Abstract

Shortly after World War II, black men were invited to join the major leagues and end the segregation in American baseball. Observers have since discussed how this affected the playing style of major league teams that now had players from the Negro League tradition emphasizing speed and aggressive baserunning. This study measures the impact of these changes on the team winning function, and finds it was the early importation of African-American power hitters to the National League that had the most dramatic difference in the game. This relates to the current importation of Latin American players into the major leagues as well as the more general standard industrial process of looking to new labor markets to lower the cost of production.