FAIRBORN — The Senior 60s Softball League will hold an exhibition game at Fairfield Park in Fairborn with a three inning match at 7:45 p.m. Monday, Aug. 24.
The game will honor the 100th anniversary of the founding of Negro Leagues Baseball. Players will wear authentic replica jerseys of more than 40 teams, including the Kansas City Monarchs, Homestead Grays, Dayton Marcos, Cleveland Buckeyes and Newark Eagles.
The Negro Leagues were founded in 1920, encompassing teams from all parts of the United States. The league afforded African Americans the opportunity to play baseball, in defiance of the Jim Crow laws that seperated them from their white counterparts. The Negro Leagues fostered stars like Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, Willie Mays, Cool Papa Bell, and Jackie Robinson, who became the first black man to play for the modern Major League Baseball in 1945.