Editor’s note: I originally wrote this article for The Louisiana Weekly, which published it in the issue of July 13, 2026. I’ve added a few more things to the article for this post.

HBCU baseball and collegiate sports overall lost a shining light on June 30 with the passing of former Southern University baseball coach Roger Cador, who piloted the Jaguars’ program for more than three decades and became a legend along the way.

Cador, himself a Southern graduate and a native of New Roads, La., in Point Coupee Parish, was 75.

“Coach Roger Cador was far more than a baseball coach – he was a visionary, a mentor, a leader and a true pillar of the Jaguar Nation,” SU Athletics Director Roman Banks said in a press release. “His impact on Southern University and HBCU baseball is immeasurable. For more than three decades, he built a championship culture, developed generations of student-athletes, and inspired countless lives both on and off the field.

“Coach Cador’s legacy extends far beyond his wins, championships and accolades. He represented the very best of Southern University — excellence, pride, commitment and service. The foundation he built, the lives he touched, and the standard he established will continue to guide our baseball program and the Jaguar Nation for generations to come. We are forever grateful for his extraordinary contributions and the lasting mark he leaves on our university.”

In a statement after Cador’s passing, the American Baseball Coaches Association – into whose Hall of Fame Cador was inducted in 2022 – said the SU great was “one of the most accomplished coaches in college baseball history and a tireless advocate for HBCU baseball.”

“Cador’s impact extended far beyond Southern,” the ABCA statement added. “A passionate ambassador for HBCU baseball, he helped increase national exposure for Historically Black Colleges and Universities through initiatives such as the Urban Baseball Invitational, now the Andre Dawson Classic, while working alongside Major League Baseball to expand opportunities for student-athletes and grow the game in underserved communities.”

Cador coached the Jaguars for 33 years before retiring in 2017. In that time, he took a program with few resources and even less public recognition and guided Southern to two HBCU national championships, 14 Southwestern Athletic Conference titles and 11 NCAA Tournament Regionals appearances. In 1987, under his guidance the Jaguars became the first HBCU team to win an NCAA Regional game by beating No. 2 Cal State-Fullerton, 1-0. Cador compiled an overall record of 913-597-1 as the Jags’ head coach, making him one of the winningest college baseball coaches of all time. In addition, more than 60 of his players went on to be taken in the Major League Baseball Draft, and he coached 10 All-Americans during his career. He also received SWAC Coach of the Year honors 13 times.

Jay Sokol, who created and manages the Web site blackcollegenines.com and wrote a book about the history of HBCU baseball, said he feels honored to have known Cador.

“I didn’t know Roger during his coaching days, but of course I knew of him and his coaching achievements,” Sokol told The Louisiana Weekly. “I’m proud that I did get to know him after his retirement working on projects and loved his smile, laugh, positive attitude and the way he made you feel special.”

In addition to his induction into the ABCA Hall of Fame, Cador was an inductee into the SWAC Hall of Fame, the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame, and the National College Baseball Hall of Fame.

In an interview with this reporter several years ago, Cador said HBCU teams have been a crucial part of college baseball for a long time and deserve to be recognized for their contributions to the sport.

“It’s a story that’s extremely important for the making of the history of American baseball,” he said.

The coach added in the interview that HBCU baseball has produced a great number of players who have gone on to make an impact on professional baseball, beginning decades ago.

“There were several guys who played in the big leagues at some point,” Cador said. “That says a lot about how important [HBCU baseball] was. There were a lot of great people that played baseball and were important to baseball.”

Cador said back then that HBCU baseball was due for a resurgence, a prediction that has been proven current in recent years.

“We are in a good situation where we can try to get the good players back,” he said. “We have the right things we need to attract them.”

In June 2019, the USA Today Network wire produced an article that was subsequently published in the Alexandria, La., Town Talk newspaper and served as a retrospective of Cador’s career.

In the story, reporter Mike Gegenheimer quoted several of the Southern coach’s old friends and associates, including the great Dusty Baker, who knew Cador from their playing days and who assisted the latter in getting the resurrected Southern baseball program off the ground.

Baker discussed for the article why Cador was so beloved.

“It’s his genuineness,” Baker said. “The fact that he cares so much about the game, his players, the school of Southern University, and you want to help somebody that has that deep, genuine concern for what they’re doing. He’s touched many, many lives.”

Legendary Louisiana State University baseball coach Skip Bertman, a close friend of Cador’s, told Gegenheimer this about what Cador meant to Southern and his players.

