Sports final

Negro Leagues

professional baseball leagues for African American players

Pythian Base Ball Club

a prominent, early African-American baseball team in Philadelphia, formed in 1866 under the leadership of activist Octavius Catto

"Cuban" baseball

Cuban baseball is a major national sport with a rich history, featuring the domestic Cuban National Series and a legacy of producing many talented players who have competed internationally and in Major League Baseball

Barnstorming teams

sports teams that travel to various locations to play exhibition games, often with a high degree of showmanship

Andrew "Rube" Foster

an American baseball player, manager, and executive in the Negro leagues. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981. Foster is considered by sports historians to have been one of the best pitchers of the 1900s

Kansas City Monarchs

a professional baseball team that plays in the American Association of Professional Baseball, which is an MLB partner league

National Negro League

one of the several Negro leagues that were established during the period in the United States when organized baseball was segregated. The league was formed in 1920 with former player Rube Foster as its president

National Association of Colored Professional Baseball Leagues

formed to put Black baseball on a more solid business footing and prevent players from "jumping" between clubs, similar to the white major leagues of the era. The most successful and well-known Black professional league was the later Negro National League (1920–1931), which was not part of the earlier "National Association" named leagues. 

Cumberland Posey

an American baseball player, manager, and team owner in the Negro leagues, as well as a professional basketball player and team owner.

Gus Greenlee

bought the Pittsburgh Crawfords baseball team in 1931, founded the second Negro National League in 1933, serving as president

Satchel Paige

an American professional baseball pitcher who played in Negro league baseball and Major League Baseball. His career spanned five decades and culminated with his induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Happy Chandler

Commissioner of baseball

Branch Rickey

an American baseball player, manager, sports executive, and team owner. Rickey was instrumental in breaking the baseball color line by signing black player Jackie Robinson.

Jackie Robinson

an American professional baseball player who was the first African American to play in Major League Baseball in the modern era. Robinson broke the color line when he started at first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947.

Pee Wee Reese

an American professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball as a shortstop for the Brooklyn / Los Angeles Dodgers from 1940 to 1958

Daryl Hill

an athlete and businessman; in 1963 he started with the University of Maryland football team as the first African-American football player in any of the southern athletic conferences composed of formerly segregated white institutions

Ray Bellamy

the first African American football player to sign with the University of Miami

Bear Bryant

an American college football player and coach. He is considered by many to be one of the greatest college football coaches of all time, and best known as the head coach of the University of Alabama football team, the Alabama Crimson Tide, from 1958 to 1982

Wilbur Jackson

an American former professional football player who was a running back in the National Football League, He played college football for the Alabama Crimson Tide and was selected by the San Francisco 49ers in the first round of the 1974 NFL draft

John Mitchell

the first African-American to play football for the storied Alabama Crimson Tide

1936 Berlin Olympics

a propaganda showcase for Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime, which used the event to project an image of a strong, peaceful Germany while masking its racist and anti-Semitic policies

Avery Brundage

the fifth president of the International Olympic Committee, serving from 1952 to 1972, the only American and first non-European to attain that position. Brundage is remembered as a zealous advocate of amateurism and for his involvement with the 1936 and 1972 Summer Olympics, both held in Germany

Jesse Owens

an American track and field athlete who made history at the 1936 Olympic Games by winning four gold medals, setting Olympic records in each event. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest athletes in track and field history

Tommie Smith

an American former track and field athlete and wide receiver in the American Football League. At the 1968 Summer Olympics, Smith, aged 24, won the 200-meter sprint finals and gold medal in 19.83 seconds – the first time the 20-second barrier was broken officially.

John Carlos

an American former track and field athlete and professional football player. He was the bronze-medal winner in the 200 meters at the 1968 Summer Olympics, where he displayed the Black Power salute on the podium with Tommie Smith

Peter Norman

an Australian track athlete. He won the silver medal in the 200 metres at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, with a time of 20.06 seconds, which remained the Oceania 200 m record for more than 56 years. He was a five-time national 200-metre champion

Munich Massacre

the terrorist attack at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, where members of the Palestinian group Black September took members of the Israeli Olympic team hostage

1972 Olympic Basketball Gold Medal Game

a highly controversial final between the Soviet Union and the United States, ending with a 51-50 victory for the Soviet Union and marking the US team's first-ever Olympic loss

Cassius Clay

a name associated with two prominent individuals: the 19th-century abolitionist Cassius Marcellus Clay and the legendary boxer Muhammad Ali, who was born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr.. The abolitionist Cassius Clay was an anti-slavery crusader and politician from Kentucky, while the boxer is famous for his career, activism, and name change to Muhammad Ali after converting to Islam

Malcom X

an African American revolutionary and human rights activist who founded Muslim Mosque, Inc. and the Organization of Afro-American Unity. He was also a prominent figure during the civil rights movement until his assassination by members of the Nation of Islam in 1965.

Sonny Liston

nicknamed "the Big Bear", was an American professional boxer who competed from 1953 to 1970

Nation of Islam

a religious organization founded in the United States by Wallace Fard Muhammad in 1930

W.D. Fard

a religious leader who was the founder of the Nation of Islam. He arrived in Detroit in 1930 with an ambiguous background and several aliases and proselytized syncretic Islamic teachings to the city's black population

Elijah Muhammad

an American religious leader and self-proclaimed Messenger of Allah who led the Nation of Islam from 1933 until his death in 1975.

Joe Frazier

an American professional boxer who competed from 1965 to 1981. Nicknamed "Smokin' Joe", he was known for his strength, durability, formidable left hand, and relentless pressure fighting style. In 1971, Frazier became the first boxer to defeat Muhammad Ali.

George Foreman

an American professional boxer, businessman, minister, and author. In boxing, he competed between 1967 and 1997, and was nicknamed "Big George".

Herb Brooks

an American ice hockey player and coach. His most notable achievement came in 1980 as head coach of the gold medal-winning U.S. Olympic team at Lake Placid. At the Games, Brooks' American team upset the heavily favored Soviet team in a match that came to be known as the "Miracle on Ice."

Miracle on Ice

an ice hockey game during the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York. It was played between the hosting United States and the Soviet Union on February 22, 1980, during the medal round of the men's ice hockey tournament.

Pete Rose

banned from Major League Baseball (MLB) for life in 1989 for betting on baseball

Bart Giamatti

the seventh commissioner of Major League Baseball. Giamatti served as Commissioner for only five months before dying suddenly of a heart attack.

Roger Maris

an American professional baseball right fielder who played 12 seasons in Major League Baseball. He is best known for setting a new MLB single-season home run record with 61 home runs in 1961

Babe Ruth

an American professional baseball player whose career in Major League Baseball spanned 22 seasons, from 1914 through 1935

Hank Aaron

an American professional baseball right fielder who played 23 seasons in Major League Baseball, from 1954 through 1976.

Mark McGwire

an American former professional baseball first baseman who played 16 seasons in Major League Baseball from 1986 to 2001 for the Oakland Athletics and the St. Louis Cardinals

Steroid Era

a period in Major League Baseball (MLB), roughly from the late 1980s to the late 2000s, when the use of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs), particularly anabolic steroids and human growth hormone (HGH), was widely prevalent and largely untested. 

BALCO

a scandal involving the use of banned, performance-enhancing substances by professional athletes

Boston College Basketball Scandal

a scheme in which members of the American Mafia recruited and bribed multiple Boston College Eagles men's basketball players to ensure the team would either not win by the required margin (not cover the point spread) or win by the required margin (cover the point spread), thus allowing gamblers in the know to place wagers for or against that team and win.