Unlike blacks, American Indians good enough to earn a spot on Major League Baseball rosters early in the 20th century weren’t told they couldn’t play.That’s the good news. The bad news is that despite an unofficial policy that worked something like “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” American Indians were often targets of the same racially based vitriol that marked Jackie Robinson’s entry into the game in 1947. Keeping a low profile may have worked for some, but for men like Louis Francis Sockalexis, prejudice was very much a part of the game and their lives.
That’s the view officials at the Iroquois Indian Museum in Howes Cave are hoping visitors will take away with them after seeing “Baseball’s League of Nations: A Tribute to Native American Baseball Players.” The exhibit will open Tuesday, April 1, and run through Dec. 31. full story
