The American Football League, established in 1960, was innovative both in its commitment to finding talented, overlooked players—particularly those who played for historically black colleges and universities—and in the decision by team owners to share television revenues.  In Mavericks, Money and Men, football historian Charles Ross chronicles the AFL’s key events,  including Buck Buchanan becoming the first overall draft pick in 1963, and the 1965 boycott led by black players who refused to play in the AFL-All Star game after experiencing blatant racism. He also recounts how the success of the AFL forced a merger with the NFL in 1969, which arguably facilitated the evolution of modern professional football. Ross shows how the league, originally created as a challenge to the dominance of the NFL, pressured for and ultimately accelerated the racial integration of pro football and also allowed the sport to adapt to how African Americans were themselves changing the game.

Product Description: When the Philadelphia Phillies signed Dick Allen in 1960, fans of the franchise envisioned bearing witness to feats never before accomplished by a Phillies player. A half-century later, they're still trying to make sense of what they saw...read more

Product Description: In 1947, as the integration of Major League Baseball began, the once-daring American League had grown reactionary, unwilling to confront postwar challenges--population shifts, labor issues and, above all, racial integration. The league had matured in the Jim Crow era, when northern cities responded to the Great Migration by restricting black access to housing, transportation, accommodations and entertainment, while blacks created their own institutions, including baseball's Negro Leagues...read more

Product Description: A 2013 CASEY Award Finalist for Best Baseball Book of the Year and a Booklist Top Ten Sports Book of the YearWhen baseball swept America in the years after the Civil War, independent, semipro, and municipal leagues sprouted up everywhere...read more

Product Description: In 1968, noted sociologist Harry Edwards established the Olympic Project for Human Rights, calling for a boycott of that year's games in Mexico City as a demonstration against racial discrimination in the United States and around the world...read more

Product Description: These books examine a significant event or time period in African American history; every effort is made to place the topic in context, so readers will understand the connection between black history and the broad sweep of America's story...read more

Product Description: The 1971 Pirates of Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell, Bill Mazeroski, Dock Ellis, and Steve Blass are among my all-time favorite teams, and their spectacular World Series win over the Orioles of Earl Weaver, Frank Robinson, Brooks Robinson, Jim Palmer, and Dave McNally is one of the great baseball upsets of the postwar era...read more

The NPR Weekend Edition broadcaster recounts the 1947 integration of major league baseball, capturing the drama of Jackie Robinson's first year in baseball.