Description
Through the poetic voice of the Kansas City Monarchs’ Newt Allen, Wasn’t Any Maybe So transports us back to the raucous world of baseball, jazz, Kansas City, and the barnstorming road during the Roaring 1920s and beyond.
“Wasn’t Any Maybe So is a book of remembrance and praise. Praise for Newt Allen and the Negro Baseball League. Loren Broaddus writes from “inside” the game as history runs the bases. This poetry collection reads like a memoir filled with extra innings of memory. Broaddus writes not just about Allen and his Kansas City Monarchs but also about a galaxy of other baseball stars. This is a well-crafted book with language that throws, hits, runs, and dance. Jazz and blues cheer from the pages like fans going from ballrooms to ballparks. Broaddus knows that telling Newt Allen’s tale means players of the Negro Baseball League will play once again. Our eyes long to see Allen’s unassisted triple play. Wasn’t Any Maybe So gives us back our sight.”
– Ethelbert Miller, writer and literary activist
“No maybe here either. Loren Broaddus is at his best. With poems that sometimes sting with their truth, you can smell the dust and feel the summer heat as Broaddus tells stories about some of baseball’s greatest players. A poignant reminder of the struggles for recognition and equality faced by black athletes of their time.”
– David L. Harrison, 7th Missouri Poet Laureate
“Through in-person poems, Loren Broaddus shines a bright light on the baseball life of Newt Allen. The sights, sounds, and smells of Kansas City baseball diamonds come to life. The jazz from 18th & Vine wafts through the air. Interactions with characters like Satchel, Josh, Oscar, and many more are remembered. Newt’s baseball journeys from Philly to Los Angeles and from Cuba to China—recounted. Newt might have quietly collected more hits than any player in the Negro Leagues, yet his ticket for Cooperstown has not yet been issued. Broaddus gives a respectful and authentic voice to this hardworking, humble legend of a ballplayer.”
– Paul Debono, Author of the Indianapolis ABCs (1997), Chicago American Giants (2007), Black Baseball in Cincinnati (2026).
“Wasn’t Any Maybe So: Poems from the Life of Newt Allen, is a striking poetry collection that pays tribute to one of baseball’s lesser-known figures and honors the legacy of the Negro Leagues, an institution deserving of far greater recognition in its own right. In his second baseball-themed collection, Loren Broaddus brings his deep knowledge of the game to life through an authentic voice, rich with pathos, weaving together regret, memory, and redemption. Together, these poems preserve a vital piece of baseball history while reminding readers of the human stories that give the game its lasting power, and of the Negro Leagues, who, ‘in a limited, narrowed world” survived by “[their] own creating.’”
– Matthew Johnson, author of Jackie Robinson’s Real Gone: Baseball Poems of New York
“The lovely and evocative poems of Loren Broaddus capture a world of beautiful jazz and brilliant baseball, as it was played in the Negro Leagues. Readers will delight in these stories of both famous and lesser-known Black ballplayers of the 1920s and 1930s.”
– Thomas Wolf, author of Baseball in the Roaring Twenties
“Wasn’t Any Maybe So is a book about dignity in the face of erasure. Loren Broaddus gives voice to men who were among the best in the world at what they did yet were denied recognition and largely forgotten by history. Through the voice of Newt Allen, these poems reveal how beauty and meaning were forged anyway and how baseball, like jazz, transformed narrowed circumstances “not of our own design” into something transcendent.
At its heart, this is a book about the cost of being seen and unseen at the same time, about the ache of almost belonging in a nation unwilling to listen. By resurrecting a voice history tried to silence, Broaddus insists that these lives—full of joy and pain, friendship and failure—deserve to be remembered.”
– JJ Celli, author of Love Letters & Pocket Knives
“A stunning and vivid collection of masterfully crafted poems that capture the spirit and essence of one of baseball’s most compelling figures, Newt Allen, and his journey with the Kansas City Monarchs. This collection will leave you moved and educated, as the author gives it an authentic pulse and insight into a subject of American history that deserves celebration and tribute. The human element and deep respect for this time period is evident and is a must-read for anyone who loves baseball, history, and the power of poetry.”
– Dr. Jeni Hopkins, Educator, Sports Broadcaster, and Performance Psychologist
