Phil Dixon still remembers going to his first Major League baseball game. "I'd been watching baseball on a black and white tv," says Dixon, "and when I walked in the park, I saw baseball in color." Dixon helped found the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri, along with baseball legend Buck O'Neil and three other men. He spoke today at Northeast State Technical Community College, telling stories about the Negro Leagues, its contributions to baseball today, and its colorful personalities.
Most everyone thinks of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier to the Major Leagues, but Dixon wants to make sure the history of those before Robinson is preserved as well. "So often people only know about Jackie Robinson, and they think that's when black people started playing baseball," says Dixon, "but raelly it's a legacy that goes back before the civil war." Dixon spoke of men such as Chet Brewer and Bill Monroe, teams such as the Kansas City Monarchs and the 1931 Homestead Grays. Dixon says the '31 Grays team rivaled the 1927 Yankees, widely thought of to be the greatest team in baseball history, in terms of talent. Yet they are never mentioned in those arguments, and Dixon hopes by keeping this history alive, that one day more people will include them.
Dixon will be speaking at the Northeast State Auditorium on campus Tuesday evening at 7 p.m.
To learn more, you can visit the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum at : http://www.nlbm.com/
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