1954: The Year Willie Mays and the First Generation of Black Superstars Changed Major League Baseball Forever

Despite Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in 1947, only half of the sixteen major league teams had a black player on their roster when spring training commenced in 1954. However the growing tide of talent signed from the waning Negro Leagues and being nurtured in the minor league system would eventually cause sweeping changes in the composition of major league rosters. With preternaturally gifted stars such as Mays and Aaron already making their presence felt, even teams with serious reservations about integrating their rosters accepted the inevitable.
The Indians won the American League pennant in 1954 breaking the Yankees string of dominance. Center fielder Larry Doby was a major contributor to the Indians' success and the show more Yankees would finally squelch the racist impulses of management and add future star Elston Howard to their roster in 1955. The Red Sox would be the last team to integrate, waiting until 1959.
The then NY Giants would go on to upset the Indians by sweeping them in the 54' Series, a series which helped immortalize Mays with " The Catch." As he and other black superstars asserted their influence on the game, the likes of Clemente, Gibson ... waited in the wings. 1954 was a pivotal year in race relations, for baseball and for society, it was the same year as the Brown vs. Board decision was rendered, with far-reaching consequences.
This is a must-read narrative of an exciting season and a watershed year as America gradually came to grips with its moral blemish of institutional racism. show less