My book on the Negro Leagues has taken approximately seven years. The reason it’s taken that long is because I’ve had to do a ton of research for each painting. I have to make sure that the uniforms are accurate — colors of uniforms, the ages of the players represented, color of the ballparks, and which ballparks they played in. Every last detail has to be accurate and, unfortunately, much the records and photographs have been lost to history. So I’ve had to try and fill in the gaps with knowledge of baseball or whatever I have at my reach to try to paint this picture accurately.
The book is called We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball. It’s the first book that I’ve ever written and illustrated. So I’m really excited about it. It will be published in January of 2008.
