Black Sports : Has There Ever Been an All Black Roster for a Professional Sports Team?

Peace and Blessings Family,

Has There Ever Been an All Black Roster for a Professional Sports Team?

What brought this question to mind, was the fact that it seemed like there was only one white person on the Miami Heat Roster, if no mistake. That of course, doesn't mean all the other team members are black. I don't even know if all but one is white. I'm actually asking, but it looked like that briefly watching them play recently.

In an effort to answer my own question, i did a brief search, and found the following journal article written in 1997. It's very interesting, but it did not answer my question. In fact, i didn't find the answer, and am hoping yall can tell me. Is Miami Heat as close as it's come, or am i wrong about their roster?

Has There Ever Been an All Black Roster for a Professional Sports Team?


Racial Composition of NBA, NFL, and MLB Teams and Racial Composition of Franchise Cities.

Journal article by Wilbert M. Leonard II; Journal of Sport Behavior, Vol. 20, 1997

The founding of the major professional sport leagues of baseball, football, and basketball occupy centrally significant portions of the U.S. sports history. Although their ages vary--baseball is the eldest at nearly 125 years old, basketball is the youngest at 50, and football is 75--they all commenced as all-white enclaves. From being lily white in player composition at their conception, today African-Americans comprise approximately 79% of NBA rosters, 65% of NFL line ups, and 18% of MLB teams (about 18 % of MLB players are Hispanic). Obviously there has been a skyrocketing in African-American participation (Lapchick & Benedict, 1994).

Today, racism appears to take a variety of forms, and even sportscasters, hall-of-fame selection committees, sport executives, and owners have been judged racially bigoted (Coakley, 1994). Three contemporary aspects of sport that appear to be racially biased surround (a) position allocation, (b) performance differentials, and (c) reward and authority structures (Leonard, 1993).

The NBA is segregated against blacks. Not just because so few black fans can afford to attend the games . . . black players are kept out of the NBA solely on account of their color. There is a city-by-city quota system. The result is that the whiter the city the whiter the team . . . The coaches don't pick the team; the market does. (p. 56).

Myers (1991) reported that teams such as Phoenix, Salt Lake City, and San Antonio- with large proportions of whites-typically have "whiter" rosters than teams such as Detroit, Atlanta, and Washington, D.C.-with smaller proportions of whites. In short, using the average number of African-Americans on NBA teams as the norm, a direct correlation between the "blackness" of the franchise city and the "blackness" of the team existed. Although not directly related to the present inquiry, Schollaert and Smith (1987) found that the racial composition of NBA teams did not affect live attendance.

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Destee

I think no more then the Negro League
Negro League Teams Index

From the 1880s to 1950 literally hundreds of all-black, professional and semi-professional baseball teams played throughout the United States. While at times black baseball at its top levels enjoyed the benefits of organized league structures, most teams played in loosely organized circuits or as independents. In the common parlance all are referred to as "Negro League" teams.

The list below is by no means a complete list of all the teams that competed in the 70-year history of Negro League baseball, and the compilation of the list is an ongoing project.
Atlanta Black ********
Austin Black Senators
Baltimore Black Sox Baltimore Elite Giants
Birmingham Black Barons Brooklyn Royal Giants
Chicago American Giants Cincinnati Tigers
Cleveland Buckeyes Cleveland Cubs
Cuban Stars - East
Dayton Marcos
Detroit Stars Homestead Grays
Indianapolis ABCs Indianapolis Clowns
Kansas City Monarchs Memphis Red Sox
New York Black Yankees New York Cubans
Newark Eagles Philadelphia Stars
Pittsburgh Crawfords
St. Louis Stars

Outside that no more then an all starting line up of all black players across the sports world of baseball/basketball/ but i don't think it's ever been an all black football of an sort.

Basely NO there is no all Black Team of any sort ...