The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum prides itself on telling the history of the game. Now it will be adding even more to that history by telling the stories of those who for too long had their voices go unheard.
The Hall of Fame will be honoring the history of Black baseball with its annual East-West Classic Game on Saturday, May 25 at Doubleday Field in Cooperstown as a tribute to the Negro Leagues. But this year’s event will be extra special as it coincides with the opening of the museum’s newest exhibit, The Souls of the Game: Voices of Black Baseball.
The exhibit will showcase the history of Black baseball players and contributors from the game’s origins in the 19th century to the present day and show how the story of Black baseball is inextricable from the story of the game itself.
“The museum exhibit has been in the works for over two years,” Hall of Fame President Josh Rawitch said. “As we talked about what could be a great way to unveil the exhibit, we thought Classic Weekend might be a good time to do it.”
Rawitch said the idea for the exhibit originally came from the late John Odell, who served as the museum’s curator for almost 25 years.
“As we continued through the process, it’s grown significantly to also include the dedication of the new Hank Aaron statue, the opening of the exhibit, the East-West Classic and the other two events that we’ve always done here, the charity golf tournament on Sunday and the other charitable event on Saturday night where fans can come and meet the players,” Rawitch said. “It’s a lot of events over the course of five days. It’s going to be really cool.”
The East-West Classic will feature dozens of retired Black Major Leaguers playing a seven-inning exhibition in uniforms inspired by those worn by Negro League players.
CC Sabathia and Chris Young will serve as team captains while a host of Hall-of-Famers will serve as coaches including Harold Baines, Rollie Fingers, Ken Griffey Jr., Fergie Jenkins, Jim Kaat, Fred McGriff, Eddie Murray, Jim Rice, Lee Smith, Ozzie Smith, Joe Torre and Dave Winfield.
“We started this process by reaching out to CC Sabathia and saying, ‘Hey, do you think we can pull this off and do you think guys will want to play?,’” Rawitch said. “Immediately he said, ‘I can fill more than two rosters. Let me get on it.’ And very quickly he and Chris Young started calling around and getting tons of guys involved. The next thing you know, we had two full rosters.”
While Rawitch said the turnout for the game is good every year, the opening of the new exhibit sent the interest skyrocketing.
“What’s exciting is that they’re passionate about all of the elements of the weekend,” he said about the players. “Many of them want to be here to celebrate the Hank Aaron statue, many of them want to come to the East-West Classic and I think all of them want to be here when the exhibit opens.”
The museum has had various exhibits focusing on Black baseball dating back to the late 1970s. But Rawitch said everyone at the Hall of Fame felt it was important to have a new exhibit to reflect the evolving conversations on race relations in America.
“I think that it’s incredibly important that what we’ve done is tell the story from the perspective from the people who’ve lived the Black baseball experience,” he explained. “It’s not just focused on the Negro Leagues… it’s not just focused on 1800s Black baseball, it’s not just focused on 2000s Black baseball. It really is the experience of the players and coaches and managers and umpires and executives who have lived that experience and it comes through in their words and their voices.”
In cooperation with the Players Alliance — a group of current and former players looking to create new opportunities in baseball and beyond in the Black community — the Hall of Fame will be offering free admission on Saturday the 25th.
As for what he hopes visitors are able to take away from the Souls of the Game exhibit, Rawitch said it can represent a first step in learning more about the game’s untold stories.
“I think that like any good exhibit, we’re hopeful that it will spark conversation, that it will teach people some of the history they may not know about Black baseball going back to the earliest days the game was played,” he said. “We hope that it will make people think differently. And we hope that it is yet another reason why people will want to keep coming back to the Hall of Fame.
“As we try to stay relevant for future generations of fans, we have to keep our exhibits changing all the time and that’s something that we’ve spent a lot of time talking about and working on here and so I think that having a brand new exhibit like this that really focuses on this subject is an important part of our mission and what we do here,” Rawitch said.