This season, the MLB instituted new rules designed to make baseball games shorter and more exciting. According to filmmaker Sam Pollard, some of these changes hearken back to an earlier period in baseball history: The Negro National League.
While sluggers like Babe Ruth dominated MLB, the Negro League, which was founded in 1920, featured a scrappier, hit-and-run, base-stealing style of play. Years later, as the first Black player to play in MLB in the modern era, Jackie Robinson would bring the same energy to a wider audience.
