McLaughlin: Campaign seeks support for Louis Sockalexis statue in Maine
From Joe McLaughlin at the Bangor Daily News on December 16, 2014:
Bangor native and writer Ed Rice is starting a campaign to find support and interest in building a statue in Bangor of Maine Penobscot Indian Louis Sockalexis, the first Native American to play Major League Baseball.
“I’ve believed, for a very long time, that it’s a shame that the first man to break the color barrier in professional baseball has gone totally ignored in his home area,” Rice said in an email to the BDN. “Every year, without fail, I get a message from some baseball fan, from somewhere around the country, who is making a pilgrimage to see Sockalexis’s gravesite [on Indian Island].”
Bangor is an ideal site for the statue because Sockalexis played and umpired baseball games in the city, according to Rice, who is a college instructor in Bangor and the author of “Baseball’s First Indian, Louis Sockalexis: Penobscot Legend, Cleveland Indian.”
In his research, Rice learned Sockalexis played baseball games in Castine and Bangor.
Read the full article here: http://bangordailynews.com/2014/12/16/news/bangor/campaign-seeks-support-for-louis-sockalexis-statue-in-bangor/
Originally published: December 17, 2014. Last Updated: December 17, 2014.