"Powers-Beck offers a solid examination of a too-little-studied aspect of the national pastime: integration of American Indian players. . . . Essential."—Choice
''The American Indian Integration of Baseball is outstanding as both an historical examination of an obscure topic—Indians playing pro and amateur baseball between 1897 and 1945—and as a documentary of racial injustice, stereotyping and outright prejudice. Author Jeffrey Powers-Beck has done his homework and done it well.” —Tom Wanamaker, Indian Country Today
"In Jeffery Powers-Beck’s new book, The American Indian Integration of Baseball, we are given an unexpected nuance to what Dakota intellectual Charles A. Eastman called the ‘Transition Period.’ Against the backdrop of assimilation, including boarding schools, land allotment, and racial stereotypes, individuals arose in the Indian communities to break the colorline in ‘the American pastime’ long before Jackie Robinson took to the field in 1947."—David Martinez, News from Indian Country
“Often relegated to brief paragraphs or footnotes in works of baseball history, The American Indian Integration of Baseball completes the first (of hopefully many) book length treatments of the Native American entry into baseball. . . . A worthwhile read that opens new areas of investigation to sport historians, in general, and baseball historians, in particular. Scholars looking to build off this work will find an immense archive already charted, thanks to Powers-Beck, Joseph Oxendine, and John Bloom.”—The Sport Literature Association
“In profiling the talented few who made ‘The Show’ during the first half-century of professional baseball, Powers-Beck has performed a service that deserves to be remembered long after the tomahawk chop has been laid to rest.”—David Shiner, Elysian Fields Quarterly