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Date

2025

Abstract

Studies of Negro Leagues baseball from 1920 through the 1950s address various aspects of the organization and operation of the leagues and provide portraits of the teams, players, and other prominent individuals. However, there were earlier attempts by Black teams to organize leagues during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Given the many proposed and short-lived leagues prior to 1920, the focus of this monograph is the proposals that included teams from Kansas City. None of the leagues proposed before the First World War survived beyond its inaugural season, but the number of proposals offered during a span of three decades reflects a persistent interest in a Black baseball league. Their failures provide insight into some of the challenges that had to be overcome before the Negro National League could be organized in Kansas City in 1920. The various proposals from 1890 through 1916 for leagues including Kansas City and the challenges the organizers faced are described. This essay was originally published in 2019 and has undergone revisions and corrections for its release in 2025 as part of the five-volume anthology Peeking through the Knothole. The open-access, digital version of this essay is available through the “Download” button on this webpage. The print-on-demand version is available through the “Buy this Book” button for volume four of the anthology (Black Baseball in Kansas City, 1870–1919).

Keywords

Negro Leagues, Negro National League, Negro National Baseball League, National Negro League, National Negro Baseball League, Kansas City Kansas Giants, Kansas City Royal Giants, Kansas City Royal Americans

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© The Author (s)

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Originally Published 2019

Revised Edition 2025

Toward a Black Baseball League for Kansas City, 1898–1916: Proposals and Challenges, Revised

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