‘Just wanted to play baseball’: New exhibit celebrates the men who integrated the sport

Frank Jordan recalls the weekends when he’d travel with his father’s baseball team on a bus across the American South, from Georgia to the Carolinas, on their way to the next game.

His father was a pitcher for the Southern division of the Negro Leagues — leagues for Black players from the 1920s through the ’40s, when segregation prevented them from playing in the majors.

Motivated by a deep love of the game, his team’s were just some of the roughly 3,400 players in several Negro Leagues across the country.

“These guys were rock stars,” he recalled of his father and his teammates Friday at the San Diego Central Library, where a popup exhibit about the Negro Leagues and their contributions to American baseball is now on display.

The exhibit, “Barrier Breakers,” journeys through the leagues’ history, showcases jerseys and other memorabilia and introduces 17 of the Black and Latino players who went on to integrate baseball — from Jackie Robinson, who signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, to Elijah Jerry “Pumpsie” Green, who ed the Boston Red Sox in 1959.

There’s also a special tribute to Johnny Ritchey, the San Diego Padres’ first Black player. Ritchey — a lifelong San Diegan — played baseball through high school and for San Diego State College.

“Johnny never wanted to be a pioneer,” Bill Swank, a San Diego baseball historian who was good friends with Ritchey, said in an email. “He just wanted to play baseball.”

The exhibit, part of a traveling display from the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Mo., marks the culmination of about two years of planning and fundraising with organizations like the Padres and the San Diego Unified School District.

For Jordan, the exhibit’s lead coordinator, it’s an opportunity for visitors to learn about the Negro Leagues and keep the history alive, especially as the Trump istration moves to downplay Black history and dismantle diversity initiatives across the federal government.

“This exhibit tells the truth about our history,” Jordan says. “And our history is not that good sometimes, so we have to live up to our mistakes.”

In recent months, the Trump istration has taken steps to remove references to Black Americans’ work and achievements from federal websites and institutions.

Nearly 400 books were removed from the U.S. Naval Academy’s library, including Maya Angelou’s memoir of her struggles with racism. The istration removed a ban on segregated facilities in federal contracts. And an article on Jackie Robinson’s military service was deleted from the Defense Department website, then later reinstated.

“You can take an eraser to it on paper,” Jordan said, “but you can’t erase reality.”

The reality was “rough,” the 78-year-old added.

As a kid, Jordan would tag along with his father’s team as the “bat boy” — tasked with picking up the bats during a game after the batter hit a ball and went running.

To avoid the racist hostility that came with visiting stores and businesses on the commute to games, the team would bring along spare bus parts and gasoline, he recalls. Instead of stopping to use a restroom, they would pull over on the side of the road.

His mom, along with the other team ’ wives and girlfriends, made the players shoebox lunches, pre-made meals so they could dine on the road.

There wasn’t much money in the game, either. During one game, ticket sales raised $80, which the 20 players split evenly, each earning $4.

But he has fond memories, he said. On Sundays, the whole community would come out to a game after church. The leagues also helped promote Black businesses and fuel the economies of local communities.

“They played for the love of the game,” Jordan says, adding that the leagues “gave people something to look up to.”

And when players like Robinson, Larry Doby and Henry Thompson were signed to teams in the major league, Jordan said it filled the community with pride — despite how it hastened the Negro Leagues’ decline, and despite how long a road they had traveled to get there.

“It was like a sense of hope,” Jordan said. “Things changing.”

“Barrier Breakers” will be on display on the eighth floor of the San Diego Central Library until May 31.