KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Long the home of the Monarchs, Kansas City is now home of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. Prior to Game 1 of the World Series, I had the pleasure of visiting the museum and it’s real nice. First up, some pictures from the area.
The entrance!
The admission ticket is just $10 and it’s well worth it. Pictures are prohibited inside. Frankly, I could have gotten away with a few, but the reason for no pictures is so people actually have to buy tickets to enjoy the museum. I wouldn’t dare infringe on their product like that because they deserve the business.
Once inside, fans can see a map of America with a plot for every city in which a Negro Leagues team participated, many cities with multiple teams in multiple leagues. On the left side, there’s a bench made of bats and bases, with names of the top Negro Leagues players (Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, Oscar Charleston, etc.) on the bats.
From there, a timeline full of pictures, photos, equipment and the like lines the walls, guiding us from the beginnings of African-Americans playing organized baseball (circa the late 1860s) up to the death of the Negro Leagues, once they weren’t needed anymore in 1960 due to full integration. There’s so much information that if someone really wanted to read everything, it would take upwards of three hours, I’d guess.
There’s also a 15-minute video about the Negro Leagues in a side theater which is narrated by James Earl Jones. There’s a bit of a history lesson with some video footage and fun stories.
Once the timeline ends in the hallway, next up is a section that resembles a Hall of Fame. Each Negro Leagues player honored here, alphabetically, has a “locker” with a uniform and a picture of a plaque that resembles the plaques in the Baseball Hall of Fame. The plaque write-ups are similar to what might be seen in Cooperstown, too.
We close with the field of legends, a smaller diamond with a statue at each position, likely with the notion that each was the best player at this position (Cool Papa Bell was in left, Charleston was in center, Buck Leonard at first, Paige on the hill and Gibson behind the plate, to name a few examples).
And then through the gift shop (more on that in a second) and we’re done.
These next two pictures are of the John “Buck” O’Neil Center, which was formerly the YCMA and is a historic site for Negro League baseball. It’s a few blocks down the street from the museum.
In that building (the Paseo YMCA) in 1920, eight independent black baseball team owners — spear-headed by the legendary Rube Foster — met here and ended up forming the Negro National League. The Kansas City Monarchs (future team of greats like Paige, Jackie Robinson and Ernie Banks) were among the original members.
Nice touch on the sidewalks outside the Buck Center:
A few blocks away from the Museum is this:
That was the site of Municipal Stadium, which was home of the Monarchs and then later the Kansas City A’s (who moved from Philadelphia and then moved to Oakland), Royals and the NFL’s Chiefs. The first-ever Negro Leagues World Series was held here, so it’s fitting that this site is right around the corner from the museum.
It’s not just that, as the 18th and Vine area was the perfect place for the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in this city. From the official website:
The 18th & Vine historic district was the center for black culture and life in Kansas City from the late 1800s-1960s. It was the hub of activity for homeowners, business, jazz music, and baseball enthusiast. Just outside of the district stands the Paseo YMCA building, which was built as a black YMCA in 1914. It served as temporary home for baseball players, railroad workers, and others making the transition to big city life in the Midwest. It was here that the Negro National League was founded in 1920. Although the district and the YMCA building were becoming blighted by the 1980s, they were recognized on the National Register of Historic Places.
My day wouldn’t have been complete without a souvenir, so I went with the Homestead Grays hat, based pretty much solely on that being Josh Gibson’s team.
Overall, I highly recommend the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum to fans of baseball history who ever happen to find themselves in the Kansas City area. There’s a lot of history packed into this wing of the building — a building that also has the American Jazz Museum — and lots of fun features. It was nice to read the stories not just of the superstars, but for many players that we don’t often hear much about.
Gordon’s clutch HR in 9th![](http://sports.cbsimg.net/images/livefyre/gplus_base.png\")
