When to Stop the Cheering: The Black Press, the Black Community, and the Integration of Professional Baseball

*Finalist for the 2007 Seymour Medal of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR).* *Winner of the 2007 Robert Peterson Book Award of the Negro Leagues Committee of the Society for American Baseball* When to Stop the Cheering? documents the close and often conflicted relationship between the black press and black baseball beginning with the first Negro professional league of substance, the Negro National League, which started in 1920, and finishing with the dissolution of the Negro American League in 1957. When to Stop the Cheering? examines the multidimensional relationship the black newspapers had with baseball, including their treatment of and relationships with baseball officials, team owners, players and fans. Over time, these relationships changed, resulting in shifts in coverage that could be described as moving from brotherhood to paternalism, then from paternalism to nostalgic tribute and even regret.