A fascinating history celebrating Black players in Major League Baseball from the 1800s through today, with special insight into what the future may hold. In Beyond Baseball's Color Barrier: The Story of African Americans in Major League Baseball, Past, Present, and Future, Rocco Constantino chronicles the history of generations of ballplayers, showing how African Americans have influenced baseball from the 1800s to the present. He details how the color line was drawn, efforts made to erode it, and the progress towards Jackie Robinson's debut-including a pre-integration survey in which players unanimously promoted integration years before it actually happened. Personal accounts and colorful stories trace the exponential growth of diversity in the sport since integration, from a boom in participation in the 1970s to peak participation in the early 1990s, but also reveal the current downward trend in the number of African American players to percentages not seen since the 1960s. Beyond the Color Line not only explores the stories of icons like Hank Aaron, Willie Mays and Satchel Paige but also considers contributions made by players like Vida Blue, Mudcat Grant and Dwight Gooden. Exclusive interviews with former players and individuals involved in the game, including the President of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, add first-hand expert insight into the history of the topic and what the future holds.

The improbable story of Luis Tiant--a living link to the earliest days of Fidel Castro's regime, a Boston Red Sox legend, and the most qualified 20th Century pitcher not yet enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame Luis Tiant is one of the most charismatic and accomplished players in the history of the Boston Red Sox and all of Major League Baseball--a cigar-chomping maestro who was the heart and soul of Boston's title-contending teams in the 1970s. In his white polyester uniform, with a barrel-chested physique and a Fu Manchu mustache, Tiant may not have looked like the lean, sculpted aces he usually faced off against, but nobody was a tougher competitor on the diamond, and few were as successful. There may be no more qualified 20th-century pitcher not yet enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. His big-league dreams came at a steep price--racism in the Deep South and the Boston suburbs, and nearly fifteen years separated from a family held captive in Castro's Cuba. But baseball also delivered World Series stardom and a heroic return to his island home after close to a half-century of forced exile. The man whose name--El Tiante--became a Fenway Park battle cry has never fully shared his tale in his own words, until now. In Son of Havana, Tiant puts his huge heart on his sleeve and describes his road from fields strewn with rocks and rubbish in Havana to the pristine lawns of major league ballparks. Teammates, opponents, family, and media also weigh-in--including a foreword by fellow Red Sox legend Carl Yastrzemski and the first in-depth interview ever with Hall of Fame catcher Carlton Fisk on the magic behind these Boston batterymates. Readers will share Tiant's pride when appeals by a pair of U.S. senators to baseball-fanatic Castro secure freedom for Luis's parents to fly to Boston and witness the 1975 World Series glory of their child. And readers will join the big-league ballplayers for their spring 2016 exhibition game in Havana, when Tiant--a living link to the earliest, scariest days of the Castro regime--threw out the first pitch.