"If We Can Stop Bullets, Why Not Balls?" Baseball Enlists
  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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  Baseball Enlists
War Threatens Baseball
Changing Uniforms
War Dominates Baseball
Baseballs Like Concrete
A New Ball Game
Uncle Sam's Teams
Baseballs in Backpacks
The Uncertainty of Peace
"If We Can Stop Bullets ..."
Rosie the Outfielder
One Man's War



Baseball Enlists
War Threatens Baseball | Changing Uniforms
War Dominates Baseball | Baseballs Like Concrete
A New Ball Game | Uncle Sam's Teams
Baseball in Backpacks | The Uncertainty of Peace
"If We Can Stop Bullets ..." | Rosie the Outfielder
One Man's War
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