PETER C. BJARKMAN - AUTHOR AND BASEBALL HISTORIAN

North America's Voice of Cuban League Baseball

Website last updated April 29, 2008

"Pete Bjarkman is the Peter Gammons as well as the Harold Seymour and Bill James of Cuban League and Cuban National team baseball."

Bjarkman's MLB.com-sponsored "Latino and Cuban League Baseball History" Blog features topics of historical and contemporary interest for all fans of Latin leagues and of ballplayers of Latino heritage performing in the big leagues. 

Read and respond to Pete Bjarkman's regular updates and editorials on Cuban League and Latino MLB baseball history here on the author's own personal BLOG at MLB.com (the official website of Major league Baseball). The commentary is often conterversial and the Cuban baseball information is often unvailable from any other English-language or USA-based source.

Get all the latest scoops from the authority recognized widely as "the Peter Gammons" of Cuban League and international tournament baseball. 

This website features current up-to-date information about the publications of Peter C. Bjarkman, a prolific baseball and basketball historian, international traveler, and one of the leading authorities on baseball's extensive history on the communist island of Cuba. Bjarkman is also the leading collector of Cuban League and Cuban National Team game-worn baseball jerseys.

A native of Connecticut, 25-year resident of Lafayette (Indiana), and adopted son of Havana (Cuba), Bjarkman has been writing on baseball and basketball history since 1990. He was formerly a high school English teacher (Connecticut, Florida) and university professor of English and linguistics (Purdue University, University of Colorado, Butler University, Ball State University and George Mason University). His 40-plus books and more than 150 articles and chapters cover international baseball, major league baseball, NBA and NCAA basketball, and sports biographies for young adult readers. For the past decade his primary focus as a writer and researcher has been on Cuban baseball, Latin American baseball, and international amateur baseball tournaments (especially the IBAF Baseball World Cup and Olympic baseball). 

Relaxing evening of the Adriatic along Croatia's Dalmatian coast (June 2006)

Bjarkman is married to Ronnie B. Wilbur, professor and head of linguistics at Purdue University and a leading authority of deaf sign languages. Professor Wilbur currently maintains a Croatian Sign Language research lab at the deaf school in Zagreb, Croatia. Because of his wife's research commitments in the former Yugoslavia, Bjarkman has been traveling regularly to Croatia (Zagreb, Split, Zadar, Dubrovnik and elsewhere on the Dalmatian coast) since 1998. During his regular stays in Croatia he has also made frequent visits to Austria, Slovenia, Hungary, Bosnia and Montenegro.

Dr. Bjarkman has made more than thirty visits to the island of Cuba since February 1997 to research Cuban baseball and has traversed all corners of the fascinating and isolated (for Americans) communist nation. He is widely known in Cuban baseball circles and has appeared frequently of Cuban radio and television as a guest commentator on island baseball. In February 2003 he was honored by the Matanzas Sports Club with a "Special Certificate of Merit of the Palmar del Junco National Baseball Momument" in recognition of his book Smoke: The Romance and Lore of Cuban Baseball (with Mark Rucker).

Bjarkman's work on Cuban baseball has achieved so much attention on the island that his his photo now hangs on the wall of the downtown Hotel Telégrafo in that building's Honor Wall of Distinguished Guests. His ground-breaking volume, A History of Cuban Baseball, 1864-2006 (2007), is the first American baseball book featured and promoted on two official Cuban League websites (see my Quick Links to www.radiococo.cu and www.baseballdecuba.com). Bjarkman's recent Cuban baseball history was also the first American baseball title to be subject of a feature story in the mainstream Cuban press (Juventud Rebelde, June 13, 2007).

Over the past dozen-plus years, Pete Bjarkman's books have also received the following recognitions, honors and awards:

A History of Cuban Baseball, 1864-2006 ranked as the best-selling McFarland baseball title for the months of February 2007 and March 2007 and was the recipient of the 2007 SABR Robert Peterson Recognition Award for increasing public awareness of Negro League baseball.

2005 Finalist for the Spitball magazine CASEY Award (Best Baseball Book of the Year), for Diamonds around the Globe: The Encyclopedia of International Baseball (2004)

2004 Winner of The Sporting News-SABR Baseball Research Award for Diamonds around the Globe: The Encyclopedia of International Baseball

2000 Finalist for the SABR-Seymour Medal (Best Baseball Book of the Year) for Smoke: The Romance and Lore of Cuban Baseball

1999 Finalist for the Spitball magazine CASEY Award (Best Baseball Book of the Year) for Smoke: The Romance and Lore of Cuban Baseball

1994 Winner of the Macmillan-SABR Baseball Research Award for Baseball with a Latin Beat: A History of the Latin American Game (1994)

Serene afternoon at Grand Canyon (February 2007)

Bjarkman has also made frequent U.S. television and film appearances as an interviewee on various video documentaries, including the recent MLB Productions DVD releases entitled "The World Baeball Classic: The Movie" (2006) and "Béisbol: The Latin Game" (2007), as well as numerous segment editions of "ESPN Sports Century" (John Wooden, Johnny Bench, Sparky Anderson, Red Auerbach and Bevo Francis installments) and "ESPN Outside the Lines Nightly" (most recently February 28, 2006, to discuss Cuba in the World Baseball Classic). He was also featured in the PBS film entitled "Greener Grass: Cuba, Baseball and the United States" (aired June 2000) and the video entitled "The Big O, The Oscar Robertson Story" (released November 2001).

In addition to his baseball writing, Bjarkman is currently working on a book (for McFarland Publishers) portraying modern-day Cuba as he has experienced it during his ten years of extensive travels around the island and numerous and lengthy stays in the historic city of Havana. The projected volume is yet to be titled but is projected for possible 2009 or 2010 publication.

Author at work in press box at 2007 Caribbean Series (San Juan, Puerto Rico)

Any personal correspondence addressed to the author, or any inquiries about personal appearances, should be sent to:

Peter C. Bjarkman

P.O. Box 2199

West Lafayette, IN 47996-2199

email address: bjarkman@mindspring.com

Office phone: 765-449-4221

Cellular phone: 765-491-8351