The remarkable story of Harvard Shortstop  William Clarence Matthews, who nearly broke MLB's Color Line 40 years before Jackie Robinson

William Clarence Matthews, was a terrific baseball player for Phillips Andover and then Harvard at the turn of the 20th century. As Harvard's shortstop, he was the best player on arguably the best college team in the country when baseball fever swept the land. In the summer of 1905, the Boston Traveler announced that he would soon be joining Fred Tenney’s Boston Nationals, breaching the color barrier in Major League Baseball, forty years before Jackie Robinson. He did not make history: the rumor of his breakthrough proved to be false. Matthews, however, deserves to be more than this baseball footnote. His remarkable life reflected the special tensions and tentative opportunities of Black Americans during the 50 years of his lifetime, 1877-1928.

An expert on Matthews and his life, historian Karl Lindstrom provides not only an overview of his extraordinary baseball career, but also considers his life outside the ballfield, which brought him into significant contact with the major figures of African-American thought and culture of the time.

Sponsored by North Andover Celebrates African American History, this program is supported in part by a grant from Mass Humanities, which receives support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and is an affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.