Native American Major Leaguers presents biographies of over 40 players who appeared in the major leagues, including both those who are well remembered today for their Native heritage such as Jacoby Ellsbury, Charles Bender, Louis Sockalexis, and Jim Thorpe, and those you might not realize, such as Buck Martinez and Kyle Lohse. Then there are those who deserve to be remembered, like Jim Bluejacket and Ike Kahdot, and even a player from the All American Girls Professional Baseball League, Canadian Yolande Teillet, whose mother was Métis.
The book also includes more than a dozen essays on baseball and Native and Indigenous communities, including historical topics such as the legacy of Indian boarding schools, American Indian barnstorming teams, and the translation of baseball rules into Mi'kmaq, as well as recent issues like the changing of Cleveland's team name and the controversy over the Atlanta Braves' "Tomahawk Chop."
When determining who to include in this volume, we chose players who were enrolled citizens of federally recognized Tribes, as listed by the Office of Federal Acknowledgement in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, part of the US Department of the Interior. The first Native American to play major-league baseball was Louis Sockalexis from the Penobscot Tribe in Maine. He played in 1897 with the Cleveland Spiders. Four others are currently playing in the majors in 2025, all of whom are recognized in this book, as well.
Rob Daugherty, the lead editor,is an Enrolled Citizen of the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma. Rob is a retired educator from the Bureau of Indian Affairs and most recently from the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. A graduate of Haskell Indian Nations University, he has been a lifelong geek fan of baseball, having played and coached collegiately. His passion for Native baseball players has evolved into one of the largest collections of Native American baseball cards focused exclusively on Indigenous players prior to 1947. Through extensive research, he has verified 28 Natives who played from 1897 to 1947.
