Movie Review – The League
The League is an informative and excellent documentary about the Negro League, the all Black baseball league that produced some of the greatest baseball players to ever play the game, like Jackie Robinson, Hank Aaron, and Satchel Paige. The film looks at how the League got started in the late 1800s, the struggles it faced, and the effect it had on Black America and its communities.
When most people think about the Negro League and Black baseball players, most immediately think about Jackie Robinson. The average baseball fan can probably think of a few other players that went from the Negro League to the majors and some might be able to name a few teams. In the hands of a lesser director and lesser storyteller, that would have been the main focus of The League. It would have started off talking about the history of the Negro League, but slowly transition into the importance of Jackie Robinson and everything that he did for Black people in baseball. There is a section of the film dedicated to Jackie Robinson, but director Sam Pollard, who directed the 2021 sports documentary, Citizen Ashe, about the iconic tennis player Arthur Ashe, gives us the full story of the Negro League and the result is rich and fascinating.
Pollard takes us back to the 1870s, right as baseball was just starting. Back then, baseball was an integrated sport and a man by the name of Moses Fleetwood Walker became the first black man to play professional baseball. Baseball stayed integrated until 1883 when Cap Anson of the Chicago White Stockings (now known as the Chicago Cubs), one of the best and most popular players at the time, said he would refuse to play baseball again if an African American was playing. This moment, along with the 1886 Supreme Court ruling of Plessy v. Ferguson was the starting point of creating an all-Black baseball league.
The most interesting aspect of the film was learning how influential the Negro League was on Major League Baseball and how good its players were. Players like Andrew “Rube” Foster, known as the “father of black baseball” not only invented the pitch known as the screwball and would go around teaching white pitchers how to throw it, but was considered by many to be the greatest baseball mind to ever play the game. He changed the way the game was played. He changed the strategy and understood how the athleticism of the Black players could play to the game’s advantage by stealing bases and bunting when you normally wouldn’t. We also learn more about the iconic pitcher Satchel Paige and catcher Josh Gibson, who was considered one of the best, if not the best, baseball players in the League. Pollard gives great insight into the players that made up the League and even gives us stats to show just how extraordinary these players were.
We also see how these players had an effect on the fans and the towns they lived in. When America became segregated, Black people built their own towns and ran the business in that town. The Negro League would bring people to these towns to watch these games and these towns would prosper because of it. Baseball was so popular and people were so excited for the games, they would move Sunday church service so that the times didn’t overlap with any of the games, which was a big deal in the Black community and only showed the power of baseball among Black people.
The League uses different mediums to tell this remarkable story. We get a lot of never-before-seen footage of the games, fun animation recreations, and incredible interviews from analysts, historians, former players, and members of the League. Hearing Jackie Robinson, Satchel Paige, Hank Aaron, and several other legends talk about their experience in the League was unbelievable to hear and see. The League is an essential documentary and celebration of Black history that everybody, baseball fan or not, should see.
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