Larry Lester, for over 25 years, has been a leading force in the research and recognition of the historical significance of the Negro Leagues and their players. Lester co-founded Kansas City's Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, and served as Research Director and Treasurer from 1991 through 1995. From 2001 through 2004, he co-chaired the National Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum's groundbreaking Out of the Shadows project, which unearthed huge amounts of new data about Negro Leagues baseball. As the chairman of SABR's Negro Leagues Committee, Lester organizes the annual Jerry Malloy Conference, and has has been honored by numerous awards, including the Henry Chadwick Award, which recognizes baseball's top researchers for their invaluable contributions to making baseball the game that links America's present with its past. Lester has also written or co-written many of the seminal works about the Negro Leagues, including books about the East-West All-Star Game; Rube Foster; black baseball in Detroit, Kansas City, Chicago, and Pittsburgh; and black baseball's first World Series.
