Author Ed Rice visited Bonny Eagle Middle School to discuss his book “Baseball’s First Indian Louis Sockalexis: Penobscot Legend, Cleveland Indian” last week.
Rice has taught journalism and communication studies at the college level and has written theater criticism and arts commentary for Maine newspapers and radio stations. In February 2000, he wrote a biographical profile of Sockalexis that appears annually in the Cleveland Indians Media Guide and on the team’s Web site.
He also led the nomination drive that led to the induction of both Louis and Andrew Sockalexis into the National American Indian Athletic Hall of Fame in Lawrence, Kansas in April 2000. His nomination led to the induction of Andrew Sockalexis into the Maine Running Hall of Fame in 1990.
The book is written about the first Indian to play baseball on the professional level. Born in 1871 on Maine’s Penobscot Indian reservation and a nephew of a chief, Louis Sockalexis became professional baseball’s first American Indian player. He inspired the nickname Cleveland’s baseball team carries today.
Ed Rice told the students that he did a lot of research for his book and made many drafts. When he found conflicts in the story, he found answers. Rice would like to have Sockalexis recognized as the first American Indian baseball player by the Baseball Hall of Fame.
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