MAJOR-LEAGUE BASEBALLS MONOPOLY POWER AND THE NEGRO LEAGUES

Did the Negro Leagues of the first half of this century have to dissol ve the way that they did? Historians attribute their failure to integr ation. It is true that the very existence of teams of Black players wa s due to the invidious exclusion of Black players from Major League Ba seball. However, the demise of the Negro Leagues was not an inevitable consequence of the Major Leagues' inclusion of Black players after Ja ckie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers fifty years ago. The absorpt ion of one or more teams into the Major Leagues might have been a poss ibility if the Negro League owners had understood the monopoly forces they faced, if the civil rights community had been supportive of the o wners, and/or if the Major League owners could have overcome their big otry.