Film + Q&A
It took more than one man to break baseball’s color line. It took a generation.
Directed by award-winning filmmaker Gaspar González, A Long Way from Home chronicles the struggles and triumphs of the pioneering Black and Latino players who followed Jackie Robinson into white professional baseball. Often playing their minor-league ball in small, remote towns where racial segregation remained a fact of life well into the 1960s, these men endured inferior accommodations, the scorn of white teammates, and racist threats to pursue their big-league dreams — and make America’s pastime truly open to all. Features original, revealing interviews with such players as James “Mudcat” Grant, Grover “Deacon” Jones, Jimmy Wynn, J.R. Richard, Tony Pérez, and Orlando Cepeda.
Gaspar González has produced documentary programming for PBS, the BBC, ESPN, TV One, and others. His credits include the national PBS release Muhammad Ali: Made in Miami; the Grantland short doc Gay Talese’s Address Book; Havana House, winner of the Audience Award at the 2017 Miami Film Festival; and the ESPN films The All-American Cuban Comet and the upcoming Summer of ’83. His work has been recognized by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the New York Festivals TV & Film Awards, the Telly Awards, and AFI Docs.