PBS - Baseball (1994) Part 5 Fifth Inning Shadow Ball

BASEBALL is a nine-part series that examines nearly 200 years of American history through the prism of our national pastime. Americans have played baseball in one form or another since the early 19th century—while they conquered a continent, warred with one another and with enemies abroad, and struggled over labor, civil rights and the meaning of freedom. At the game’s heart lie mythic contradictions it is a pastoral game that was actually born in crowded cities;it is an exhilarating democratic sport that tolerates cheating—and has excluded as many as it has embraced; a profoundly conservative game that has sometimes managed to be years ahead of its time.

5 Fifth Inning Shadow Ball

Inning Five, Shadow Ball, tells the story of the Negro Leagues in the 1930s. The title refers to a common pre-game feature in which the players staged a mock game with an imaginary ball. Though unintended, the pantomime was an apt metaphor for the exclusion of blacks from major league play at that time.

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