Shadow Ball

After black players were driven from "organized baseball" by the mid-1880s, it would take another six decades before they returned to the white major leagues.

During those decades the greatest players of color initially barnstormed, sometimes entertaining fans with a realistic pantomime style of play called shadow ball, then later competing in the fabled Negro Leagues.

Satchel Paige (bottom image), Josh Gibson (top image), Cool Papa Bell, Oscar Charleston, and scores of other talented players starred in the Negro Leagues.

The signing of Jackie Robinson by the Dodgers in late 1945 (and his arrival in the majors with Brooklyn in 1947), while a tremendous event in American sport and social history, ironically meant the death knell for the leagues.