Borderless - by Perry King (Paperback)

About the Book

Borderless seeks to fully understand Black life in baseball, over a century's worth of stories, in order to inform what we know (and how we know) history. From facing white violence to advocating for a better life, Borderless walks the lives of forgotten people to seek out more.

Book Synopsis

A cultural history of how Black baseball teams paved the way for agency, recognition, and societal change.

We know a great amount about how baseball has changed history. Jackie Robinson's rise advanced civil rights in America. The Chatham Coloured All-Stars changed perceptions of Black life in Canada. But did you know organized baseball barnstormed through Saskatchewan, pre-dated Black hockey in the Maritimes, and helped found cities across the country?

Black baseball is an ongoing story of the movement of Black bodies across North America, facing systemic and deliberate racism -- existing in the same spaces, in some cases, as the Ku Klux Klan -- in order to just pursue a better life, in baseball and otherwise.

How much do we know, and can we know, about these stories? How do we serve our collective memory? How do we learn about these stories to equip ourselves for the next problem or crisis?

This is a story of baseball that belongs on two sides of a border. Borderless draws those lessons and, hopefully, helps us to hope for better days ahead.

About the Author

Perry King is an author, journalist, and media collaborator. With enthusiasm for sports, history, urbanism, and culture, he has written for Sportsnet, Spacing Magazine, Toronto Star, and Globe and Mail. His first book is Rebound: Sports, Community and the Inclusive City. He lives in Toronto.