National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum

"If We Can Stop Bullets, Why Not Balls?"

IT SEEMED BEYOND EXPLANATION. Nate Moreland, Kansas City Monarchs star said, "I can play in Mexico but I have to fight for America where I cannot play." Yet efforts to integrate major league baseball during World War II, in the face of severe player shortages, failed. Even in the military, African-American soldiers and sailors played on integrated baseball teams abroad, but on segregated teams in the States.

As the war ended and the protests grew steadily louder, Happy Chandler, the new commissioner of baseball, changed the rules. "If they [African Americans] can fight and die on Okinawa, Guadalcanal, in the South Pacific, they can play baseball in America."

The door stood slightly ajar. Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson pushed it open and walked through. The Negro leagues were doomed. Major league baseball entered a new era.

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