“Roger has never complained one bit and has been a great representative of Southern University,” Bertman said. “He didn’t have everything that I had or the coach at LSU now has … Whenever he asked for something, it was always for the players. He never asked for himself.”

Likewise, the late Tony Robichaux, longtime coach of University of Louisiana baseball, described how Cador found success.

“He’s never let what he does for a living become who he is,” Robichaux said. “We have to be so careful in sports that sports can define us. … The thing I respect about Roger is, he’s never let the game define him. It’s the way he’s lived his life. It’s his personality.”

To commemorate Cador’s retirement at the time, the Louisiana State Legislature passed a resolution honoring his lifetime of service to the sport of baseball and the state of Louisiana. The document stated, in part, that “Coach Cador built the Southern University Jaguar baseball team into one of the most well-respected and successful baseball programs in the country” and that the coach “is an ambassador to the sport of baseball around the world …” 

The resolution also noted that the achievement of which Cador was most proud was the program’s roughly 80-percent graduation rate, quoting Cador: “I receive a tremendous amount of satisfaction in helping a young man grow from adolescence to manhood and accomplish his goals. They revitalize me with the courage and effort they put forth. After four or five years the end product makes it all worthwhile.”

The resolution added that “it is appropriate to commend and celebrate this beloved coach who is widely respected and had one of the most influential careers in the sport of baseball.”

It concluded:

“THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the House of Representatives of the Legislature of Louisiana does hereby commend and salute Coach Roger Cador upon his retirement after leading Southern University’s baseball program for thirty-three years; does hereby commend his dedication to his student-athletes, Southern University baseball, and the sport of baseball; and does hereby recognize and record for posterity his outstanding accomplishments.”

To wrap up coverage of the recent SABR Jerry Malloy Negro Leagues Conference, I’ll highlight some of the other presentations and other events from the four-day smorgasbord of Black baseball history.

(For earlier coverage on this blog of the recent conference, check out this, this and this. The latter linked post is by guest writer Keith B. Wood, who gives an overall view of our Memphis experience, including the opening meet-and-greet at the Withers Collection Museum & Gallery, the Memphis Redbirds game Friday night, and the bus tour of local landmarks Thursday afternoon.)

On Thursday, conference committee member and local Memphis host Dr. Keith B. Wood welcomed those in attendance – the total number of people registering for at least one event of the conference topped 100 – by urging us to continue digging into and proclaiming the true story of African-American baseball.

“There are so many stories that need to be told,” Wood said. “That’s why we’re here. We need to find those stories, and tell those stories.”

Wood noted how in recent years and across the country, there’s been a concerted effort to once again shunt African-American history to the shadows and prevent Americans from learning about those sories.

As a result, he said, those in attendance at the conference must “push back [and] tell the truth.”

We then watched the engrossing documentary, “Black Diamonds, Blues City: Stories of the Memphis Red Sox,” about one of the most overlooked but locally beloved Negro Leagues franchises.

The film covered the entire history of the team, which existed from 1920-59, including its formation, its purchase by the Martin brothers, the championship season of 1938, the landmark status of Martin Stadium, the politics and bigotry that eventually drove team owner and community leader J.B. Martin out of the city, and the team’s bittersweet demise following the integration of baseball. The documentary featured interviews with many former players, community members and fans, musicians and family members, and it was narrated by actor Samuel L. Jackson. The acclaimed documentary was written and directed by University of Memphis professor Steven John Ross.

The following day we dived into the presentations – this earlier post discussed the ones about the Red Sox, and highlights of some of the other presentations included:

