Fields
U.S. History
Sport History
Pittsburgh History
Teaching
U.S. History Since 1877
U.S. History Since 1945
History of Sport
History of Sport and Global Capitalism
- PhD, University of Pittsburgh, 1983
Education & Training
- PEN-ESPN Literary Sportswriting Award (Long List), Tropic of Football: The Long and Perilous Journey of Samoans to the NFL
- “The Tropic of Football and the Republic of Play,” the John R. Betts Honors Address, North American Society for the Study of History Convention, May 27, 2017.
- PEN-ESPN Literary Sportswriting Award (runner-up), Raceball: How the Major Leagues Colonized the Black and Latin Game, 2012
- “African-American Historian of Pittsburgh,” CMU’s Center for African American Urban Studies and the Economy, September 10, 2010
- Hall of Fame Negro League Election Committee (2006)
- LaRoche College Presidential Medal (1993)
- Emmy, Mid-Atlantic Region of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for Outstanding Cultural Programming (1994)
- SABR-MacMillan Award (1991)
Books and Documentaries
Mal Goode Reporting: The Life and Work of a Black Broadcast Trailblazer (2024), with Liann Tsoukas
Pittsburgh Rising: From Frontier Town to Steel City (2023) with Edward K. Muller
Tropic of Football: The Long and Perilous Journey of Samoans to the NFL (2018)
Raceball: How the Major Leagues Colonized the Black and Latin Game (Beacon Press: 2011)
Rooney: A Sporting Life (with Maggie Jones Patterson and Michael Weber) (University of Nebraska Press: 2010)
The Republic of Baseball: Dominican Giants of the American Game (with Dan Manatt) (PBS: 2006-2008)
The Tropic of Baseball: Baseball in the Dominican Republic (University of Nebraska Press,1999)
Kings on the Hill: Baseball’s Forgotten Men (PBS and NBC 1993-1996)
Sandlot Seasons: Sport in Black Pittsburgh (University of Illinois Press,1993)
Steve Nelson, American Radical (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1981) with Steve Nelson and James Barrett
Recently completed projects
The League (a documentary about the Negro Leagues; Sam Pollard Director, Questlove Executive Producer)
The Souls of the Game: Voices of Black Baseball (a new exhibit at the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown that retells the story of Black Baseball)
Current Projects
Youth in the Republic of Play (a book about youth and global sport)
Songs of a Lost Island (a documentary about Troy Polamalu, Samoa, and football)
Democratic Futures Project (a new history of Black Pittsburgh)
