negro leagues

If you’re listening to this episode around the time when it’s being released, then you’ll be listening to this right on the last day of Black History Month in the United States. It should go without saying that Black History is American History, but we’re going to say it anyway, and we’ll add that it shouldn’t be confined just to the shortest month of the year but instead should be taught to our kids every day of the year, and should be talked about by us as grownups by an equal amount. 

This year, given where we are politically and nationally, we wanted to recognize another key day in February - February 19th. That’s the day when President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which forced 120,000 Japanese Americans (American citizens) to leave their homes and be relocated to concentration camps ON AMERICAN SOIL. They lost everything - their homes, their possessions, their businesses - but despite all of that, they fought to hold onto their dignity and as much of “normal life” as possible. Part of that normal life, for so many Japanese Americans, was the ultra-American pastime of baseball.

That’s exactly why we’re bringing you this episode today - an updated episode from last year where we talk about baseball, the Negro Leagues, and the history behind America’s favorite pastime - baseball - that you might not know, and probably weren’t taught in schools.

What to listen for:

• The story of how baseball bridged a racial divide during WWII between white and Japanese children.

• The separate (and decidedly not equal) conditions under which Black and white ballplayers had to play

• Names of some Black superstar baseball players who – if/when integrated into the Hall of Fame – would be as good or better than some of the MLB athletes we celebrate today

• How to talk with your kids, from kindergarten through high school, about this specific period of baseball in American history

Resources: 

Episode 50, Why Aren’t Black Kids Playing Baseball?  

Visit the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum

Society for AMerican Baseball Research – statistics

We Are The Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball

A Negro League Scrapbook

Mamie On The Mound

Who Were The Negro Leagues?

Undeniable: Negro League Women

Undeniable: International Impact

Undeniable: Jackie and Monte

To give us input on what you want from our newsletter, and/or share your Asian immigration stories, reach us via email at hello@dearwhitewomen.com.

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The SEO Controversy: Is TikTok a search engine?

YES! I vote Tik Tok IS a search engine! 🤣🤣🤣

I recap some of the ideas given in Zoe Ashbridge's episode to optimize content for money keywords.

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Life's challenges make entrepreneurship hard

• Entrepreneurs have challenges when life competes with family's health issues and busy schedules.
• I shared the challenges I faced this week with consistency 
• That's why I love the advice from experts on this podcast.

Create on evergreen platforms like TikTok make content work harder FOR YOU.

• TikTok is often used as a search engine. 
• Listen as I create a TikTok video targeting the keyword "buy wooden letters."

My favorite SEO tools: Google Search Console and Surfer SEO

• Google Search Console is all you need to analyze keyword performance.
• Surfer SEO is the BEST software to create optimized content.

Tracking SEO efforts

• Based on Zoe's recommendations, I created a spreadsheet to track SEO performance.
• KPIs include page impressions, clicks, traffic, and revenue.

Putting Content to work

• I created content around the keyword "buy wooden letters" 
• I used Surfer's AI tool to write an article.
• Join my SEO squad and  keep moving forward.

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Despite being acknowledged as one of the all time greats and a very deserving Hall of Famer, Roy Campanella's career doesn't get the appreciation it deserves because of its late start due to segregation and early finish due to an auto accident 61 years ago this week that left him paralyzed. Mike and Bill dig into his career and life at all its stages and come to love the man as much as it seems everyone else did. Also, happy birthday to George Burns and Tony Mullane.

On this episode, a second look at Pamela Watts in-depth interview with a transgender teenager looking to become her true self. Then we revisit a story about surfers out on Little Compton who many say are performing miracles. Finally, we take another look at the history of Black Baseball, featuring the Providence Colored Giants who played integrated baseball before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier.

In their second installment from this year's SABR Convention in Chicago, Mike and Mike and Bill talked to a couple people you're familiar with if you've listened to the podcast. Dan Levitt (@dlevs1), co-author of Intentional Balk: Baseball's Thin Line Between Innovation and Cheating returns to talk about how owners and GMs consistently circumvented the rules to keep promising players from winding up on the rosters of other big league clubs in the early part of the 20th century. Then, Sports Reference's Director of Product and unofficial (and unpaid) TWIBHistory Research Assistant Adam Darowski (@baseballtwit) talks about the Negro Leagues Are Major Leagues initiative 2 years after it was announced and his own incredible research into the 25th Infantry Wreckers, the best team you've never heard of and the players from it that went on to make the Kansas City Monarchs legendary.

Perhaps the greatest father/son pitching duo in baseball history, Luis E. and Luis C. Tiant pitched at least a total of 29 years at the big league level, and an unknown number of other seasons in the Caribbean and for high quality barnstormers. While they could not be more different on the mound, they were both exceptional, as the St. Louis Cardinals found out 87 years ago last week (we're a week late with this episode), when Luis Sr. beat them in Cuba in an exhibition contest. Mike and Bill look back at the long and exceptional career of two pitching geniuses, neither of whom are given nearly enough credit today.

Plus, happy birthday to Johnny Callison and Elmer Valo!

Larry Lester, the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) Negro League Committee Chair and co-founder of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City joined us for an exclusive interview this week.

Lester, also a prolific author Harry Chadwick Award winner for his exhaustive research into Negro Leagues history, spoke about Major League Baseball's long overdue recognition of the Negro Leagues as Major League Baseball. We discussed the process taken to compile Negro League statistics that will be merged into National and American League statistics. We discussed with Lester legendary players from the Negro Leagues like Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell and native Texan, Willie "The Devil" Wells and others.

Lester chairs the annual Jerry Malloy Negro League Conference which will be in Birmingham in late July. He has also written and edited numerous Negro League biographies, anthologies and historical non-fiction books that are available on Amazon. Lester is a treasure trove of information about this fascinating time in Major League history - we could have talked for hours!

We wrapped up the episode discussing Houston's troubled pro sports scene, including the James Harden trade and Rocket rebuild, the Texans' disgruntled star quarterback and tumultuous front office, and the Astro's signings and arbitration status as George Springer prepares to land elsewhere in free agency (looks like Toronto).