#Shortstops: Dreams Achieved

The 1948 Negro Leagues East vs. West All-Star Game took place just one year after Jackie Robinson reintegrated baseball and came at a pivotal time for the game.

While baseball was beginning to reintegrate, it meant that the Negro Leagues were also beginning to decline. An advertisement preserved in the Museum’s collection symbolizes the end of the golden era for the Negro Leagues.

The talent that can be seen in this advertisement is outstanding. The annual East-West All-Star Game featured two games in 1948. The first game was played at Comiskey Park, while the other was played in New York. The advertisement is specifically for the New York game played at Yankee Stadium on Aug. 24 – called the “Dream Game.”

The game featured the Negro National League matched up against the Negro American League All-Stars. Star players, including Minnie Miñoso, Buck Leonard and Willard Brown, participated in this game. All three of these players went on to become Hall of Famers, and 13 of the players in the East-West All-Star Game later went on to play in the AL or NL, which is the most ever for the that game. The advertisement was labeled as the “World’s Greatest Negro Sporting Event.”

The photograph in the advertisement shows Luscious “Luke” Easter, who was rumored to have hit a 490-foot home run at the Polo Grounds that traveled over the center field wall. The advertisements were created to help spread the word about the game and create a buzz around it. The event was expected to have the highest attendance numbers at an East-West All-Star Game with more than 40,000 fans; however, not even half of that number attended the game.

While the attendance may have been underwhelming, the play certainly was not. Miñoso was a bright spot throughout the game, going 2-for-2 with two doubles in the contest. The East team went on to win the game 6-1. The game was then followed by a moment of silence for Babe Ruth, who had passed away eight days prior to the game.

The 1948 East-West All-Star Game symbolized a transitional phase within the Negro Leagues and Major League Baseball. Much of the top talent in the Negro Leagues was beginning to move into the American and National leagues. The shift was evident from around this point on, and the Negro Leagues soon began to fade away. The photograph shows a critical time in history that saw the end coming for All-Black teams and All-Star games, which marked the beginning of a new era that would shape the AL and NL.

Jayden Trawick-Junta was a 2024 programming intern in the Frank and Peggy Steele Internship Program for Leadership Development