Adrian Burgos Jr., Ph.D., professor of history and chair of the Department of History at the University of Illinois became the first speaker in a series for Manhattanville University in Purchase, New York, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities
(NEH), to highlight the Latinx experience in sports. Burgos is in residence at Manhattanville University during October 2024 as part of the NEH-funded program “Sport Studies in the 21st Century: Amplifying the Latinx Experience in Curricula, Conversation and Community,” part of Manhattanville University’s Sport Studies Program. Burgos’s residency is the first in this groundbreaking three-year project that aims to explore the multifaceted social, political, historical and cultural aspects of sport within Latinx communities. The event is free and open to the public.
Burgos specializes in U.S. Latino history, sport history and urban history. He is the author of the award-winning “Playing America’s Game: Baseball, Latinos, and the Color Line” (2007) and “Cuban Star: How One Negro League Owner Changed the Face of Baseball” (2011). He co-authored “Pleibol! In the Barrios and Big Leagues” (2020). He was the founding editor-in-chief of the multiplatform digital brand “La Vida Baseball.” The subject of a 2016 Big Ten Network documentary “Playing America’s Game,” Burgos has appeared on ESPN, MLB Network and NPR, as well as national and local programs discussing Latinos, baseball and race. He served as a consultant on the Smithsonian’s “Pleibol!” exhibit and the National Baseball Hall of Fame’s “Viva Baseball” exhibit, and as a program advisor for numerous documentaries, including Bernardo Ruiz’s “Roberto Clemente” and Ken Burns’ “The Tenth Inning” and “Jackie Robinson.”
