The Integration of the Pacific Coast League: Race and Baseball on the West Coast by Amy Essington

Reviewed by: The Integration of the Pacific Coast League: Race and Baseball on the West Coast by Amy Essington David Lucander Amy Essington. The Integration of the Pacific Coast League: Race and Baseball on the West Coast. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2018. 192 pp. Paper, $19.95 The history of baseball's color line and its dissolution is well understood. Jackie Robinson is a household name, and the film 42 reaffirmed his place in the litany of heroic Americans for a new generation. Likewise, Branch Rickey's executive leadership at this vital moment is also broadly recognized. The shattering of this barrier opened the door for many of the game's most celebrated players including Willie Mays, Ernie Banks, Hank Aaron, and Roberto Clemente. Integration's prehistory of Moses Fleetwood Walker and Cap Anson is also well-known, and mentioned in just about every credible single-volume history of the sport. There is a rich historiographical body about baseball's integration, and we know this story through and through—at least we thought we did. Amy Essington's The Integration of the Pacific Coast League: Race and Baseball on the West Coast points towards the underappreciated and vastly overlooked Minor League Baseball (MiLB) as an important new direction for scholars interested in baseball's desegregation. With just over one hundred pages of text structured into five chapters, this book is a quick read narrating the five years between 1948–1952 that saw the Pacific Coast League (PCL) become the first thoroughly integrated league in baseball's history. The book is bolstered by roughly a dozen previously unpublished images of key players, a useful appendix charting each team's pioneering "firsts," and an impressive bibliography of secondary sources that should delight any serious scholar. Although structurally sound, some readers may be irked by the author's choppy writing, frequent repetition of statements, and overall lack of narrative. John Ritchey, Artie Wilson, and Jimmie Claxton are key players that Essington focuses on. Ritchey debuted with the San Diego Padres in 1948, and was the league's only African American player during that season. Wilson came up with the Oakland Oaks in the following year, and as a member of the [End Page 248] PCL Hall of Fame is certainly the most prominent of the players in this book. Claxton is an interesting historical footnote because this African American athlete briefly pitched for the Oaks under the guise of being Native American in 1916. Through Claxton, Essington rightly considers race and sport beyond the white/black color line commonly associated the Jim Crow era. Examining pioneering players of Latino, Asian, and Native American heritage, the author reveals how stereotypes framed the discourse about how racial minorities performed on the field and interacted with their teammates. More importantly, she shows that that the experience of black players in America's game is unique because of this history of exclusion. The full force of Essington's scholarly intervention will not germinate until other historians continue this project. Working with scant archival resources scattered throughout various historical societies scattered through the western states and at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Library, Essington had frustratingly little to use in terms of new primary sources. She notes that owners of teams left almost no records, and neither did many of the players. Since Essington relies so heavily on local newspapers and the broader African American press, the scope and scale of this monograph is limited. Additional scholarship is needed to explore the subject of MiLB integration. Specific to the PCL, research is needed to better know what life was like off the field for the players Essington writes about. What forms of de jure segregation did they face? What were travel conditions like, and where did they board during the season? To what extent did they interact with African American communities at home and when on the road? In what ways, if any, were these communities inspired by Robinson's presence on the Brooklyn Dodgers and push for integration in their own cities? Did African American communities notice changes happening in their local ballparks, and how did they respond to it? What impact did these...

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