Subtitled: "True tales from baseball's last bastion of racial segregation: the Alabama-Florida League," this book has been out-of-print and nearly impossible to find for nearly a quarter-century.
Recently, author Ken Brooks turned his attention once again to baseball's forgotten league, which operated in the Deep South from 1936 to 1962. The result is a completely updated and revised edition of the original 1986 book. "It's essentially a re-write," Brooks explained. "I conducted many new interviews with former players, almost all of whom were eager to share their stories and personal photos."
The book contains an introduction by the late, esteemed Atlanta Journal columnist Paul Hemphill...plus rare photos, players' stories (in their own words), and league history.
"When the Alabama-Florida League folded in 1962," Brooks said, "it was the last professional baseball league in America without a black player. The league owners wouldn't permit it. Instead, they chose to kill the league: death before dishonoring the code of the Confederacy."
THE LAST REBEL YELL is not simply an account of that league, but a glimpse into the professional game in the Deep South as it struggled against the changing social tides.
THE LAST REBEL YELL is informative, entertaining, and exhaustively researched. If you are a fan of baseball history, it will be an important addition to your e-bookshelf.
Ken Brooks is an award-winning writer/editor whose work has appeared in numerous publications over the years. He is a member of the Society for American Baseball Research, and the Golf Writers Association of America. Brooks is also the author of RANDOM RAMBLINGS OF A GOLF JUNKIE, a collection of his humor columns for FORE magazine.
