AUTHOR / EDITOR

Currently, Larry Lester serves as co-chairman of the Negro Leagues Committee for the prestigious Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), in Cleveland, Ohio. This committee hosts the annual Jerry Malloy Negro League Conference in selected cities, providing a presentation venue for scholarly papers and academic research. Since 1998, it is the only symposium in America dedicated exclusively to the examination of black baseball history, and its impact on American society and its elimination of racial barriers. 

SABR published his first book in 1994, with co-editor Dick Clark, simply titled: The Negro Leagues Book which is billed as “the most complete collection of information on baseball’s Negro Leagues ever published.” His next four books are a part of Arcadia’s Black America Series, entitled Whistle Stops. The stops included Black Baseball in Detroit , …. in Chicago, …. in Kansas City and … in Pittsburgh. In 2002, book #6 was published by the University of Nebraska Press, called Black Baseball’s National Showcase: The East-West All-Star Game, 1933 – 1953. This publication won The Sporting News-SABR Research Award for the “best researched baseball book of the year.”

His latest book published by McFarland & Company (2006): Baseball’s First Colored World Series, the 10-game series between the Kansas City Monarchs and the Hilldale Club of Darby, PA. The ten-game series is the longest World Series - black or white - on record.  Also, the only World Series in which each team reeled off three straight wins, four games were won by a single run, and five games decided in the final inning.

Other writings on sports personalities have appeared in The National Pastime, Biographical Dictionary of American Sports, American National Biography, The Ball Players, World Book Encyclopedia, and the Dictionary of American Negro Biography. In 1997, he wrote 28 biographies for Major League Baseball’s black history month web page which included a special section on Jackie Robinson’s 50^th Anniversary of breaking baseball’s color barrier. His comprehensive life history of Jackie Robinson’s journey was the featured article in the New York Mets’ Opening Day Program booklet in 1997. Other publications include the 1997 Official Major League Baseball Calendar, and featured articles in the 1998 & 1999 World Series Programs for MLB.

Other works include his text and photographs of James “Cool Papa” Bell, Josh Gibson and Leroy “Satchel” Paige on General Mill’s 75^th Anniversary of the Negro Leagues Wheaties cereal box (1996), along with a regular series of Negro League calendars, "The Forgotten Leagues" by DMD Design & Shades of Color from 2001 to 2011.

Lester is senior editor of the Courier, the official newsletter of SABR's Negro Leagues Committee and associate editor of Black Ball: A Negro Leagues Journal, an academic-scholarly publication by McFarland & Company.