I stumbled across this PBS feature in the midst of some browsing yesterday. PBS Investigations ran an episode in 2004 about Pop Lloyd Baseball Field, a stadium in Atlantic City. What’s intriguing about the field is that not only was it named after a Negro Leagues ballplayer, but the stadium was built in 1949, at a time when racial prejudices ran particularly strong. Not only that, Atlantic City at the time was known to be especially discriminatory against the black community. The episode delves into why the stadium was built where it was built at the time it was built.
I wish PBS had posted the video of the episode on their site, but sadly, this is not the case. However, they do provide a link to the transcript of the episode, for anyone who is interested in the story behind the construction of this stadium. Reading the transcript feels a little trippy without the visual context to go along with it, but if you’re willing to venture into it, the history is pretty interesting (small spoiler: the motives behind the stadium’s construction were not exactly pure).
As part of the episode, PBS also interviewed pitcher Max Manning, which can be found in the transcript. What’s really cool, though, is that you can find an extension to his interview (with a video!) as a featured clip here.
Wikipedia
