Baltimore in Tricky Position With Proposed Negro League Museum

A $4.1 million plan has been put in place to build a Negro League baseball museum in Baltimore. Even if one already exists in Kansas City, there's certainly enough of a market on the East Coast to keep a second afloat. Though for Baltimore, the greater challenge is deciding where in the city the museum should go.

Tentative plans have the museum operating in the city's Pennsylvania Avenue corridor, an area steeped in history for black arts and culture. The concern with that is twofold. First, it might be difficult to attract visitors to an area during the early years of a revitalization effort, especially during economic struggles when any such plan would be sluggish in execution. A similar fate befell Baltimore's Great Blacks in Wax Museum, which has a hard time generating crowds because of its location away from the center of town.

Another concern is the notion that placing the museum in a historically black neighborhood, rather than near the Sports Legends Museum and the Babe Ruth Birthplace & Museum located by Camden Yards, could be perceived as trying to marginalize the history of black ballplayers by having their museum more out of the way than those that mostly celebrate white players. On one hand, the museum occupying a space near Oriole Park would ensure quick success, with crowds likely to pour in on gamedays. But then that would deprive a neglected section of the city of the anchor it would need to attract more foot traffic and more business.

Given that there's funding in place for the Pennsylvania Avenue location, proponents would likely be best suited going forward with what they have rather than dragging their feet over concerns they might face down the road with negative perception. But it's a calculated gamble, because a failure of the museum to gain a following could for some attract a sense of bias.

(H/T to Big League Stew)

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.