PETER C. BJARKMAN

Award-Winning Author and Baseball Historian

Bjarkman Booklist

CUBAN BASEBALL HISTORY

Fidel Castro and Baseball: The Untold Story

“Peter Bjarkman deserves the largest hurrah for his exceptional research, analysis, and captivating writing style in detaching myth from reality, debunking long-established political and sporting biases, and ultimately detailing the extraordinary story of Fidel Castro and Baseball.” — William Humber

Cuba's Baseball Defectors: The Inside Story

“Daring, honest, exceptional… Peter C. Bjarkman has written a must-read primer for anyone considering the truth behind Cuban baseball’s impact on Major League Baseball.” — Ray Otero

A History of Cuban Baseball, 1864-2006 (hardcover and paperback editions)

"Bjarkman delivers the definitive work on Cuban baseball" — Library Journal

The Yanqui in Cuba's Dugout: Travels Inside Fidel Castro's Baseball Empire (in progress)

“Nobody knows more about the intertwining of politics and baseball in Cuba than Peter Bjarkman ...” — Omar Minaya

Cuban Baseball Legends (SABR Digital Library)

Pioneering bilingual editions (English and Spanish volumes) edited by Peter C. Bjarkman and Bill Nowlin and drawn from SABR Biography Project archives on legendary Cuban ballplayers. Features portraits of many of Cuba's most legendary pre- and post-revolution stars.

Smoke — The Romance and Lore of Cuban Baseball (co-authored with Mark Rucker)

"Smoke is visual, visceral energy ... Rarely does a baseball book offer so much ..." — Sports Collectors Digest

Diamonds around the Globe: Encyclopedia of International Baseball

"Truly a triumph of research and good writing, this gem should be on the reference shelves of any library boasting a serious baseball collection." — Paul Kaplan, Library Journal

Baseball with a Latin Beat: A History of the Latin American Game

"An unrivaled definitive history of the Latino invasion of the North American pastime." — amazon.com

ADDITIONAL BASEBALL HISTORY

New York Mets Encyclopedia

Five-decade illustrated history of major league baseball's most successful and popular post-expansion-era franchise

The Baseball Scrapbook (Four Editions)

"A celebration of the powerful grip that America's game has on its millions of fans, and an attempt to recreate baseball history as it lives in our memory and imagination."

Baseball & the Game of Life (Edited Fiction)

Pete Bjarkman also edited the popular early-1990s collection of baseball short stories entitled Baseball & The Game of Life (which appeared in both English and Japanese editions)

Additional Baseball Team Histories

Early Bjarkman coffee table pictorial team history volumes include books on the Toronto Blue Jays, Brooklyn Dodgers, Cincinnati Reds and Los Angeles Dodgers (the latter pair published in the Brompton Book's "Baseball Great Dynasties Series).

BASKETBALL HISTORY

The Biographical History of Basketball

An ultimate guide to the top figures (on the court and off) timed for the sports collegiate centennial and also covering the first half-century of the professional game.

Hoopla: A Century of College Basketball

The composite story of American collegiate basketball, written on the occasion of the sport's centennial and later reissued in an attractive paperback edition.

Boston Celtics Encyclopedia

Colorful review of one of pro basketball's most-storied franchises, focusing equally on the Russell-Cousy-Auerbach unparalleled dynasties years during the strife-torn Sixties and the rebirth of glory under Larry Bird and Robert Parrish in the Eighties and Nineties.

Miscellaneous Basketball Books

A quintet (appropriately enough) of pro and college basketball volumes representing the author's free-lance work in the final decade of the 20th century, before the siren-call of baseball in Cuba.

ADDITIONAL PUBLICATIONS

Edited Books, Chapters and Introductions

A collection of additional baseball and basketball volumes edited by the author, plus major contributed chapters and a handful of volume "introductions" contributed over the years.

SABR Biography Project

Bjarkman's several dozen SABR BioProject articles (on-line and forthcoming) are all linked here (Cuban and Japanese players). The author's Bios for Cuban big league playerss are also linked above on the separate Cuban Baseball Legends book page.

Sports Books for Young Adult Readers

Nine early Bjarkman authored sports biographies for Young Adult Readers produced in the early and mid-1990s

Bjarkman in Spanish (Additional Translations)

The author's work has also appeared extensively in Spanish, including numerous journal articles. Several of his books have also been translated into other foreign-language editions (Japanese, French and Polish)

BASEBALL WRITING

"Cuando Peter C. Bjarkman escribe de béisbol cubano hay que leerlo." — Jorge Ebro, Miami Nuevo Herald (Spanish Language Miami Herald)

Bjarkman Baseball Journalism

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 ten years. In addition to several hundred columns and reports over the past decade, he has provided on-the-scene coverage of the Cuban National Team at all four MLB World Baseball Classic tournaments (2006 in San Juan and San Diego, 2009 in Mexico City and San Diego, 2013 in Fukuoka and Tokyo Japan, 2017 in Tokyo, Japan), the Rotterdam World Port Tournament (2007, 2011, 2013), the Haarlem Baseball Week (2008, 2010, 2012), the IBAF World Cup (2009 in Europe, and 2011 in Panama), and the Caribbean Series (San Juan 2015). Clink photos below for links to several sample columns. Additional recent column links also appear at the top of the left-page column.

Senior Columnist for www.BaseballdeCuba.com

Contributing Writer for www.LaVidaBaseball.com

Bjarkman joined the National Baseball Hall of Fame (sponsored) and Media Works produced website www.LaVidaBaseball.com at its launching in March 2017. He serves as a Contributing Writer specializing in stories cover the past, present and future of Cuban baseball and Cuban ballplayers in MLB. Clink photos below for links to several sample columns.

CONTRIBUTOR TO THE DAILY BEAST

Bjarkman wrote several Cuba-related stories for the popular on-line journal The Daily Beast in 2014 and 2015. Those articles are list listed below, and links to Bjarkman's full story list on The Daily Beast is linked at the top of the left-page column.

"MLB's Next Giant Headache: Cuba" by Peter C. Bjarkman (published April 18, 2014)
"The baseball world is stunned by reports that Dodgers' Yasiel Puig was smuggled out of Cuba via a highly illegal human trafficking operation involving Mexican drug cartels."

"Havana Adios for a Baseball Legend" by Peter C. Bjarkman (published April 25, 2014)
"The last time Conrado Marrero pitched in the majors Eisenhower was two years into his first term. Cuba's most venerable pre-revolution baseball star and the oldest surviving big-league alumnus passed away at 103 this week in Havana."

"Can Baseball's All-Star Game be Saved?" by Peter C. Bjarkman (published July 15,, 2014)
"Major League Baseball's midsummer classis from two decades of sagging television ratings and waning fan interest. Can anything be done to revive the once-popular spectacle, and are recent innovations anything of a true salvation or merely a further death knell?"

"U.S.-Cuba Thaw Is Not So Hot for MLB" by Peter C. Bjarkman (published February 19, 2015)
"Despite rampant speculation — and lots of wishful thinking — that a host of super-talented Cuban baseball players are now about to flood U.S. shores and MLB dugouts seems more of an over-baked fantasy than a likely welcomed prospect."

CONSTRIBUTOR TO BASEBALL DIGEST

Bjarkman has written the following pair of feature stories for Baseball Digest, baseball's popular monthly newsstand periodical.

"Cooperstown's Existing Latino Vacuum," Baseball Digest (January-February 2017), 50-54.

"Prospect Spotlight — Cuba's Jose Abreu is Baseball's Newest Rookie Sensation," Baseball Digest (July-August 2014), 32-35.