Maine sports legend and his biographer to be honored at Merrill Library

A free public reception to celebrate the work of Maine author Ed Rice and to honor the legacy of Penobscot baseball player Louis Sockalexis will be held in the Merrill Library at the University of Maine at Machias at 4 p.m. Thursday, April 25.

Light refreshments will be served. The reception is part of Celebrate UMM Days; see the full calendar of events at machias.edu/celebrate-umm. For more information or to request a reasonable accommodation, call 255.1254.

Rice is the author of Baseball’s First Indian: Louis Sockalexis: Penobscot Legend, Cleveland Indian, a biography of the first Native American to play Major League Baseball. He will present a talk to raise awareness of the Louis Sockalexis Monument Organization, a nonprofit dedicated to building a monument in Maine to honor the athlete.

Sockalexis, nicknamed “the Deerfoot of the Diamond,” was born on Indian Island in Old Town, Maine and played for the Cleveland Spiders from 1897–99.

Rice is a former newspaper reporter and an avid runner who was recently inducted into the Maine Running Hall of Fame. His latest book, Robin Emery: 50 Years of Flying Shoes, a biography of one of Maine’s pioneer female runners, was published by Down East Books in March.