Schedule announced for Negro Leagues Conference to be held in Detroit

The Jerry Malloy Negro Leagues Conference is sponsored by SABR’s Negro Leagues Committee.

A while back, I wrote about the the 2014 Jerry Malloy Negro Leagues Conference, which will be held in Detroit on August 14-16. It will be the 17th annual such gathering organized by the Negro Leagues Committee of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR). It’s the first time the event has been held in Detroit. According to Ypsilanti baseball historian and Negro Leagues Committee co-chairman Dick Clark, who put together the winning proposal to have Detroit host the conference, the agenda has recently been finalized.

The three-day conference kicks off Thursday. A trip to Hamtramck Stadium, one of the country’s few existing Negro Leagues parks, is planned for the afternoon, with a meet-and-greet reception at the Detroit Historical Museum later that evening. The symposium, held on Friday and Saturday at the Marriott Courtyard on East Jefferson, will feature more than a dozen presentations, panels, and exhibits centered on the theme, “Turkey Stearnes and Black Baseball in Michigan.” Look for such topics as Stearnes, the Detroit Stars, Hamtramck Stadium, and so forth.

According to Clark, special guests that have confirmed to show up include Walt Owens, who pitched for the Detroit Stars in the 1950s; longtime high school coach Ron Teasley, who played in the Brooklyn Dodgers organization in the 1940s; and Bob Paige, Satchell Paige’s oldest son. “Paige doesn’t make too many public appearances,” Clark says. “This will be his first in six or seven years. The reason he’s doing it is because this year would be Satch’s 100th birthday.”

On Friday night, August 15, conference goers will attend the Detroit-Seattle game at Comerica. One hundred tickets have been set aside for seats in sections 107-109 (Kaline’s Corner). Tickets are $27 each.

The conference concludes on Saturday night with a banquet. Awards and scholarships will be handed out. An auction also will be held.

To register for the conference, click on sabr.org/malloy. Hotel reservations should be made directly with the Marriott Courtyard. Call 313-222-7700 or 800-321-2211 and ask for the Jerry Malloy Conference. The discounted conference room rates are $115 a night, single or double, plus taxes.

Last year’s convention was held in June in Newark, N.J. In terms of attendance, the Malloy Conference is not on the scale of the annual SABR convention, which draws in the range of 700-800 people. But it is SABR’s “other” national convention, and typically draws a good-size crowd of historians, educators, and baseball fans.