negro Leagues,” Oscar-nominated documentary director Pollard told IndieWire during a recent interview.
“If you watch the players who integrated Major League Baseball,…
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