Why Was Baseball Legend Oscar Charleston Forgotten?
The Pathbreaking Player, Scout, and Manager Was Part of a Black Baseball Tradition That Is Still Obscured
History, more often than we would like, is an unjust judge. Consider the case of Oscar Charleston, a baseball player who for nearly 40 years was one of the most talented, charismatic, and profoundly intense competitors in the Negro Leagues.
Today, almost no one—including serious baseball fans—knows the slightest thing about Charleston, despite the fact that he arguably pieced together the best overall résumé of any figure in baseball’s storied history.
That résumé has three basic components: First, Charleston was a stupendously good player—so good that in 2001 the celebrated baseball …
