Some of the greatest players ever were kept out of Major League Baseball for nearly 70 years - due to the collusion of the racist team owners. We visit with Bill Greason, 100, the oldest surviving Negro Leagues player, and baseball historian Larry Lester, to make the case for long-overdue reparations by MLB. We crunch some numbers and calculate the tab to right this historic wrong. It's time to play ball!

SHOW NOTES

Guests: Bill Greason and Larry Lester

Bill Greason, 100, is one of two surviving players from the Negro Leagues. He was a star pitcher for the Birmingham Black Barons and mentor to the great Willie Mays, before becoming the first Black pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1954. He was also one of the first Black U.S. Marines. Rev. Greason has served as a pastor at a Birmingham, AL church for over 50 years.

Larry Lester is the leading Negro Leagues historian. His epic research spanned over 40 years and filled 25 file cabinets in his home. Lester played a pivotal role in the integration of Negro Leagues statistics into the Major League Baseball records in 2024. He also co-founded the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, MO.

More on Bill Greason:

• Bill Greason’s biography
• Bill Greason Takes Another Trip Around the Bases at 100 by Joseph King

More on Larry Lester:

• Larry’s website
• Larry’s all-time greatest baseball player: "Bullet" Joe Rogan
• With Deliberate Speed by Larry Lester (article about 1950s baseball integration)

More on baseball integration and reparations:

• Wendell Smith's Vision Helped Clear Jackie Robinson's Path to Majors by Isabelle Minasian
• The Rippling Manifesto by Ernest DiStefano
• View From Third Base (Willie Mays 1960 All-Star Game) by Gary Rhoades

Visit: Negro Leagues Baseball Museum (Kansas City, MO)

HIGHLIGHTS OF EPISODE:

[13:45] Bill Greason describes his navigating the Ku Klux Klan in Birmingham

[17:02] Greason compares the quality of play in Black and white baseball

[18:21] Greason on his mentoring the great Willie Mays

[19:57] Greason speaks on the prospect of reparations to Negro Leagues players

[24:22] Larry Lester on the role of the Black press in integrating baseball

[25:38] Lester on his role in helping to integrate the baseball record books

[30:34] Lester compares the quality of play in Black and white baseball

[35:10] Lester on Negro Leagues innovations

[43:38] Adam calculates the $800 million owed by MLB to Negro Leaguers

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A dirty secret in U.S. history is how local property taxes have been used to steal massive amounts of land and money from Black people, for the last 160 years. The Black Tax, a new book by historian Andrew Kahrl, exposes these scams that helped create the colossal racial wealth gap of today. The damage to Black Americans? More than $600 billion in straight-up theft – and trillions in lost generational wealth!

SHOW NOTES

Guest: Andrew W. Kahrl

Andrew Kahrl is a Professor at the University of Virgina. His research focuses on the social and political history of racial inequality in the United States. He teaches courses on African American history, race and real estate, and U.S. urban history.

Books by Andrew Kahrl:

• The Black Tax: 150 Years of Theft, Exploitation, and Dispossession in America
• The Land Was Ours: How Black Beaches Became White Wealth in the Coastal South
  

Related readings and resources:

• The Whiteness of Wealth: How The Tax System Impoverishes Black Americans - And How We Can Fix It by Dorothy A. Brown
• “Blacks in South Struggle to Keep the Little Land They Have Left” (NY Times 1972)
• Federation of Southern Cooperatives (Land Assistance Fund)

HIGHLIGHTS OF EPISODE:

[10:55] Over-taxing of Black-owned property

[13:54] Under-servicing of Black communities

[22:18] The tax sale scam

[26:06] The saga of Evelina Jenkins

[29:08] The tab: damages to Black Americans for stolen property

[39:32] Andrew Kahrl’s proposals to repair the tax system

[42:22] Importance of solidarity to creating a more just system

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This is an exciting time in the fight for Black reparations! As momentum builds across the country, Pay The Tab is expanding in new directions - including the first-ever reparations course at UCLA Law School. In this special episode, Tony and Adam bring the latest news, answer your questions, and share things we all can do to disrupt America's toxic system of racism, denial, and capitalist greed.

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