• One by James Brunson titled, “Memphis Slow Grind Blues: Eureka-Eclipse Blackball Rivalry, 1884-1888,” in which he touched on some of cultural factors that impacted “colored” base ball (two words in the 1880s) in Gilded Age Memphis, especially the early emergence of blues culture and “blues people”; popular (and often derogatory) images of African Americans; the Robin Hood mentality; and, of course, the rise of Jim Crow. Brunson also discussed his own familial connections to the Bluff City, and he displayed paintings he created for the Memphis conference.
• Gary Gillette highlighting the importance and success of Martin Stadium at Lewis Park, which Gillette called the greatest example of a Black-owned and operated facility that hosted top level Negro Leagues games. Gary noted that Martin Stadium, the longtime home of the Memphis Red Sox, stood out from the seven other such ballparks because of its relatively large capacity, its profitability and particularly its continuous ownbership by the Martin brothers, which ensured the stadium’s stability.
• An attempt by Tom Thress to unravel a baseball mystery: Who pitched for the 1942 Cincinnati Clowns under the name Matchett? Thress explained that at the same time Jack Machett was pitching for the Kansas City Monarchs, a player named “Matchett” was appearing in box scores for the Clowns. Tom laid out all the details of the case, and while he was unable to come to a definitive answer to the question, he chronicled a fascinating, compelling tale.
• Retired sports broadcaster and University of Memphis professor Curt Hart talking about interviews he had during his journalism career with several former Negro Leaguers, including Joe B. Scott, Ted “Double Duty” Radcliffe, country singer Charley Pride and none other than the great Satchel Paige. 
• Author Chris Jensen relating the triumphant and tragic tale of Octavius Catto, an early pioneer of both Black baseball and Civil Rights in the United States, who was murdered in Philadelphia on Election Day 1871 because of his efforts to expand African-American suffrage. Catto takes his mournful place in Jensen’s new book through McFarland, “Tragedy in Black Baseball: Early Deaths of 136 Negro Leaguers, 1871-1950.” During his presentation, Chris also touched on the stories of four other saddening entrants in his book. “It’s a book I wish didn’t have to be written,” he said.
• A comprehensive, statistical breakdown of the post-integration careers in so-called “organized baseball” of Black baseball players by Clem Hamilton. His presentation featured detailed, quantitative analyses of the fates of dozens of African-American trailblazers in the national pastime at every level of professional organized baseball, from the majors down to the low minors. Hamilton’s breakdown of the men’s fates included those high-profile stars whose careers continued relatively unabated, to those who saw their careers disrupted, delayed or even ended.
• Ted Knorr’s presentation of – who else? – Rap Dixon and the legend’s performance in 1927 as part of an all-star team of Negro Leaguers’ tour of Japan. The main theme of Ted’s analysis of Rap’s superlative showing in Japan was how Dixon displayed his mastery of each of the fabled “five tools” that make for a complete, all-around ballplayer – hitting proficiency, hitting for power, speed/baserunning, fielding and arm strength. As Ted’s written summary of his presentation said, “Dixon did not just play baseball in Japan – he expanded the game’s imagination of what was possible.”
• A thought-provoking talk titled, “Home Field Heritage: Preservation of Place for Negro League Baseball,” by Julia Bucci, a graduate student studying historic preservation at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, N.Y. For her presentation, Bucci zeroed on five former Negro Leagues ballparks – Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Ala.; Stars Park in St. Louis; McCormick Field in Asheville, N.C.; Hinchliffe Stadium in Paterson, N.J.; and Cooper Stadium in Columbus, Ohio – that each served as a home field for a Negro Leagues team at either the pro or semipro level and are still standing in some form. For each of the five case studies, Julia discussed the importance of each facility to local cultural heritage and historic preservation.
• A talk by University of Memphis history professor Aram Goudsouzian underpinned by a basic theory – that for many, Aram said, “[Satchel] Paige is the vehicle [through which] white people understand the Black baseball past.” Goudsouzian related how Paige’s folksy, homespun demeanor post-retirement might have made him new legions of white fans, it occurred concurrently with the development of Black pride and Black Power, through which many African Americans resisted the type of “safe” depictions of Black culture such as Satchel.
• The tale of the early interracial base ball games in Kingston, N.Y. – located in the Hudson Valley region north of New York City – between the Black Rondout Seniors and the white Excelsior Club in August 1867, as told and examined by Daniel Torres. Torres noted how the series of contests between the two teams came during the Reconstruction Era and just months before the earliest moves toward segregation in base ball took place. Significantly, Torres related, the Rondout Seniors-Excelsiors games showed that such athletic encounters weren’t so much bold social statements or protest, as they were routine, pastoral, community-based functions of that time and place.
• The concluding presentation of the conference by Alan Cohen, who perhaps appropriately wrapped up the discussion slate with a summary and update of the enormous Negro League Homerun Project, a massive understaking that’s so far tallied well more than 7,000 Blackball dingers and could very feasibly be on its way to 8,000-plus.

But I wanted to single out one presentation in particular, one that brought an unorthodox yet sublime approach to researching and interpreting Black baseball history – through first-person poetry as spoken by one of the greats of the game themselves.

In his presentation, poet Loren Broaddus read selections from his forthcoming book, “Wasn’t Any Maybe So – Poems through the Voice of Newt Allen,” the all-time great second baseman (and should-be Hall of Famer) for the Kansas City Monarchs.

