"The verdict is in. Whatever the deficiencies of the black baseball leagues as business enterprises and as the source of reliable statistics, no one now doubts that the front-line players were the equals of their white counterparts in professional baseball. When the best black players assembled for the annual East-West games, which for a generation paralleled the white All-Star games, the concentration of ability on the field was second to none." "This work brings together for the first time the painstakingly assembled history of those games, reconstructed play-by-plays, and accurate statistical records. Larry Lester recaptures the vigor of the black communities' united attention to the event, describes the players whose talent brought them to this pinnacle of achievement, and discusses the less salubrious but still important strategem of promoters, gamblers, and petty tyrants who cast an occasional shadow on the sunlit fields of Chicago."--Jacket.