<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/6/1591289256619.png" alt="J.W. Wilkinson's traveling All-Nations team in 1916. The squad was made up of players from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, but its roster was decimated by both World War I and the 1918 flu pandemic. Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, Inc." />
 <figcaption>J.W. Wilkinson's traveling All-Nations team in 1916. The squad was made up of players from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, but its roster was decimated by both World War I and the 1918 flu pandemic. Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, Inc.</figcaption>
 </figure><h2>Historic meeting at YMCA
 in 1920 may never have happened if not for 1918 pandemic</h2>By GREG ECHLIN <a href="https://www.kcur.org/sports/2020-05-30/how-a-global-pandemic-100-years-ago-led-to-the-founding-of-the-negro-leagues-in-kansas-city">Kansas News Service</a>Getting past a disruption caused by a global pandemic is nothing new 
for professional baseball. Even as Major League Baseball considers a 
shortened season this year amid the ongoing coroanavirus outbreak, the 
sport faced an even more dire threat a century ago with the flu 
pandemic.That event, combined with World War I and a major gambling scandal, jeopardized the very future of the game.Part
 of what came next was history, made in Kansas City: the Negro Leagues 
were formed 100 years ago at the Paseo YMCA, just as professional 
baseball was trying to figure out how to move on from a series of 
world-altering events.‘The biggest entertainment business in America.’Before
 1917, Eliot Asinoff wrote in his bestseller “Eight Men Out” that 
baseball was “the biggest entertainment business in America.”But 
in 1920, at the same time that Kansas City jazz was taking off in the 
18th and Vine district, Rube Foster of Chicago and J.L. Wilkinson, who 
had recently moved to Kansas City from Iowa, met at the nearby YMCA on 
The Paseo to formalize the Negro National League in the Negro Leagues.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/6/1591289387032.png" alt="Kansas City Monarchs owner J.L. Wilkinson (left) and Rube Foster, owner of the Chicago American Giants, were the two driving forces behind the founding of the Negro Leagues in 1920. Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, Inc. " />
 <figcaption>Kansas City Monarchs owner J.L. Wilkinson (left) and Rube Foster, owner of the Chicago American Giants, were the two driving forces behind the founding of the Negro Leagues in 1920. Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, Inc. </figcaption>
 </figure>It was an unusual partnership for its time. Foster was black, and Wilkinson was white.“Foster,
 I understand, would’ve preferred to have had all-black leadership for 
the leagues, but could not deny the connection that Wilkinson had,” said
 Raymond Doswell, vice president and curator for Kansas City’s Negro 
Leagues Baseball Museum, which has been closed since mid-March as a 
precaution against the spread of the coronavirus.Foster knew 
Wilkinson from the integrated barnstorming team Wilkinson owned called 
the All Nations team. It was made up of players from a variety of 
backgrounds, including African Americans, Latino Americans and Asian 
immigrants.Barnstorming teams —semi-professional outfits that 
traveled around the country playing other local teams— got in on the 
success that professional baseball had produced at that time.“I 
do know the All Nations played the Chicago American Giants,” said Tom 
Fredrick, a Kansas City attorney who has published research on 
Wilkinson. “In other words, Rube Foster’s team, pre-Negro National 
League formation, in October of 1916. In Kansas City, Missouri.”Despite the difference in the color of their skin, Doswell said Foster and Wilkinson had a lot in common.“These were two baseball men who were visionaries in many respects, who understood the broader picture,” said Doswell.A war, a pandemic and a scandalTheir partnership, though, came out of global tragedy and turmoil.When the U.S. entered World War I in 1917, Wilkinson’s All Nations players were among those who enlisted according to Fredrick.“He (Wilkinson) lost All-Nations roster to the Great War. We know that,” he said.Things
 worsened in 1918 when baseball—and especially barnstorming teams that 
had to travel to make money—were hit hard by the global flu pandemic.Then, as now with the coronavirus, the flu impacted black communities more, according to Doswell.“There’s
 a lot of urbanization, so it’s easy for these kinds of things like the 
flu or even tuberculosis to sweep through black communities very 
easily,” he said. “That was a problem in some large communities for many
 years.”<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/6/1591289439235.png" alt="The Chicago American Giants, owned by Rube Foster (back row, middle, wearing suit) were a pre-Negro Leagues barnstorming team made up of all black players. This was the 1918 squad. Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, Inc." />
 <figcaption>The Chicago American Giants, owned by Rube Foster (back row, middle, wearing suit) were a pre-Negro Leagues barnstorming team made up of all black players. This was the 1918 squad. Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, Inc.</figcaption>
 </figure>By 1919, the war had ended and the flu had subsided. But baseball had
 another lingering problem: gambling. Though an issue before the war and
 pandemic, the problem reached its apex when several members of the 
Chicago White Sox took money to intentionally lose the 1919 World Series
 against the Cincinnati Reds.After those chain of events, Doswell said Foster and Wilkinson converged in Kansas City in 1920.“They
 were being pushed by the black press mostly,” he said. “Black sports 
news editors were sometimes also the editors of different papers. They 
were commenting on the fact that black baseball was loose, and it was 
not organized.”Kansas City’s signature franchiseFrom
 Fredrick’s research on Wilkinson, it was discovered that Wilkinson, 
being the shrewd businessman that he was, planned to start up the Kansas
 City Monarchs, with or without an organized league.But as it 
turned out, the Monarchs became one of the league’s signature teams 
under Wilkinson’s ownership. Wilkinson, who entered the National 
Baseball of Fame in 2006, had earned the respect of his players.One of them was former Monarchs first baseman and manager Buck O’Neil, who before his death in 2006, praised Wilkinson.“J.L.
 (Wilkinson was) an outstanding individual. Great baseball mind,” he 
said. “He’s a promoter. He knew how to make money,” O’Neil said at that 
time.One hundred years ago, the formation of the Negro Leagues 
was a historic step for baseball, one that may never have happened if 
not for world-shaking events. That’ something for Major League Baseball 
to keep in mind now, as it tries to move on after another global 
pandemic.

How 1918 pandemic sparked founding of Negro Leagues in Kansas City