Loren’s book covers almost the entirety of his life, including his career in the game and his life outside of it. With the poems, Newt Allen (through the pen of Broaddus) narrates his life with poems about meeting his wife, the travails of barnstorming baseball, enjoying jazz clubs on the road and costly fielding errors, among an array of other life events. The volume is bookended by poems inspired by a late-in-life interview Allen gave with writer Mary Still.

Broaddus told the conference attendees that much of his inspiration for “Wasn’t Any Maybe So” come from how Allen and his Negro Leagues compatriots adjusted to and overcame the systemic challenges that constantly hindered their lives and careers.

“I’m always amazed at how they navigated that, and even thrived in that,” he said. “Just the creating they did in a very difficult situation to do so.”

The main portion of last month’s Malloy conference concluded, as the gatherings always do, with the awards dinner on Saturday night, at which time the winners of each honor are announced.

But first came the Significa Contest finals, featuring the last three competitors standing, so to speak, and after the dust settled, Tom Thress had won his third title in four years, with Kevin Johnson coming in second for the second year in a row, and Wade Parker admirably taking third.

Thress’ third title ties Ted Knorr for most wins by living players (the late, great Dick Clark is the all-time leader with a whopping nine titles). Knorr says he’ll return to active competition in 2027, which could set up a possible showdown with Thress, who beat Knorr by four-sevenths of a point in 2024. Knorr will doubtlessly be out for revenge in ’27.

The banquet concluded with the annual awards, of which the 2026 recipients were:

• Normal “Tweed” Webb Lifetime Achievement Award – Dr. James Brunson III
• Robert Peterson Recognition Award – John Graf, Paul Debono
• John Coates Next Generation Award – Karen Swanson, Chris Jensen, Scott Orris
• Fay Vincent Most Valuable Partner Award – Dr. Keith Wood

I’ll wind down this post/summary of the Malloy Conference by quoting a letter to the conference attendees by City of Memphis Mayor Paul A. Young, who wrote that the city was happy to share its Black baseball history with those at the conference:

“Memphis holds a deep and meaningful connection to this history, and it is especially fitting to welcome you to a city that proudly reflects the cultural significance and contributions of Negro League Baseball. As you engage in thoughtful discussion, learning and fellowship, we hope you also take time to experience the vibrant culture, history and hospitality that define Memphis.”

Editor’s note: The following is a lightly edited email interview with my friend and fellow Negro Leagues researcher/writer John Graf about his groundbreaking new book with McFarland, “Simulating Satchel,” in which he posits baseball’s biggest “what if.” I’ll let him explain it from there …

Ryan Whirty: How would you describe this book? What was the goal when you set out to put it together?

John Graf: Simulating Satchel is a fictional account of what might have happened if Satchel Paige and nearly 100 of his Negro Leagues contemporaries had been admitted, as young players in their primes, for the 1934 season into what were the exclusionary major leagues.

The effect I was going for was that of a reader imagining a combined preseason annual, account of the simulated season, and commentary from both fictionalized real life and invented members of the sporting news media. What would it have been like to hold in your hands a 1934 version of a yearbook like the old Street and Smith’s, with rosters, previews and predictions only titled Sweet & Fleet’s. Or like a daily newspaper with both “in-brief” and feature-length coverage. Or a fictional magazine-like publication modeled after The Sporting News, titled The Blackball Watcher. And I included simulated radio interviews with the fictional and real-life sports journalists describing the action and related stories, their context and significance.

The goals were simple: Create a book both fun and thought-provoking that not only reported on the games themselves but also in real life in the present invites consideration of how the stories relate to the larger world of which baseball and its integration history are a part.

RW: Where did the inspiration for this book come from? How did you come up with the idea for it?

JG: The inspiration for the book goes way back to my childhood, when my parents knew early on I was a baseball nut and gave me the tools of my trade, brown paper bags and pencils to copy data from baseball cards and draw pictures of players. I turned to half-sheets of typing paper for my stationery and produced My Sports Page, 93 pages worth of a 6-year-old’s chicken scratch penmanship and the best I could do at that age of illustrating.

The idea in part originated, also in childhood, as I played a solitaire, cards and dice version, of Strat-O-Matic Baseball. I played the games and compiled the stats. Eventually, Strat came out with a computer game during my adult years, and had Negro Leagues players like Satchel Paige in it, I was drawn to creating an integrated and expanded season that included the banned Negro Leaguers as well as the white players in the exclusionary majors.

It started out as a simulated season “replay” for fun and when my buddies on the Strat Fan Forum liked the write-ups I was producing for their online discussions, I thought I’d “pitch” the idea to McFarland publishers. Bless their hearts, they made me a fiction guinea pig added to their own impressive catalog of sports history titles.

