It’s hard to overstate the effect Negro League baseball had on South Florida — and America.
Negro Leagues introduced baseball to Japan. And now, the highest paid player in the game is Japanese.
The League played in Latin America — and accepted stars from Latin America at a time when people of color weren’t allowed to play in the U.S. Today, more than 70% of the players on the Miami Marlins alone are foreign born.
The Negro League invented wearing helmets. Numbers on uniforms. Night baseball — teams traveled with their own stadium lights.
But its greatest innovation? The Negro Leagues helped integrate America. The talent on the field forced the all-white Major League Baseball to pay attention. And for the first time, people of color and whites sat side by side in the stands — eventually, anyway.
You find that out in a new documentary by WLRN TV, Never Drop the Ball. The filmmakers Michael Anderson and Fabián Cárdenas make the case with rich interviews and historical video footage like you’ve never seen. They’ll screen their film at the Lyric Theater on Jan. 18 and at Florida Atlantic University on Jan. 24. It’ll air on WLRN TV Feb. 2
On the Jan. 15 episode of Sundial, we spoke to Michael and Fabián about how producing this documentary strengthened their own connections to South Florida through baseball.
On Sundial's previous episode, author Brad Meltzer visited South Florida to share his latest book, Ordinary People Change the World: Ruth Bader Ginsberg.
Listen to Sundial Monday through Thursday on WLRN, 91.3 FM, live at 1 p.m., rebroadcast at 8 p.m. Missed a show? Find every episode of Sundial on your favorite podcast app, such as Apple Podcasts, Stitcher and Spotify.
