6:30pm - 7:30pm

Join us in the Browning Gallery for an exciting Local Author Spotlight featuring Kevin Wirthwein!  This event is a unique opportunity to meet the author, ask questions, purchase your copy of Black Ball in Evansville and have it signed!

About the Book:  Author Kevin Wirthwein chronicled nearly 100 years of baseball in Evansville in his first book, Baseball in Evansville: Booms, Busts and One Global Disaster. While researching and writing about mostly white baseball teams, players and events, he observed that there was an African American element of the sport that was playing all those years in the shadows of virtual obscurity. That set off a drive to uncover the stories about and behind the small newspaper and media spaces afforded black teams, players and stories of black baseball during that period.

Black Ball in Evansville is a journey deeper that recounts the stories behind the teams and personal histories of negro league players who hailed from the City on the Ohio River. Along the way Kevin found that players from Evansville earned distinction in the era of negro league baseball that is now considered a part of major league baseball. One such Evansville native now holds the record for major league players that will not likely be broken. In this comprehensive view of Black Ball in Evansville, you’ll find stories about the teams, players, visitors and barrier breakers that made the history of Baseball in Evansville even richer.

About the Author: Kevin Wirthwein grew up in Evansville, where he attended Harrison High School. He studied Journalism at Butler University in Indianapolis and wrote and edited for The Butler Collegian newspaper and The Drift yearbook. After graduation, Kevin was as a sportswriter and sports editor for The Brownsburg Guide newspaper in Brownsburg, Indiana. There, he won a Hoosier State Press Association Award for his weekly sport column. He was a staff writer for Trap & Field Magazine and served briefly as editor of the Zionsville Times in Zionsville, Indiana, before returning to Butler to earn an MBA degree and enter the business world until he retired to his first loves – baseball and writing. Kevin’s first book, Baseball in Evansville: Booms, Busts and One Global Disaster, was published by The History Press in 2020. He is a member of the Society for American Baseball Research, Vanderburgh County Historical Society and Indiana Historical Society.

Copies of Black Ball in Evansville will be available for purchase at the program via M.T. Publishing Company. Cash or credit card accepted!