Wholesale Play Harder

No sport has been more associated with America’s sense of itself, with its identity, than baseball. No sport has been so inextricably bound with America’s traditions—with its notions of democracy and fair play—than baseball. And no professional sport in America has been as dramatically connected to social change as Major League Baseball when it became racially integrated the moment Jackie Robinson took the field with the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947.  Play Harder comes at a time when the history of Black baseball has become especially relevant—following MLB's recent recognition of the Negro Leagues as major leagues and the effort to incorporate statistics from the Negro Leagues into those for all players.