By Milton Kirby | Louisville, KY | August 31, 2025

The Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) brought its annual Jerry Malloy Negro League Conference (JMNLC) to Louisville, Kentucky, August 7–9, filling the Galt House Hotel with scholars, historians, fans, and community leaders devoted to preserving the legacy of Black baseball.

This year’s gathering highlighted the cultural and historical depth of the Negro Leagues. Attendees viewed the premiere of I Forgot to Tell You About: The Story of the Cleveland Buckeyes, followed by a panel with former All-Star Kenny Lofton, filmmaker Evelyn Pollard-Gregory, and authors Wayne Pearsall and Vince Guerrieri. The weekend also featured poet Dorian Hairston, a Louisville Baseball History Panel with Harry Rothgerber and Anne Jewell, and a film screening on Black baseball in Nashville.

Participants enjoyed a tour of the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory, a reception at the Roots 101 African American Museum, and a Louisville Bats game at Slugger Field. Presenters included longtime researchers such as James Brunson III, Larry McGill, Gary Gillette, Keith Wood, and others who continue to shed light on overlooked chapters of African American baseball.

Honoring Sammy Hughes

The conference closed with a powerful moment on Sunday, August 10, when SABR’s Pee Wee Reese Chapter, working with the Louisville Bats and Louisville Slugger Museum, placed a long-awaited grave marker for Negro Leagues great Sammy Hughes at Louisville Cemetery. Known as “Sammy T,” Hughes was a six-time All-Star second baseman who played with 17 Hall of Fame players (Roy Campanella, Biz Mackey, Mule Suttles, Willie Wells, Josh Gibson, Buck Leonard, Cool Papa Bell, Ray Brown, Ray Dandridge, Turkey Stearnes, Leon Day, Martin Dihigo, Willie Foster, Judy Johnson, Satchel Paige, Hilton Smith, and Jud Wilson), and captured a 1939 Negro National League title with the Baltimore Elite Giants. After his death in 1981, Hughes had lain in an unmarked grave for 44 years.

History and Mission

Since its founding in 1998, the Jerry Malloy Negro League Conference has been the only national symposium devoted exclusively to Black baseball history. Named for journalist and historian Jerry Malloy (1946–2000), the event reflects the mission of SABR’s Negro Leagues Committee, founded in 1971, to encourage research into the Negro Leagues, pre-Negro League baseball, and the broader African American impact on the game.

Founders such as Ted Knorr, Dick Clark, Larry Lester, Leslie Heaphy, and Malloy himself envisioned a forum where scholarship, storytelling, and community could meet. Their vision still guides today’s gatherings, with annual presentations, trivia contests, youth scholarships, library grants, and the ongoing Negro Leagues Baseball Grave Marker Project, which has provided headstones for more than 30 forgotten players.

The Future: Carrying the Flame

This year’s conference not only honored history but also raised questions about the future. Organizers acknowledged the challenge of drawing more diverse participants and sustaining momentum at a time when diversity initiatives are under political attack.

“The Malloy is the place where connections are made, and ideas are born,” said committee co-chair Todd Peterson. “Good trouble always has, and always will be, made here.”

Fellow co-chair James Brunson added, “The conference bridges past and present. Nothing is foreign, forbidden, or impossible with this group.”

Looking ahead, leaders emphasized Larry Lester’s “Three R’s” — Recognition, Respect, Redemption— as guiding principles for expanding the conference’s reach while ensuring that the painful history of baseball’s color line remains central to public memory.

In the words of one participant, the Malloy is not simply about baseball statistics or forgotten box scores, but about resisting historical amnesia, confronting injustice, and keeping alive the stories of the players who laid the groundwork for integration and equity in sport.

As Peterson concluded: “We are the keepers of the flame. We must be the bulwark against attempts to whitewash the past.”

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