Visual Arts
Black Giants Remembered
By By Sidik Fofana—SeeingBlack.com Contributing Writer
Oct 29, 2008, 11:27

In Heroes of the Negro Leagues (Abrams), a book in the form of hand-painted baseball cards, storied African-American baseball players finally get their due.

Thanks to illustrator Mark Chiarello and author/artist Jack Morelli, these players—some of whom would have died in obscurity—get more of the recognition they deserve. The Negro Leagues operated for about 30 years, from 1920 to 1950, churning out amazing athletes and entertaining Black audiences across the country. When the Brooklyn Dodgers integrated Major League Baseball by drafting Jackie Robinson in 1946, other major league teams soon followed suit, draining the Negro Leagues of much of their best talent. The cards and written profiles in Heroes of the Negro Leagues do not merely rattle off statistics about this era but tell stories and expand on legends.

While many sports fans are familiar with Negro League superstars such as Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson and Jackie Robinson, fewer know names such as Willie Foster who “pitched both games of a doubleheader in the hot sun, the second start being against Paige, and he emerged with two complete game victories,” or Martin Dihigo whose name in his native Cuba “is the equivalent of Babe Ruth’s or Joe Dimaggio’s in America.” This treasure of book includes these stories. Each profile comes complete with the player’s birthday, birthplace and year he was inducted to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

As much as Morelli celebrates these heroes, he also documents the tragedies as well. In between Herculean tales of tremendous athletic prowess are stories of players who died young or stars who wasted their prime with alcoholism. This collection of cards also includes the documentary “Only The Ball Was White,” as a DVD supplement.

This is one set of trading cards that does not have to change hands to increase in value because its value to African-American history self-appreciates.


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