I recently read the excellent book “Banana Ball“, the story of the Savannah Bananas baseball team. I was well-aware of the team, but have yet to attend a game and the book was fantastic.
One part of the book talked about the Negro baseball league and how it was always underappreciated. It’s been more appreciated in recent years, as MLB classified the seven “major Negro leagues” as additional major leagues in 2020, and then integrated the Negro league statistics into its records in 2024
Why did it take so long? From the book:
We stood at silent attention as Bob, a gifted speaker, explained to us that American historians in the past never viewed the Negro leagues as truly professional. “If you don’t control the pen,” he said, “you don’t control the story,” meaning so much of the Negro leagues story went unnoticed.
The history of that league is fascinating, as it was created to go alongside Major League Baseball as a place for Black players to play but was largely invisible because they “didn’t control the pen”.
The great thing about our current era is that no one controls the pen. There are certainly big personalities and news organizations that can push their agendas, but no one is left out of the conversation. We are the media.
Things may change in future years, which is why it’s so important that we continue to work to own our content. Wherever you’re reading this, I have 100% control of what I want to say. While I certainly don’t have a large following by most measures, I still control the pen. You should too.
