Catching Dreams: My Life in the Negro Baseball Leagues

Frazier “Slow” Robinson

First Edition

[African American] [Sports] Robinson, Frazier “Slow” with Bauer, Paul. Catching Dreams: My Life in the Negro Baseball Leagues. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1999. First edition. 8vo. 215 pages. Illustrated with black-and-white photographs throughout. Bound in red cloth with silver titles; in original photographic dust jacket. 8vo. An essential memoir of the Negro Leagues, Catching Dreams chronicles the life and career of catcher Frazier “Slow” Robinson, one of the last living veterans of segregated Black baseball by the time of its publication. With the aid of rare book dealer Paul Bauer, Robinson offers a deeply personal account of growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, surviving poverty and discrimination, and ultimately playing professional baseball for over fifteen years in both the United States and Latin America. Teams included the Kansas City Monarchs, Homestead Grays, and New York Black Yankees, among others. Known for his steady presence behind the plate and his commanding game knowledge, Robinson caught for legendary pitcher Satchel Paige and frequently played alongside future Major League stars barred from integration during their primes. The book’s foreword by Negro League star and civil rights advocate John “Buck” O’Neil frames Robinson’s testimony as a vital contribution to baseball and American history. Robinson’s voice captures not only the game’s joys and hardships, but also the lived experience of racial exclusion and the pride and brotherhood forged in Black athletic institutions. The introduction by Gerald Early, a renowned scholar of African American culture, situates Robinson’s memoir within the broader struggle for civil rights and historical recovery. Fine in a near fine dust jacket with minimal edge wear. Ex-library stamp from the Rowan Public Library, North Carolina, appears on the title page but is otherwise unmarked. A powerful firsthand narrative of the Negro Leagues, this volume is an important document of Black sports history, institutional memory, and cultural resilience.

Item #21975

Price: $75.00