Thurs. June 18 - Sunday June 21... Memphis, TN
Thurs. June 18 - Sunday June 21... Memphis, TN
get your malloy t-shirt now
If you are heading to Memphis for the 2026 Jerry Malloy Negro Leagues Conference, then stop here and get your t-shirt to help support the Malloy & SABR.
A few Key faces to know at the malloy
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James Brunson
An expert in the field of 19th century Blackball. And guaranteed hes not looking for low lying fruit. He’s searching deep in the history for truth and understanding.
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Leslie Heaphy
Renown Negro leagues historian and chair of the Jerry Malloy Conference.
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JB Martin IV
Direct descendant of Memphis Red Sox owner JB Martin. He will present at the 2026 Malloy AND throw out the first pitch at the Juneteenth game at Autozone Park.
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Ted Knorr
Rap Dixon’s biggest fan and a board member for the Malloy Conference. His enthusiasm for Blackball is contagious.
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Curt Hart
Prof Emeritus Univ. of Memphis
- developed and taught courses, “Baseball in America - the History of the Game”
- co-anchored a syndicated show in Memphis, ACC Conference Call
- 25 years as a sportscaster, primarily doing sports talk radio in Pennsylvania
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Aram Goudsouzian
Bizot Family Professer at the University of Memphis. His research focuses on 20th century American history, with a particular focus on race, politics, and culture. He examines the era of the civil rights movement from a variety of angles, and projects in U.S. sports history.
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Paul Julion
A teacher and coach in the Chicago-land area, this young historian brings a passion to the work. His presentation on Raising the Banner at the 2024 Malloy inspired me to urge the Memphis Redbirds to raise the 1938 NAL MRS banner at Autozone Park.
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Gary Mitchum
McFarland Publishing editor Gary Mitchum is a mainstay at the Malloy. McFarland is a huge support of Blackball history.
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Johnny Haynes
Incredible knowledge of the Blackball game. He has been a huge help with my work on the Memphis Red Sox and continues ot shed light on Negro Leagues baseball.
Schedule 2026 Jerry Malloy Conference - Memphis, TN
Thursday, June 18
9:00-11:30 a.m.: Education Forum conducted by Dr. Leslie Heaphy12:00-1:00 p.m.: Lunch on your own
12:00-4:30 p.m.: Registration open
1:00-4:30 p.m.: Bus Tour
4:30-6:00 p.m.: Black Diamonds, Blues City: Stories of the Memphis Red Sox film screening
6:30-8:30 p.m.: Meet and Greet at Withers Collection Museum & Gallery (333 Beale Street), with light refreshments and cash bar.
Friday, June 19
Panels and presentations will be held at the SpringHill Suites. Registration begins at 8:00 a.m. until 4:30 p.m.
8:30-9:00 a.m.: Coffee and Welcome
9:00-9:30 a.m.: James Brunson III, “Memphis Slow Grind Blues: Eureka-Eclipse Blackball Rivalry, 1884-1888”
9:30-10:00 a.m.: Neil Sharma, “Crump, Martin and the Memphis Red Sox”
10:00-10:15 a.m.: Break
10:15-11:00 a.m.: Special Presentation on J.B. Martin, by J.B. Martin IV
11:00-11:30 a.m.: Paul Spyhalski, “Verdell Mathis”
11:30 a.m.-1:00 p.m.: Lunch on your own
1:00-1:30 p.m.: Stephen V. Rice, “Carl ‘Lefty’ Glass”
1:30-2:00 p.m.: Gary Gillette, “Martin Stadium at Lewis Park”
2:00-2:45 p.m.: Bob Boyd Panel, with Thomas Van Hyning and Alex Painter
2:45-3:00 p.m.: Break
3:00-4:00 p.m.: Special Presentation
4:00-4:30 p.m.: Tom Thress, “Who Pitched for the 1942 Cincinnati Clowns Under the Name ‘Matchett’?”
4:30-5:00 p.m.: Curt Hart, “Interviews with Negro Leaguers”
5:30-10:00 p.m.: Memphis Redbirds ballgame with dinner included at AutoZone Park (198 Union Ave.)
Saturday, June 20
Panels and presentations will be held at the SpringHill Suites. Registration begins at 8:00 a.m. until 12:00 p.m.
