James E. Brunson III
James E. Brunson III (1954 – ) is a historian, artist, and art historian who has contributed much to the study of baseball. In the mid-1980s, he began his decades-long study of the history and imagery of African Americans in baseball. This work led to the 2019 publication of his three-volume magnum opus, Black Baseball, 1858-1900: A Comprehensive Record of the Teams, Players, Managers, Owners and Umpires, which won the Robert Peterson Award from SABR’s Negro Leagues Research Committee. He is the assistant vice president for Diversity & Equity in Student Affairs & Enrollment Management at Northern Illinois University.
Related links:
- Read Todd Peterson’s profile of James Brunson in the Spring 2022 Baseball Research Journal
- Read the foreword to James Brunson’s Black Baseball, 1858-1900, written by John Thorn
- Watch James Brunson’s Summer of SABR presentation on “Blues People: Music, Style, and Black Baseball, 1865-1910”
- James Brunson’s Black Baseball, 1858-1900 was selected as one of SABR’s top 50 baseball books of the past half-century