The Negro Leagues

As we look forward to another season of baseball, it's a good time to also look back at some giants of the game who played before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947.

For decades, the Negro Leagues featured some of the greatest baseball players in America. And while discrimination kept them out of the major leagues, fans flocked to games and the sport was played at a highly professional level.

Legendary stars of the Negro Leagues included pitcher Andrew "Rube" Foster, who taught the screwball to pitching legend Christy Mathewson; Frank Grant, an infielder considered the best black baseball player of the 19th century; Willard "Home Run" Brown, who led the mighty Kansas City Monarchs in the 1930s and 1940s; James "Cool Papa" Bell, who may have been the fastest man to play the game; and the mighty Josh Gibson, who is remembered as "the black Babe Ruth."

The great Jackie Robinson played for the Kansas City Monarchs before breaking in with the Dodgers. And other players also began in the Negro Leagues and moved to the majors, including Larry Doby, the first black player in the American League, and Satchel Paige, the great pitcher whose best years were spent hurling for the Kansas City Monarchs.

In a sense, it's sad that the Negro Leagues even existed. Yet, we should always honor the achievements of the men who played some of the greatest baseball ever.

Photograph: Statue of James "Cool Papa" Bell outside Busch Stadium in St. Louis/Getty Images