8:30-9:00 a.m.: Coffee and Welcome
9:00-9:30 a.m.: Clem Hamilton, “From Segregation to Integration: How Black Ball Stars’ Careers Were Affected”
9:30-10:00 a.m.: Ryan Whirty, “Willie Foster”
10:00-10:30 a.m.: Loren Broaddus, “Wasn’t Any Maybe So—Poems through the Voice of Newt Allen”
10:30-10:45 a.m.: Break
10:45-11:15 a.m.: Chris Jensen, “Black Baseball Lives Stolen Too Soon”
11:15-11:45 a.m.: Ted Knorr, “Showin’ Off in Showa 2”
11:45 a.m.-1:15 p.m.: Lunch on your own
1:15-1:45 p.m.: Julia Bucci, “Cultural Importance of the Negro Leagues”
1:45-2:15 p.m.: Aram Goudsouzian, “’Something Out of a Book’: Satchel Paige and the 1960s”
2:15-2:45 p.m.: Daniel Torres, “Before the Color Line: Interracial Baseball in Reconstruction-Era New York”
2:45-3:00 p.m.: Break
3:00-3:30 p.m.: David Krell, “Ain’t No Man Got to be Common”
3:30-4:00 p.m.: Alan Cohen, “Negro League Home Run Project”
4:15-5:00 p.m.: Significa Contest preliminaries
5:30-6:30 p.m.: Reception and cash bar
6:30-9:30 p.m.: Awards Banquet, plus silent/live auctions and Significa Contest finals
Sunday, June 21
12:00-1:00 p.m.: Visit to National Civil Rights Museum (450 Mulberry Street); tickets are $23 on your own
PhD Wood in Schenectady
Sharing his love for the Mohawk Giants
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the Pigskin Dispatch Pod
The Memphis Showboats:
The USFL team & the City’s Fight for Major League Status
Click on the link
New Podcast:
Memphis Red Sox w/ Tim Hanlon
EPISODE 429: The Negro Leagues' Memphis Red Sox - With Keith Wood
Author and baseball historian Keith Wood ("The Memphis Red Sox: A Negro Leagues History") joins the show to explore the rich yet often overlooked story of the Memphis Red Sox, one of Black baseball’s most resilient and community‑rooted franchises. From their semi-pro origins in the early 1920s to their run through the Negro Southern, National & American Leagues, the Red Sox embodied sustained Black ownership and stability in a turbulent era for segregated sports.
Wood details how the Martin family, a group of influential African American professionals, uniquely controlled both the club and its home field, giving Black Memphis rare economic and cultural autonomy around the ballpark. We dig into the social life of Martin Stadium, where Sunday doubleheaders doubled as civic gatherings and a showcase for elite Black talent passing through the Mid-South.
The Red Sox story features future Major Leaguers and other notable figures who wore the Memphis uniform - including Dan Bankhead, Bob Boyd, Buck O’Neil, and even country music hall-of-famer Charley Pride - and what their stories reveal about the broader pipeline from the Negro Leagues to integrated baseball.
Wood also explains how the forces that followed Jackie Robinson’s breaking of the color barrier led to the slow decline and eventual disappearance of the franchise by the end of the 1950s - while leaving behind a powerful legacy of entrepreneurship, community pride, and baseball excellence.
PLUS: Charlie Pride's only Billboard Top 40 pop crossover hit!
Malloy in Memphis
June 2026
Even the Grinch knows that the Memphis Red Sox were the 1938 NAL Champs! The Atlanta Black Crackers were as green as the Grinch after losing to Memphis! Come to 2026 Jerry Malloy Conference in Memphis to learn more…
Phil Bradley
Schenectady’s Own
SABR Biography
The accolades surrounding Philip Daniel Bradley place him among stars of Blackball’s Deadball Era. “For second catcher, Phil Bradley of the (Brooklyn) Royals is easy (sic) the second-best catcher in colored baseball. He is a better hitter than Bruce Petway, and has a head along with a true snap throwing arm,” according to reporter Harry Daniels.1 Bradley, a native of Schenectady, New York, may be the best homegrown player in city history, according to local historian Frank Keetz.2 Bradley’s time with the original Cuban Giants, Brooklyn Royal Giants, Leland Giants, Patterson Smart Set, and Schenectady Mohawk Giants provides legitimacy. His years with Pittsburgh’s Colored Stars of Buffalo (NY) ring hollow as semiprofessional statistics unworthy of major-league status. The National Baseball Hall of Fame research library holds no files on Bradley.3 His career spanned over 20 years (1903-1926), including hotel leagues in Cuba and alongside the best talent on either side of the color line.
