‘The League’ (2023) Review – Sam Pollard’s Baseball Documentary Extols A League Of Its Own

It was May 2, 1920, when the Indianapolis ABCs beat the Chicago Giants 4 to 2, and U.S. history was made. Regretfully, as the incomparable documentarian Sam Pollard (MLK/FBI, Citizen Ashe, Mr. Soul!) shows in his latest time capsule project, The League, the influential game was 61 years in the making.

More than a century later, the diverse waves of humanity have been painted outside the lines of every baseball game on the planet. From the barrios of Gualey, Dominican Republic to The Bronx, New York projects, Black people have played and pioneered the great game of baseball. Some of them have played “the Majors.” Many more have played in “the League.”

To underscore the importance of that game at Washington Park in Indianapolis, iconic legends like Mays, Aaron, Banks, (Frank) Robinson, Gwynn, (Bob) Gibson, and Junior would have never grabbed a bat had those two teams not met. Those magnificent players and the hundreds of others who joined them in national ballparks have other names to thank for blazing their trail–(Jackie) Robinson, Bell, Paige, (Josh) Gibson, Leonard, Charleston, and Foster.

Yet, their journeys would have never commenced, and paths to the Hall never culminated, had it not been for one stellar player you have probably never discussed–Moses Fleetwood Walker. 

Walker This Way

Three and a half decades before that game in the Hoosier state, and another three decades before Jackie Robinson officially broke through the color barrier in baseball, Walker was a catcher for the Toledo Blue Stockings in 1884.

Pollard uses the life of Walker and other young Negro would-be athletes playing with bags of trash for bases and broomsticks for bats to tell this profound and powerful story. Even the 19 hours of Ken Burns’ Baseball needs more wattage to shine a light this bright on the players who almost weren’t and the league that almost wasn’t.

Inspired by the book The Negro Baseball Leagues by Bob and Byron Motley, Sam Pollard presents The League in a compelling way that has never been afforded to the casual baseball fan or lifelong sport historian.

For example, back in Walker’s day, Jackie Robinson didn’t have to cross a color line. Teams were integrated in the 1880s. Unfortunately, thanks to bigoted Hall-of-Famers like Cap Anson (who played for the Chicago White Stockings in a delightful twist of irony), that line got blurred.

Anson, and his ilk, refused to take the field with players who wore the same uniform but looked different in it. That stance, along with codified “Jim Crow” laws, marked the beginning of the end for good ball players like Walker and Bud Fowler who were no longer permitted to play a child’s game in the adult world.

Fostering Greatness

These Black Americans who were refused to play baseball acted as a renegade crew of players who would “barnstorm” any team that would challenge them and play for pride. By 1920, something changed for these units–a change was gonna’ come.

Under the leadership of a former player, manager, and owner (yes, owner) of the Chicago American Giants, Andrew “Rube” Foster proposed and established the structure that would become the Negro National League in 1920. As Pollard shows with a deft touch, that foundation was all that was needed along the Deep South and Eastern Shore.

More importantly, the unrivaled agility and uncommon athleticism featured in the new league create a monetary avenue of interest. Black newspapers like the Chicago Defender, Pittsburgh Courier, and the New York Amsterdam News, became the stalwarts of their game. Exposure to these remarkable players was read in those headlines and captured by Pollard’s vantage point of baseball.

While the contagious joy of the sport leads us along the path to meeting Walker and Foster, we also encounter the grim recesses of that journey toward integration. On one hand, Black ball players became employed and respected. On the other, they were still considered less than and outside fair territory for the game’s revelry.

Along the way, Pollard (and his executive producer, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson) weaves a beautiful tapestry of this once-bleak aspect of America’s game. With stellar insight from Gerald Early and captivating narration by Negro Leagues umpire Bob Motley, we are given a front-row seat behind the plate to witness and learn a story of bravery, history, and an unparalleled love of the game.

Baseball fans who have been to Cooperstown, New York understand what it means to revel in records and the men behind them. However, those same fans must visit Kansas City, Missouri to experience how some of those same records were made in the first place, made in The League.

The League is currently playing exclusively in AMC theaters. The film is also available on Digital platforms. 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r94emkZwTk8]