When Jackie Robinson broke Major League Baseball's color barrier in 1947, he was both hailed as a hero and vilified as a traitor. So much attention was paid to the color of his skin that it took the public a little while to realize the scope of his talents. When they did, it only increased the animosity of the men who were determined to keep America's national pastime an all-white bastion. But with his quiet dignity and brilliant athleticism, Robinson tore down the walls of bigotry, forever changing the course of American sports.

Although nineteenth-century baseball had fielded all-black teams and even featured a few black players on white teams, twentieth-century major league baseball had steadfastly been a white-only sport. Black players, however, found an outlet for the sport in various incarnations of the Negro Leagues throughout the first half of the twentieth century. These...