Editing Baseball color line (section)

=== Sam Nahem ===
During the Second World War, President Roosevelt had the American military establish a formal baseball organization for the soldiers in order to boost morale and eventually in order to help reintroduce the soldiers back into regular civilian life.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Dreier |first=Peter |date=2017 |title=Sam Nahem: The Right-Handed Lefty Who Integrated Military Baseball in World War II |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/758617 |journal=NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture |language=en |volume=26 |issue=1–2 |pages=184–215 |doi=10.1353/nin.2017.0025 |issn=1534-1844|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last1=Rebels |first1=Baseball |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv2bfhhv0 |title=Baseball Rebels: The Players, People, and Social Movements That Shook Up the Game and Changed America |last2=Dreier |first2=Peter |last3=Elias |first3=Robert |date=2022-04-01 |publisher=Nebraska |isbn=978-1-4962-3177-2 |doi=10.2307/j.ctv2bfhhv0|jstor=j.ctv2bfhhv0 }}</ref> After the unconditional surrender of the Germans to the Allied Powers in May 1945, the American military expanded their baseball organization to the European Theater of Operations (ETO) with over 200,000 American soldiers participating; among the soldiers who participated were former and current [[Major League Baseball]] and [[Negro league baseball teams|Negro league baseball]] players.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /> Until 1945, black soldiers were forced to play on all-black teams.<ref name=":1" />

While stationed overseas in Rheims, France, [[Sam Nahem]], who had MLB experience, was assigned to oversee and manage two baseball leagues in France as well as player-manage his own team: the Overseas Invasion Service Expedition All-Stars (OISE All-Stars).<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /> In a shocking decision–by the discriminatory social standards of the time–Nahem insisted on integrating black ballplayers into the All-Stars, recruiting [[Willard Brown]] and [[Leon Day]].<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /> When Nahem was later asked about this decision and it potentially causing issues for his team he insisted, “[t]here was no problem. I made sure there would be nothing of that sort on my team.”<ref>Jason Scheller, “The National Pastime Enlists: How Baseball Fought the Second World War,” (Texas Tech University, 2002) <nowiki>https://ttu-ir.tdl.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/efc078b2-354d-4465-b12f-d9c0ee667845/content</nowiki></ref> Nahem, who had been heavily discriminated against for his Jewish ancestry and faith, was heavily sympathetic towards black individuals who were experiencing similar treatment.<ref name=":0" /> One of the many origins of the [[Civil rights movement]] and other efforts at integration in America stemmed from the treatment black veterans received at home versus overseas as well as the juxtaposition of fighting for democracy in Europe while segregation still existed in the United States.<ref>Salmond, John, "The Long Civil Rights Movement," ''Agora'', Vol. 44, Issue 4 (2009)</ref>