Race & Baseball

Jerry Poling is the Assistant City Editor of the Eau Claire Leader-Telegram. He's author of the book A Summer Up North: Henry Aaron and the Legend of Eau Claire Baseball, about Hank Aaron's year playing minor league baseball in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, published by The University of Wisconsin Press. He spoke with Mitch Teich from Eau Claire. Poling says even though baseball had been integrated for five years by the time Aaron arrived in Wisconsin, it would be a stretch to say that blacks were accepted across baseball as a whole.