'The League' documentary on Negro Leagues baseball 'an American story that needs to be told'
The Newark Eagles in Dugout in 1936, from THE LEAGUE, a Magnolia Pictures release. © Yale University Art Gallery. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.
The story of Negro Leagues baseball has been told many times, even if it still seems unreal in this relatively more enlightened age.
But two things drove famed documentary filmmaker Sam Pollard as he mined the topic again in “The League,” which premiered last Monday at the Tribeca Festival and will be coming to AMC theaters on July 7 and others on July 14.
One is that there always are more details to uncover. The other is that some subjects need persistent retelling to reach new audiences and generations.
“As a filmmaker, that’s always what I find interesting in making these films,” the director told Newsday. “You learn things. You are able to dig things out. You are able to give it more layering to make it much more complicated.”
Complicated it was.
For example, one of the film’s central themes is the positive economic impact the Negro Leagues had on the Black communities surrounding teams and stadiums.
And on a directly related note, how the integration of the major leagues in 1947, which quickly led to the decline of the Negro Leagues, was a socially and morally important advance but one with unintended negative consequences.
Sam Pollard, director of THE LEAGUE, a Magnolia Pictures release. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.
It hurt midlevel Black ballplayers who were left behind, and it hurt the business interests of Black neighborhoods around the country.
“Negro League teams were the economic engines of these communities,” Pollard said. “We knew we had to deal with the economic impact.”
The business complications extended to the business of baseball itself.
Newark Eagles co-owner Effa Manley fumed when the Dodgers’ Branch Rickey signed Don Newcombe off her roster with no compensation, just as he had done to the Kansas City Monarchs when he signed Jackie Robinson.
Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, an executive producer on the film, said during a post-screening panel discussion that even though his family is from Pittsburgh, a hub of Black baseball, he knew relatively little coming into the film project.
“When I was a kid, all I knew was ‘The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings’ [a 1976 film],” Thompson said. “To learn we had a sustainable culture that had a ripple effect in the community, that was important to me.
“I was one of millions that thought, oh, Robinson going to the major leagues, it’s a step forward. I didn’t realize that it was to the detriment of a business that was actually doing better than the major leagues.”
But beyond its focus on the business of early- to mid-20th century baseball, “The League” celebrates the players, culture and popularity of the Negro Leagues.
That part of the story never gets old.
“It’s important to have people know there’s another element about American history that people don’t know about, and they should know,” Pollard said.
“As an American and as an African-American, I’m always curious about understanding new things about this country that I didn’t know about. To me, it’s invaluable to have a level of curiosity about the America that we supposedly all love.”
Former major-leaguer Harold Reynolds, who moderated the panel discussion, is 62 and knew many Negro Leaguers personally. Current players mostly missed that opportunity.
“You have to continue to tell the story until it sinks in, and I think they’ve done that in this film,” Reynolds told Newsday. “I’m a Negro Leagues snob, like, you better get it right. I hung out with [former Negro Leaguer] Buck O’Neil.
“It’s an American story that needs to be told, particularly in the times that we’re in. It’s a very important story to tell.”
The film is built around archival footage as well as interviews with players, some conducted over the past 25 years by producer Byron Motley, whose father, Bob, was a Negro Leagues umpire.
“You see Hank Aaron in the movie, you see Bob Gibson in the movie, you see Monte Irvin, all these guys,” Reynolds said. “I knew them, because that was the generation before me and they were coaching and talking to us.
“There is distance between those times today. Tim Anderson [of the White Sox] did not get a chance to talk to Buck O’Neil. That’s why this story has to be told, and I think they did a great job of capturing it.”
Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.
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