Editing Negro league baseball (section)

===Amateur era===
[[Image:Octavius Catto.jpg|left|thumb|150px|[[Octavius Catto]], black baseball pioneer]]
Because black people were not being accepted into the major and minor baseball leagues due to [[Racism in the United States|racism]] which established the [[Baseball color line|color line]], they formed their own teams and had made professional teams by the 1880s.{{sfn|Lanctot|2008|p=4}} The first known baseball game between two black teams was held on November 15, 1859, in New York City. The Henson Base Ball Club of [[Jamaica, Queens]], defeated the Unknowns of [[Weeksville, Brooklyn]], 54 to 43.{{sfn|Hogan|2006|p=6}}

Immediately after the end of the [[American Civil War]] in 1865 and during the [[Reconstruction Era|Reconstruction]] period that followed, a black baseball scene formed in the East and Mid-Atlantic states. Comprising mainly ex-soldiers and promoted by some well-known black officers, teams such as the Jamaica Monitor Club, [[Albany Bachelors]], Philadelphia Excelsiors and Chicago Uniques started playing each other and any other team that would play against them.{{cn|date=July 2024}}

By the end of the 1860s, the black baseball mecca was [[Philadelphia]], which had an African-American population of 22,000.{{sfn|Lanctot|2008|pp=3–4}} Two former [[cricket]] players, James H. Francis and Francis Wood, formed the [[Pythian Base Ball Club]]. They played in [[Camden, New Jersey]], at the landing of the Federal Street Ferry, because it was difficult to get permits for black baseball games in the city. [[Octavius Catto]], the promoter of the Pythians, decided to apply for membership in the [[National Association of Base Ball Players]], normally a matter of sending delegates to the annual convention; beyond that, a formality. At the end of the 1867 season, "the National Association of Baseball Players voted to exclude any club with a black player."{{sfn|Riley|1994|p=XVII}} In some ways ''Blackball'' thrived under [[Racial segregation in the United States|segregation]], with the few black teams of the day playing not only each other but white teams as well. "Black teams earned the bulk of their income playing white independent 'semipro' clubs."{{sfn|Riley|1994|p=4}}