The "national game" was long played in parallel nations, existing side by side in America.

1. An African American played semi-professional baseball on a white team shortly after the game became "the national pastime" following the Civil War.

True. In 1872, Bud Fowler joined a white semipro team in New Castle, Pennsylvania.

2. By 1887, about 30 African Americans were playing on minor league teams with whites.

True. But by the turn of the century, African Americans found themselves no longer able to play on white teams--although black teams continued to frequently play white teams in exhibition games.

3. Jackie Robinson was the first African American to play on a professional major league baseball team.

False. Moses Fleetwood Walker, an Oberlin College star, played for one season, in 1884, with the Toledo team of the American Association, before he was forced out the following year because of racism.

4. When Brooklyn Dodgers president and general manager Branch Rickey signed Jackie Robinson to play, Robinson had already demonstrated that he was the best player in the Negro Leagues.

False. Robinson, although generally regarded as an excellent player, was not seen as even the best player on his team, the Kansas City Monarchs. Rickey signed him because of a combination of qualities--not only his proven and potential talent and skill at the game, but also his personal integrity and his likely strength (as Rickey saw it) at withstanding the abuse that Rickey thought Robinson would face on and off the field for breaking the color barrier in major league baseball.

5. Professional baseball's night games, played under lights, first appeared in the Negro Leagues as a way to cope with the heavy scheduling demands of barnstorming play.

True. The Kansas City Monarchs' owner, J. L. Wilkinson, developed a portable light system consisting of light towers on truck beds in 1929-30. The light trucks traveled with his team and allowed them much more flexibility in scheduling their games. White major leagues did not have night games (with lights) until 1935 in Cincinnati.