Expert on African-American Baseball to Speak at MCC

Editor's Note: The following information is a press release from Middlesex County College.

Dr. Lawrence Hogan, the nation’s foremost expert on African-American baseball before Jackie Robinson cracked the color barrier, will speak at Middlesex County College on Thursday, February 21. It will be in the College Center Gallery on the Edison Campus from 5-7 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

Dr. Hogan, senior professor of history at Union County College, will be joined by Pedro Sierra, who played in the 1950s with the Indianapolis Clowns and the Detroit Stars.

Dr. Hogan will speak on “The House that Ruth Built and Pop Opened! Negro League Baseball and Yankee Stadium.” It will include a discussion, accompanied by video and exhibit material, of the history of Negro League baseball from 1930 through 1948 at Yankee Stadium. It will focus on the historic opening of the stadium to Negro League play on July 5, 1930, for a doubleheader that is arguably the most significant game ever played there.

Dr. Hogan was the principal author of “Shades of Glory: The Negro Leagues and the Story of African-American Baseball,” and the author of “The Forgotten History of African American Baseball,” which is scheduled for publication in June.

In addition, Dr. Hogan has written “So Many Seasons in the Sun: A Century and More of Conversation with Baseball’s Greatest Clubhouse Managers,” which will be published at the end of February. In this book, he tells the history of baseball as seen through the eyes of the game’s ultimate insiders, four legendary clubhouse men for the Yankees and the New York and San Francisco Giants: Fred and Ed Logan, Pete Sheehy, and Mike Murphy.

Middlesex County College is located at 2600 Woodbridge Ave., Edison.