Emmy Award-Winning Pitt Sports Historian to Premiere Documentary Film at San Diego Latino Film Festival March 19, During the Baseball World Cup Games

PITTSBURGH-Rob Ruck, University of Pittsburgh faculty member and sports historian, with cowriter and coproducer Daniel Manatt, will premiere The Republic of Baseball: The Dominican Giants of the American Game at 6 p.m. March 19 at the San Diego Latino Film Festival, during the off day of the 2006 Baseball World Cup finals that are being held in San Diego.

The film is based on Ruck's award-winning book, The Tropic of Baseball: Baseball in the Dominican Republic (Mecklermedia, 1991; Carroll & Graf, 1993; and University of Nebraska Press, 1999), and the autobiographies of Felipe Alou and Baseball Hall-of-Fame member Juan Marichal-Felipe Alou: My Life and Baseball (Word Books, 1967) and A Pitcher's Story (Doubleday, 1967)-two of the first major league players from the Dominican Republic. Ruck and Manatt cowrote the film's script.

In addition to Alou and Marichal, Republic of Baseball tells the stories of Manny Mota and Ozzie Virgil Sr., Dominicans who were among the first to enter the major leagues. Virgil debuted with the New York Giants 50 years ago and was the first Dominican to play in the major leagues. In the documentary, such baseball greats as Pedro Martinez, Alex Rodriquez, Alfonso Soriano and hall-of-fame members Willie McCovey, Orlando Cepeda, and Willie Mays reflect on the careers of the baseball "pioneers."

Republic of Baseball was produced by Sports for Development Foundation and Manatt Media LLC. The film's producers are Pitt's Ruck; Manatt, son of Charles Manatt, former U.S. Ambassador to the Dominican Republic; Jose Mota, broadcaster for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and son of Manny Mota; and Christia Alou, daughter of Felipe Alou.

Ruck received the MacMillan-Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) Award in 1991 for The Tropic of Baseball. He also is the author of Sandlot Seasons: Sport in Black Pittsburgh (University of Illinois Press, 1993). He was project director, producer, and writer of Kings on the Hill: Baseball's Forgotten Men, a documentary about the Negro Leagues and the role of sports in the Black community, for which he received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Cultural Programming in 1994.

In addition to his work on Republic of Baseball, Ruck is cowriting a biography of the late Art Rooney, Pittsburgh Steelers owner, and a history of Pittsburgh with Pitt history Professor Edward Muller. He also served as guest historian for sports exhibitions at the Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center.

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