Narrated by James Earl Jones, this hour long documentary, produced by Refocus Digital Media, LLC, chronicles the rich history of Black baseball and examines the re-integration of the game. There Was Always Sun Shining Someplace: Life in the Negro Baseball Leagues documents these athletes struggles and achievements. The film features interviews with baseball Hall of Famers Satchel Paige, James ‘Cool Papa’ Bell, Buck Leonard, Judy Johnson, Monte Irvin and Ray Dandridge. A classic film of its subject, the film chronicles the rich history of the Negro Baseball Leagues that flourished before Jackie Robinson integrated the major leagues in 1947. The exploits of these talented athletes and the times when baseball was a segregated sport are vividly brought to life. There Was Always Sun Shining Someplace contains rare historical footage showing the ballplayers as they traveled the backroads of America, the Caribbean, Mexico and Latin America. It is an unforgettable journey.
Today no major league baseball team is without its roster of Black stars. But it was not always so. From the 1880’s until the late 1940’s American baseball was segregated.
Highlighted by recently discovered game footage from the 1930’s and 40’s, this documentary is the result if four years’ work by producers Craig Davidson and Donn Rogosin. They traveled throughout the United States filming the recollections of former Negro League players while they were still alive, also combing archives and private collections for film and photographs.
Davidson says: “This was more than a simple baseball story. Negro League baseball intertwined complex personalities, intrigue, first-rate baseball and triumph of the human heart. For me, the four years spent on this project were the most important of my life.”
This film, as well as being the definitive treatment of this fascinating chapter of Black sports history, brings to light the celebrity status of the Negro Leaguers in the Caribbean, Mexico, and Latin America. It further details the relationship between Black baseball and the Black gangsters of the period, and sheds a new and unexpected light on the role of the Negro Leaguers in the re-integration of major league baseball.
Co-writer/Sports Historian Donn Rogosin adds: “These great baseball players dealt with adversity in a most admirable manner. It was a glorious chapter in Black baseball. ”