Snyder, Brad M. 1972-

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Snyder, Brad M. 1972-

PERSONAL:

Born June 28, 1972, in Potomac, MD. Education: Graduated from Duke University, 1994; Yale Law School, J.D., 1999.

ADDRESSES:

E-mail—snyder@beyondtheshadow.com.

CAREER:

Writer. Baltimore Sun, Baltimore, MD, sportswriter, 1994-96; worked as a researcher for John Feinstein (Hart Courts and Play Ball); Williams & Connally, Washington, DC, attorney, 2001-04; full-time writer, 2004—.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Research grant and William P. Laprade Prize, Duke University; Robert Peterson Recognition Award from Society of American Baseball Negro League Committee Research, Casey Award finalist from Spitball magazine, for one of the year's ten best baseball books, and Dave Moore Award finalist from Elysian Fields Quarterly: The Baseball Review, for one of the year's best baseball books, all 2003, all for Beyond the Shadow of the Senators: The Untold Story of the Homestead Grays and the Integration of Baseball.

WRITINGS:

Beyond the Shadow of the Senators: The Untold Story of the Homestead Grays and the Integration of Baseball, Contemporary Books (Chicago, IL), 2003.

A Well-paid Slave: Curt Flood's Fight for Free Agency in Professional Sports, Viking (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor to periodicals, including the Washington Post, Basketball America, and the Raleigh News and Observer, and to law reviews, including the Yale Law Journal, Rutgers Law Review, and the Vermont Law Review.

SIDELIGHTS:

Brad M. Snyder has worked as an attorney defending civil litigation cases, but he has also had a great deal of experience as a journalist, particularly as a sportswriter. In 1993, Snyder received a research grant from Duke University's Center for Documentary Studies to interview Negro League players and black sports fans who remembered Homestead Grays games at Griffith Stadium. His research and interviews developed into his senior honors thesis. From 1994 to 1996, Snyder was a baseball reporter for the Baltimore Sun, covering the Baltimore Orioles during Cal Ripkin's run to break Lou Gehrig's record for consecutive games played. His interviews with owner Peter Angelos, also a plaintiff lawyer, led to Snyder's abandoning of journalism to study law.

Snyder's thesis eventually became his first book, Beyond the Shadow of the Senators: The Untold Story of the Homestead Grays and the Integration of Baseball, which he completed in nine months after his graduation from Yale Law School. Snyder studied the period from the mid-1920s to mid-1940s, which he calls the "lost era between the Babe [Ruth] and Jackie [Robinson]." It was during these years that the Negro Leagues included teams like the Homestead Grays, who began in 1910 to play near the steel mills in Homestead, Pennsylvania, as well as the Kansas City Monarchs, whose roots were also in Homestead. The Grays boasted some of the finest ballplayers in the country, including sluggers like catcher Josh Gibson, dubbed the "black Babe Ruth," and the equally talented first baseman Buck Leonard, who is often referred to as the "black Lou Gehrig." From 1937 to 1945, the Grays won eight of nine Negro National League titles.

The book also mirrors the history of the white Washington team, the Senators, and owner Clark Griffith, who owned Griffith Stadium near Howard University. The Grays moved from Pennsylvania in 1940, and Griffith rented out the stadium to them when the Senators were on the road, charging high fees. The Grays games became more well-attended than those of the Senators, in spite of the fact that black support was slow to come because many blacks felt an allegiance to the Senators, who were, in fact, a worse team. In 1943 Gibson hit more home runs in the stadium than all of the Senators combined. Snyder also writes how the shrewd Cum Posey, black owner of the Grays, attracted the top talents with decent pay and a chance to play ball in the evolving black Washington community.

In addition, Snyder profiles Sam Lacy, a black journalist who worked tirelessly for the integration of baseball, and Wendell Smith, another black Hall of Fame sportswriter. Griffith opposed integration not only on racist grounds but also because he would lose the fees he collected from the Grays if segregation ended. And when it did, white owners—Branch Rickey in particular—snapped up the best black players, offering them low pay and no contracts. Robinson was the first to break the color barrier when he was signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. The Senators moved to Minnesota in 1961, and the Washington team that replaced them failed, leaving Washington teamless.

"Snyder suggests that had Griffith signed one of the great black players, the Senators might still be playing in Washington today," commented Brent Kendall in the Christian Science Monitor. He went on to add: "While that's anyone's guess (Jackie Robinson's Dodgers did leave Brooklyn, after all), Snyder offers up another wrong that is more easily righted. Washington, the city of monuments, has no plaque or statue to commemorate the Grays' legacy." Booklist contributor Wes Lukowsky called Beyond the Shadow of the Senators "a textured account of a time when baseball symbolized the nation at large and when those with vision understood the implications of integrating an experience shared by so many Americans."

A Well-paid Slave: Curt Flood's Fight for Free Agency in Professional Sports follows the story of the St. Louis Cardinals' centerfielder, Curt Flood, who gave up his successful career in order to fight for the legal rights of baseball players regarding the teams they played for and the terms of their contracts. Prior to Flood's suit, baseball players were owned by their teams for the life of their career, unless the team chose to trade them. In 1969, when the Cardinals tried to trade Flood to Philadelphia, he refused to go. His refusal to abide by the existing system sparked a case that went to the Supreme Court, and eventually resulted in the modern-day free agent system. Snyder's explanation of Flood's motivations received strong praise from a number of major reviewers, and the Washington Post Book World dubbed it one of the best nonfiction books of 2006. In a review for Corporate Counsel, Ross Todd commented that "the sports-writer in Snyder shines through with suspense, clarity, and pacing, while his years as a litigator help him illuminate the quirks that make baseball's reserve clause worthy of legal exploration." Booklist contributor Alan Moores called the book a "careful and informed narrative." David Margolick, writing for the New York Times Book Review online, remarked: "Generations of ballplayers—Curt Flood's children—have never honored him properly. But with his fine book, Brad Snyder surely has."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, February 15, 2003, Wes Lukowsky, review of Beyond the Shadow of the Senators: The Untold Story of the Homestead Grays and the Integration of Baseball, p. 1042; September 1, 2006, Alan Moores, review of A Well-paid Slave: Curt Flood's Fight for Free Agency in Professional Sports, p. 49.

Choice, September, 2003, R. Browning, review of Beyond the Shadow of the Senators.

Christian Science Monitor, March 20, 2003, Brent Kendall, review of Beyond the Shadow of the Senators, p. 18.

Corporate Counsel, December, 2006, Ross Todd, review of A Well-paid Slave, p. 103.

New York Times Book Review, May 25, 2003, Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria, review of Beyond the Shadow of the Senators, p. 10.

Publishers Weekly, February 17, 2003, review of Beyond the Shadow of the Senators, p. 68.