August’s Free Book: There Must Come a Change

NOTE: This is the book I am offering free to the more than 4,500 people on my newsletter list. If you want to join these folks, go to JPROF.com and sign up. 

Before Jackie Robinson, there were the Pythians.

In the summer of 1869, a team of young Black men took the field against white opponents in Philadelphia—the first recorded interracial baseball game in American history. They called themselves the Pythians, and their captain was Octavius Valentine Catto: scholar, athlete, Civil War veteran, and the most dangerous Black man in Philadelphia.

Catto and his teammates weren't just playing baseball. They were waging a campaign for equality, using athletic excellence to challenge the assumptions of a nation struggling to define itself after the Civil War. When organized baseball formally banned Black players in 1867, the Pythians applied anyway. When they were rejected, they kept playing—and kept winning.

There Must Come a Change tells the full story of this remarkable team: their undefeated 1868 season, their historic games against white opponents, and the tragic Election Day in 1871 when Catto was assassinated on the streets of Philadelphia while defending the right of Black men to vote.

Drawing on primary sources from the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and contemporary newspaper accounts, Jim Stovall brings to life a forgotten chapter of American history—one that connects the baseball diamond to the ballot box, and the struggles of Reconstruction to the long fight for civil rights that continues today.

This is the story of the men who challenged baseball's color line eight decades before Jackie Robinson—and paid the price for their courage.

Book Spotlight: The Lost Dynasty

 They went from last place to dynasty in two years. Then they vanished from history—but their revolution changed sports forever.

In 1892, the Baltimore Orioles were the worst team in professional baseball: 46-101, terrible defense, no strategy, empty stands. When manager Ned Hanlon took control, he didn't just rebuild a team—he revolutionized the entire sport.

Within two years, Hanlon's Orioles had won the first of three consecutive championships through methods that were unprecedented in professional athletics. They didn't rely on raw talent or power hitting. Instead, they developed systematic approaches to every aspect of the game: the famous "Baltimore Chop," coordinated hit-and-run plays, defensive positioning based on analytical preparation, and psychological warfare that intimidated opponents before games even began.

This was the birth of "scientific baseball"—and it changed everything.

Willie Keeler's precise, situational hitting. John McGraw's aggressive tactical leadership. Hughie Jennings's defensive coordination. Together, they proved that intelligence and systematic preparation could overcome any advantage in talent or resources. Their innovations established the foundation for modern professional sports—from defensive shifts and situational strategies to sports analytics and systematic player development.

But success bred destruction.