Black professional baseball originates in the decade of the 1880's and comes down to the advent of Jackie Robinson's entry into the Major Leagues. This program tells the story of great Black players and great Black teams who played their games behind a color line built by American racism. It locates this story into the larger Black and white world of which Black baseball was a part. Selections from a documentary on this baseball era have players speaking to audiences about their playing days. A special feature of this program has Kevin Kane, poet, playwright, performer, and former program representative for playwright August Wilson, presenting his original poem, “Breaking the Line with the Mudville Nine,” which introduces audiences to K. C. of Kansas City, and stands side by side with the iconic American baseball poem, “Casey at the Bat.”

"Historian Larry Hogan basks in baseball’s shadowed fields. He is a national treasure. And with The Forgotten History of African American Baseball, he culminates decades of inspired investigation, and, best of all for readers, great tales too long untold. My cap is off to him”--John Thorn, Official Historian of Major League Baseball.

Kevin Kane has made the better part of his living as a writer, musician and playwright. His Negro League version of “Casey at the Bat,” called “Breaking the Line with the Mudville Nine” was written for and first performed at the Cooperstown Baseball Hall of Fame