Crosby: SABR member Sherman Jenkins’ new book focuses on baseball All-Star, Globetrotter
From Denise Crosby at the Aurora Beacon-News on October 28, 2016, with mention of SABR member Sherman Jenkins:
With all the world – especially our neck of it – experiencing extreme Cubs-mania, the timing couldn’t have been better for Auroran Sherman Jenkins to publish his first book about a Chicago baseball superstar … who also happened to lead the famed Harlem Globetrotters to a World Basketball Championship.
You’ve probably never heard of Ted Strong Jr., despite his two-sport athletic prowess, which is all the more reason this book is so compelling.
Strong, whose family grew up in the same South Side neighborhood where Jenkins, now 60, was raised, was an All-Star in baseball’s Negro Leagues. And even though some experts believe he was an even better player than Jackie Robinson, Strong never got a chance to prove himself in the white leagues, which was always a source of “frustration and disappointment,” noted the author.
Jenkins did not begin writing “Ted Strong Jr: The Untold Story of an Original Harlem Globetrotter and Negro Leagues All Star” until after he retired in 2012 as the long-time executive director of the Aurora Economic Development Commission.
Read the full article here: http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/aurora-beacon-news/opinion/ct-abn-crosby-negro-league-baseball-st-1030-20161028-column.html
Originally published: October 31, 2016. Last Updated: October 31, 2016.