J.L. Wilkinson and the Kansas City Monarchs Trailblazers in Black Baseball

"Finally, a comprehensive narrative about one of the most influential power brokers in black baseball history, and the owner of the Negro League's longest-running franchise. Young reveals Wilkinson's personal challenges, as a white man, to integrate the landscape of black baseball, while winning a few championships along the way. This is a must read for any sports fan!"--Larry Lester, author, historian, and chairman of SABR's Negro Leagues Committee "An important story of an important man. Young does a masterful job of finding the intersections of race, baseball, and finance in Wilkinson's life and that of the Monarchs, allowing them to drive the narrative of the owner and his team."--Thomas Aiello, author, The Kings of Casino Park: Black Baseball in the Lost Season of 1932. Baseball pioneer J. L. Wilkinson (1878-1964) was the owner and founder, in 1920, of the famed Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Leagues. The only white owner in the Negro National League (NNL), Wilkinson earned a reputation for treating players with fairness and respect. He began his career in Iowa as a player, later organizing a traveling women's team in 1908 and the multiracial All-Nations club in 1912. He led the Monarchs to two Negro Leagues World Series championships and numerous pennants in the NNL and the Negro American League. During the Depression he developed an ingenious portable lighting system for night games, credited with saving black baseball. He resurrected the career of legendary pitcher Satchel Paige in 1938 and in 1945 signed a rookie named Jackie Robinson to the Monarchs. Wilkinson was posthumously inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006, joining 14 Monarchs players.