Lisa Doris Alexander, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Africana Studies, Wayne State University; author of When Baseball Isn’t White, Straight and Male

Della Britton Baeza, President and Chief Executive Officer, The Jackie Robinson Foundation

Adrian Burgos, Jr., Ph.D., Professor of History, University of Illinois; author of Cuban Star and Playing America’s Game

Neil Lanctot, Ph.D., writer and historian; author of Campy: The Two Lives of Roy Campanella

Books will be available for sale and signing at the light reception to follow.

Exploring Baseball Series also includes:
Baseball in America Today (May 28)
Dreamers and Doers: Kim Ng (June 11)
Writing Baseball (September 21)
Lisa Doris Alexander is an Associate Professor of Africana Studies at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan and author of the book When Baseball Isn’t White, Straight and Male: The Media and Difference in the National Pastime. Dr. Alexander analyzes issues of race, class, gender, and sexual identity in popular culture and her work has appeared in NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and American Culture, the Journal of Popular Film and Television, and Black Ball: A Journal of the Negro Leagues.

Since 2004, Della Britton Baeza has been the President and CEO of the Jackie Robinson Foundation (JRF), a national, not-for-profit organization that oversees a model college scholarship program that provides four years of generous financial aid and extensive support services to underserved students. Founded in 1973, JRF has disbursed over $60 million in grants and direct program assistance. Under her leadership, the Foundation is building the Jackie Robinson Museum in New York City, which will open in 2016. Notably, Britton has served also as President of Grammy award-winning record label AJM Records (NYC); President of Hillside Publishing, L.L.P., managing the successful acquisition and sale of radio and television properties in the US; Assistant General Attorney for the American Broadcasting Companies, Inc.; an associate with the law firm of Covington & Burling; and a member of The New York Times Institutional Task Force on Race Relations, convened by Arthur Ochs Sulzberger in the 1990’s. Britton received her B.A. degree from Princeton University and a J.D. degree from Columbia Law School. She has three adult children and resides in New York City.

Adrian Burgos, Jr., is Professor of History at the University of Illinois, specializing in U.S. Latino history, sport history, urban history, and African American history. His latest book Cuban Star: How One Negro League Owner Changed the Face of Baseball was published by Hill & Wang in 2011. His first book, Playing America’s Game(s): Baseball, Latinos, and the Color Line (University of California Press, 2007) received the inaugural Latino/a Book Award from the Latin American Studies Association and was named a Seymour Medal Finalist for the best book on baseball history by the Society of American Baseball Researchers. He has also co-edited the anthology Beyond El Barrio: Everyday Life in Latina/o America (NYU Press, 2010). His writings have appeared in the Journal of American Ethnic History, Journal of Sport and Social Issues, and Journal of African American History, as well as on MLB.com, Progressive Media Project, and other popular venues.

Neil Lanctot, Ph.D. is the author of Fair Dealing and Clean Playing: The Hilldale Club and The Development of Black Professional Baseball, 1910-1932 (1994) and Negro League Baseball – The Rise and Ruin of a Black Institution (2004), hailed by The New York Times as “prodigiously researched” and “enormously important.” His most recent work, Campy – The Two Lives of Roy Campanella (Simon & Schuster, 2011), was named an alternate Book of the Month Club selection. Lanctot’s writing has appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer, Baltimore Sun, and several other journals and anthologies.

John Thorn is the Official Historian of Major League Baseball. Apart from his creation, with Pete Palmer, of Total Baseball, he is often visible on ESPN, MLBTV, and other media outlets. He was a major on-screen presence in and chief consultant to Ken Burns’s PBS film, Baseball. His many baseball books over the past three decades include The Hidden Game of Baseball, The Armchair Books of Baseball, Treasures of the Baseball Hall of Fame, The Game for All America, and Our Game, a history of the game which supplies the title for his blog. In 2011, Simon & Schuster published his major work, Baseball in the Garden of Eden: A Secret History of the Early Game. Thorn has served as chief consultant to the exhibition Chasing Dreams: Baseball & Becoming American.