The Sawyer Free Library will host award-winning author and journalist Ted Reinstein on Saturday, January 8, from 2:00-4:00 pm. He will speak about his book, Before Brooklyn: The Unsung Heroes Who Helped Break Baseball’s Color Barrier, on the Main Floor of the Library located at 2 Dale Avenue in Gloucester, MA.

The event is free and open to the public. Registration is not required. Copies of the book Before Brooklyn: The Unsung Heroes Who Helped Break Baseball’s Color Barrier will be available. Face masks are mandatory for those attending. 

In Before Brooklyn: The Unsung Heroes Who Helped Break Baseball’s Color Barrier, Ted Reinstein tells the story of the little-known heroes who fought segregation in baseball. From communist newspaper reporters to the Pullman car porters who saw that black newspapers espousing integration in professional sports reached the homes of blacks throughout the country. It also reminds us that the first black player in professional baseball was not Jackie Robinson but Moses Fleetwood Walker in 1884 and that for a time-integrated teams were not that unusual. And then, as segregation throughout the country hardened, the exclusion of blacks in baseball quietly became the norm, and the battle for integration began anew.

Reinstein is an award-winning, longtime reporter for Boston’s celebrated nightly-newsmagazine, “Chronicle.” He is the author of three previous books, including New England Notebook: One Reporter, Six States, Uncommon Stories (Globe Pequot Press), selected by National Geographic Traveler in 2014 as a “Best Pick.” Ted is a native of Winthrop, Massachusetts.

For more information about the event or other Sawyer Free Library offerings, visit sawyerfreelibrary.org or call 978-325-5500.