Peter C. Bjarkman

Cuban Baseball Historian

BASEBALL BOOKS BIOGRAPHY TRAVEL UNIFORMS JOURNALISM BLOG CONTACT

Bjarkman Sample Books

A HISTORY OF CUBAN BASEBALL, 1864-2006 (McFarland, 2007)
"Bjarkman delivers the definitive work on Cuban baseball"—Library Journal

BASEBALL'S OTHER BIG RED MACHINE: A History of the Cuban National Team (McFarland, in press)
A long-awaited history of the Cuban national team and its many successes in international tournament competition

WHO'S WHO IN CUBAN BASEBALL, 1962-2007 (McFarland, to appear)
First English-language biographical encyclopedia of post-revolutionary Cuban baseball, scheduled for 2011 publication

DIAMONDS AROUND THE GLOBE: The Encyclopedia of International Baseball (Greenwood Press, 2005)
"this gem is truly a triumph of research and good writing"—Library Journal

SMOKE—The Romance and Lore of Cuban Baseball (with Mark Rucker) (Total Sports Illustrated, 1999)
"Smoke is visual, visceral energy ... Rarely doeas a baseball book offer so much ..."—Sports Collectors Digest

BASEBALL WITH A LATIN BEAT: A History of the Latin American Game (McFarland & Company, 1994)
"An unrivaled definitive history of the Latino invasion of the North American pastime."—amazon.com

THE BASEBALL SCRAPBOOK—The Men and Magic of America's National Pastime (JG Press, 2008, 2004) (Barnes & Noble, 2000) (Dorset Press, 1995, 1991)
Popular coffee table collection of images and anecdotes celebrating North America's "national pastime"

NEW YORK METS ENCYCLOPEDIA (Sports Publishing, 2003, 2001)
Four-decade illustrated history of major league baseball's most successful and popular post-expansion-era franchise

THE BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY OF BASKETBALL: More than 500 Portraits of the Most Significant On- and Off-Court Personalities of the Game's Past and Present (NTC Contemporary / Masters Press, 2000)
Detailed portraits of hoopdom's most m emorable figures of the 20th century, along with engaging chapter-long histories of both the collegiate and professional games

ROBERTO CLEMENTE: Baseball Legend (Chelsea House, 1991)
One of a series of popular Bjarkman-authored sports biographies for Young Adult Readers produced in the mid-1990s

Some Other Useful Links

Open here for Pete Bjarkman's June 13, 2010 NPR interview ("All Things Considered" with host Guy Raz) discussing North American Negro League ballplayers and rare Cuban baseball cards of the 1920s

Open here for Ray Otero's site at www.BaseballdeCuba.com and the "official" home page of Cuban League baseball, covering all the news from the island national pastime

Open here for Eloy Alvarez's new site covering the history and fortunes of Havana's favorite team, the Industriales Blue Lions (Los Leones Azules)

Open here for the HAVANA TIMES on-line journal, providing open-minded writing and a different slant on social, political and cultural news from Cuba

Order Bjarkman baseball history titles from McFarland & Company Publishers here

Open here for the home page of "Elysian Fields Quarterly" and order issues featuring Bjarkman's various cover stories on Cuban baseball

Open here for information on SABR (the Society for American Baseball Research) and to access the SABR home page

Authors Guild

CUBAN BASEBALL COMMENTARY

With Cuban national team standout Freddie Cepeda in Haarlem, The Netherlands (June 2008)

"Peter Bjarkman is doing for Cuban baseball what Ry Cooder has done for Cuban music ..."—Joseph Arbena, on-line review for Arete: Sports Literature Association Journal (December 16, 2007)

Free-lance author Peter C. Bjarkman has been branded as the "Peter Gammons and Bill James of Cuban baseball" and is the leading internet commentator on the Cuban national pastime. Bjarkman has been observing baseball in Cuba (with over 40 trips to the island) and trailing the Cuban national team to major international tournaments since the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. The author appears regularly on www. BaseballdeCuba.com and numerous other related internet sites covering international baseball.

NOTE ON WEBSITE COLOR SYMBOLISM
GREEN website color scheme suggests Cuba's National Series (November-May) is currently underway. BLUE color scheme denotes that the Cuban national team is participating in IBAF international tournament events. BLACK color scheme marks "off-season" for Cuban baseball.

BJARKMAN'S INTERNET COLUMNS

Bjarkman began writing for www.BaseballdeCuba.com during coverage of the July 2007 Pan American Games and has been the featured columnist for that leading site (writing mainly in English) for the past three years. He now occupies a similar position with the newly created sister website found at www.industriualesdecuba.com. He has also maintained a presence as baseball commentator for such Cuba-based on-line outlets as The Havana Times (an English-only site), the Prensa Latina English-language page, and the Radio COCO Havana website. Interested readers are invited to visit Pete Bjarkman's ongoing Cuban baseball commentaries and analyses now regularly found at all the following American (USA), European and Cuban-based website links: