Nicknames, folk heroes, and assimilation: black league baseball players, 1884-1950
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ABSTRACT:
The use of nicknames for baseball players in the black leagues, 1884-1950, is compared with that of major league players. Despite the exclusion of blacks from organized baseball from 1889 until 1946, there is a striking similarity in the use of nicknames. Both groups show an increase in the number of players accorded nicknames in the early decades of the twentieth century and then a steep decline in the 1940s and 1950s. It is suggested that this pattern is related to the rise and fall of American's belief in folk heroes. The congruence in the types of nicknames, actual nicknames, and the manner in which they were accorded to players in the black leagues and those in the major leagues, strongly suggests a culture of baseball which encompassed both blacks and whites. It is an indication of a degree of assimilation before 1947 when the first black player since 1884 played on a major league team. If baseball was America's national game and a microcosm of American society, then it was as much so for the black community as it was for the white community, even during the period of strict segregation. Examines and compares the use of nicknames in the black baseball leagues from 1884 to 1950 to those of major league baseball players. Data from Peterson's book ONLY THE BALL WAS WHITE is used to identify the nicknames of players in the black leagues. Finds that the frequency of the use of nicknames in the black leagues approximates that which is found in the major leagues and concludes that both sets of data are consistent with the rise and decline of the belief in the folk hero. Results support the idea that both blacks and whites may have been influenced by the same cultural forces.
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