Phil Bradley, born on March 28, 1886, in Albany, New York, was the son of Charles M. Bradley, a white medical student in Albany, New York, and an unknown Black woman.4 Charles Bradley married Mary Marx, a white woman from Schenectady, in January 1886 and moved to Chicago to practice medicine. Charles had two sons, Nathan and Frederick, in Chicago, who had no contact with their half-brother, as Charles and Mary left Philip with Mary’s father, Peter Marx Sr., in Schenectady. Peter, a German broom maker, lived with his wife, Elizabeth. The couple raised six children in Schenectady. By 1886, all of their sons were married and living independently. When Mary married Charles Bradley, Peter, in his mid-50s, agreed to allow Phil Bradley to live with him and Elizabeth on Albany Street in Schenectady.5 He worked at the Schenectady Whisp Broom Factory, the nation’s leading producer of brooms. His employment also included years with the American Locomotive Company and with General Electric as a machinist.
Jerry Malloy Conference
Check out this article -
Hot off the press
reggie White
&
The USFL
Click on the
Memphis Showboats - USFL
Tab to link to the article
Latest Review of Memphis Hoops
Jason Jordan (University of New Hampshire) teaches courses in African-American and US History. He received his undergraduate degree from Rhodes College in Memphis and his doctorate from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research centers on issues of race and its role in shaping modern America.
Memphis Showboats
Podcast
Sat down with my good friend from Nashville SABR, Skip Nipper, to talk about some Memphis Red Sox baseball. Skip loves all things baseball in Nashville, and that love extends west down I-40 to Memphis. This 30-minute pod only cracks the surface. But it tells a great story.
Memphis Redbirds celebrate
1938 Negro American League Pennant
August 10, 2024 - Memphis, TN
To get a copy of Memphis Hoops or The Memphis Red Sox, shop locally at Novel Books and Oxbeau, or online at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Links are attached to each icon.
Book News
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![Book cover titled "Memphis Hoops" with an illustration of a basketball player holding a basketball and making a hand gesture. Subtitle: "Race and Basketball in the Bluff City, 1968-1997" by Keith B. Wood.]()
Memphis Hoops - Ranked #1 by Novel for local authors
November 2023
Novel Books in Memphis lists Memphis Hoops as the #1 selling book by a local author. Make sure to make your way over to Novel Books to pick up your copy.
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![American football helmet with red faceguard and logo on side, against a red background.]()
Are you ready for some football?
For years, Memphis has chased an NFL franchise. In the 1970s, John Bassett brought the WFL to Memphis. Then, in 1983, Logan Young acquired an expansion franchise in David Dixon’s USFL. William Dunavn purchased the team from Logan, as it became one of the most successful clubs in the short-lived USFL. Reggie White, Mike Lewis, Derrick Crawford, and a city crazed by football.
Looking forward to working on this project and getting this out to a publisher in the near future.
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![Black and white photo of young African American baseball players on a field, with some shaking hands and others standing nearby, under a covered bleachers.]()
The Memphis Red Sox: A Negro Leagues History
IN STORES NOW- McFarland Publishing
A story hidden in the annals of Negro leagues history. Historians have primarily focused on teams outside of the South. The Memphis Red Sox is not constructed as a fundamental historical narrative. Instead, it takes you on a nine-inning journey to experience what it means to be a Memphis Red Sox. The Memphis Red Sox remained one of the most stable franchises in Negro leagues' history. Black ownership of the team and stadium made the franchise almost an anomaly in black baseball. Their story is left behind the Negro Leagues' more prominent franchises: the Kansas City Monarchs, the Chicago American Giants, the Homestead Grays, the Pittsburgh Crawfords, and the Birmingham Black Barons.
Memphis Red Sox
via
Atlanta Black CRackers
During the 1938 NAL Championship Season for the Red Sox, they played the Atlanta Black Crackers at Ponce De Leon Park in Atlanta. Credit: Atlanta Negro Chamber of Commerce Film Collection.