RW: How did you approach such a unique and innovative project? What did you do to undertake the project?

JG: Since I had a journalism background, it was natural for me to put the writing in a format that resembled newspaper and magazine coverage. Also, having watched and listened to my share of sports talk in broadcast media, I wanted to fictionalize a real-life broadcaster as well as the scribes who could provide the coverage. So Sherman “Jocko” Maxwell, the first Black sportscaster from the Newark and New York region, was my radio conduit.

To craft the project, I operated under the assumption that baseball could have re-integrated (remember Moses Fleetwood Walker and his brother Weldy were major leaguers back in 1884 before so-called organized baseball shut the door on Black players) in a big way, rather than simply modify its exclusionary status by adding small numbers of African-American players like it did when Jackie Robinson and his successors were added in the late 1940s and 1950s, just a handful of players at a time.

Whether that was plausible in real life in 1934 is certainly open to question. That’s why I call the book a “utopian baseball fantasy.” And that’s what the “what if?” is all about.

RW: What was the biggest challenge you faced writing the book?

JG: I would have to say that getting the “voices” of the players something close to right was the biggest challenge. I wanted to be able to close my eyes and ask the question, “Can I authentically imagine Satchel Paige saying this?” Or Dizzy Dean. Or Babe Ruth. Or Charlie Root. Or Oscar Charleston. Or, notably, Norman “Turkey” Stearnes.

I got a lot of help and encouragement on this from Vanessa Ivy Rose, who was instrumental in helping with the written content of the book as well as laying the groundwork for promoting it. Of course, Vanessa is Stearnes’ granddaughter, and she helpfully told me when I would do well to check myself on some particular phrasing. Or she would say something on the order of, “I don’t think Grandpa Turkey would have said it that way. Here’s what would sound more like him.” Invaluable guidance from someone who has become a dear friend and colleague. I have seen attempts by white writers attempting to mimic the vocabulary and cadences of Black characters done badly. It’s not a pretty sight and I wanted to avoid that.

RW: Are you pleased with the book and how it turned out?

JG: Oh, my! Pleased beyond bounds. I’m grateful for the responses I’ve received so far, including the critique that I came up with a unique concept. And a hat tip goes to Gary Mitchem who headed up McFarland’s involvement and to Mark Durr on the cover design. The discussion of the significance of my portrayal of a fictional 1934 is just beginning and I look forward to the give and take from the critics as well as other readers.            

RW: Without giving away spoilers, what conclusions did you come to? What was the end result of the project? 

JG: Even more than conclusions I’ll point out an assumption I started with. That’s that the “Negro Leagues Were Major Leagues.” That’s been borne out in the work of an impressive number of historians and captured in Todd Peterson’s book by that name. In over 600 games of head-to-head competition between Black teams and the white “majors” between 1900 and 1950, Todd reports the league, pre-league and all-star teams populated by African Americans won 315 games, lost 282 and tied 20. That, among a number of other convincing factors, led me to believe that in the simulation I didn’t prove that the Negro Leaguers were every bit as good. I assumed it all along, with evidence.

The end result is both a completion and a beginning. An end result is that, if I’ve proven anything, it’s that a reader can imagine what it might have been like in an integrated and expanded 1934. And that a lot of fun can be had in examining that story, which occupied the lion’s share of the book.

In addition, though, the book succeeds if it points out an awareness that the way I’ve portrayed it ain’t how it happened in real life. And I’ve got an extensive “For Further Reading” section that lists sources that provide those stories. I’ll be happy if readers can begin to imagine, if they haven’t started already, how integration could have happened more equitably, with less damage to Black baseball, whose demise occurred when what came to be known as the Major League Baseball brand absorbed the best of the Black players and attention shifted away from the Negro Leagues and the communities that thrived in part from their presence.

Finally, I’ll have succeeded if I have managed to introduce connecting baseball’s history to the larger world. That’s such a big subject that all I’ll say here is that will be an emphasis of my future writing. The short version is that our world needs to come to grips with how competition can too easily escalate, thinking globally, to levels that threaten our very existence. Just think of how human failure to effectively share power and resources has made for the dangerously-weaponized, war-saturated world we live in at present. I think that baseball, and sport in general, has the potential to be a venue in which we can build on the fact that, on the playing field, we can look at a world of competition in which we can determine fairly who “wins” without killing each other and destroying the planet that gives us life. There is so much more to be explored. The stories behind the stats. The larger meanings. Stay tuned. Critical PENNANT Race Theory beckons.