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Myers, Walter Dean.
THE JOURNAL OF BIDDY OWENS
: THE NEGRO LEAGUES
New York : Scholastic, 2001.
IL 5-8, RL 6.2
ISBN 0439095034
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Biddy
Owens keeps a diary about his first real job, working as the batboy for
Piper Davis's Birmington (Alabama) Black Barons, a Negro Major League Baseball
team. As Biddy travels the League circuit, his diary reveals the talents
of many of the Negro League's stars. But he documents more than baseball
heroics. He also experiences the irony of being part of a heroic company
who cannot celebrate victories: in many Southern towns, the team has to
stay on their bus to sleep and to eat. Hotels won't rent rooms to "the
coloreds" and dinner is often take-out from kitchens that served African
Americans who were not allowed sit at the tables in the restaurant dining
rooms. Despite such hardships, Biddy keenly follows the rising baseball
career of Jackie Robinson, the first Negro player in mainstream American
baseball. Will the Negro Baseball Leagues survive Jackie's success? This
story is both a good story and a great resource for the history of America's
favorite pastime. (Jean B. Bellavance for Pennsylvania
Young Reader's Choice Awards, 2003-2004)
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SUBJECTS:
Birmingham Black Barons (Baseball team) -- Fiction.
Baseball -- Fiction.
Negro Leagues -- Fiction.
African Americans -- Fiction.
Segregation -- Fiction.
Prejudices -- Fiction.
Diaries -- Fiction. |
© 
Permission is granted for the
noncommercial duplication and use of this resource, provided it is substantially
unchanged from its present form and appropriate credit is given.
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