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Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
National
Richard Roeper

UNBELIEVABLE: Inspirational negro leagues documentary recalls greats who endured hardship but played with passion - Caught on Camera

Chicago American Giants founder Rube Foster (center, with the 1916 team) went on to organize the Negro National League. (© Hake’s Auction, courtesy of Magnolia Pictures)

As many a Chicago baseball fan knows, the first Major League All-Star Game was played at glorious Comiskey Park (“The Baseball Palace of the World”) on the South Side on July 6, 1933, with a crowd of 47,595 looking on as an American League team with a roster that included Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Al Simmons and Jimmie Foxx defeated the National League by a tally of 4-2.

But this was not the only All-Star Game played at Comiskey during that era. As we’re reminded in the comprehensive, invaluable and inspirational documentary “The League,” in September of 1933, just a couple of months after that first MLB All-Star game, the inaugural East-West All-Star Game featuring the very best Negro League players took place at Comiskey Park. (Voting was tabulated by the two most influential Black newspapers of the time: the Pittsburgh Courier and the Chicago Defender.)

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