Baseball Under Siege: The Yankees, the Cardinals, and a Doctor's Battle to Integrate Spring Training

In 1961, when the New York Yankees and the St. Louis Cardinals arrived in St. Petersburg, Florida, for spring training, neither team had any idea that an African American physician was about to turn its world upside down.

To Major League Baseball, Dr. Ralph Wimbish was just black homeowner able to house the team's African American ball players who were segregated from their white teammates—except on the diamond—during spring training. The laws in Florida, like the rest of the South, were dic...