Ted Reinstein — Before Brooklyn: The Unsung Heroes Who Helped Break Baseball’s Color Barrier

Join the Boston Public Library for an online talk with Emmy Award winning local journalist Ted Reinstein, who has been a reporter with "Chronicle" on Boston's WCVB-TV since 1995. He'll discuss his new book Before Brooklyn: The Unsung Heroes Who Helped Break Baseball’s Color Barrier (Lyons Press, November 2021), which tells the story of the little-known heroes, such as Moses Fleetwood Walker, communist newspaper reporters, and Pullman car porters, who fought segregation in baseball, including within the Boston Red Sox.

Due to the recent surge in COVID-19, we are now only offering this program online over Zoom webinar. To attend, please visit this link to register: https://boston-public-library.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_bR_sqz0rRVm7HnFFX28L4Q.

One of our local independent bookstore partners, Trident Booksellers & Cafe, has copies available for purchase online at https://www.tridentbookscafe.com/event/bpl-event-ted-reinstein-%E2%80%94-brooklyn. Use the code BPLSHIP for free media mail delivery!

About the book:

In April of 1945, exactly two years before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in major league baseball, liberal Boston City Councilman Izzy Muchnick persuaded the Red Sox to try out three Black players in return for a favorable vote to allow the team to play on Sundays. The Red Sox got the councilman’s much-needed vote, but the tryout was a sham; the three players would get no closer to the major leagues. It was a lost battle in a war that was ultimately won by Robinson in 1947. This book tells the story of the little-known heroes who fought segregation in baseball, from communist newspaper reporters to the Pullman car porters who saw to it that Black newspapers espousing integration in professional sports reached the homes of Black people throughout the country.

It also reminds us that the first Black player in professional baseball was not Jackie Robinson but Moses Fleetwood Walker in 1884, and that for a time integrated teams were not that unusual. And then, as segregation throughout the country hardened, the exclusion of Black people in baseball quietly became the norm, and the battle for integration began anew.

About the author:

Ted Reinstein has been a reporter for “Chronicle,” WCVB-TV/Boston’s award-winning—and America’s longest-running, locally-produced—nightly news magazine since 1997. In addition, he has been a contributor for the station’s political roundtable show and sits on WCVB’s editorial board. He lives just west of Boston with his wife and two daughters. He is also the author of New England Notebook (Globe, 2013) and Wicked Pissed (Globe, 2016).

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