Before a worldwide pandemic shutdown sports, Major League Baseball had planned to use Tuesday, June 29, as a celebration and tip of the cap to the Negro Leagues which began 100 years ago.
The Negro National Leagues would serve as the first organized baseball leagues for Black men, established 27 years before Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color barrier in 1947.
Sierra represents one of the hundreds of men who found a home in the Negro Leagues as well as an opportunity to showcase their prowess in the sport that has emerged to become not only a popular sport but a cultural phenomenon — with few things, as the saying goes, "being more American than baseball and apple pie."
He left baseball in 1976 and worked for the Montgomery County Department of Recreation for 25 years where he implemented a program, Get High on Sports, during which he took youths to Baltimore Orioles games where he connected the boys with his friends from his days on the mound.
Today he lives in New Jersey with his brother and for the past nine years, he's honored a commitment with Major League Baseball traveling to fan fests where he signs autographs, talks about his years in the Negro Leagues and talks with youth who hope to make professional baseball their career one day.
