Baseball's Outcast: The Story of Ron LeFlore

by Adam Henig

From the prison cage to the batting cage, Ron LeFlore's journey to the major leagues was anything but ordinary.

When twenty-three-year-old Ron LeFlore played his first organized baseball game, it was in a yard at the State Prison of Southern Michigan where he was serving five to fifteen years for armed robbery. An extraordinary athlete, the Detroit native had luck on his his coach, a convicted felon, had connections to the Detroit Tigers. Within three-and-a-half years, Ron went from a prison inmate to a Tiger centerfielder.

In Baseball's The Story of Ron LeFlore, Adam Henig tells for the first time in full the unbelievable life and career of Ron LeFlore. Blessed with blinding speed and a powerful swing, Ron shed his jailbird past to become one of the game's premiere hitters and its most dangerous base stealer during the latter half of the 1970s. His rags-to-riches life story became a bestselling book and a made-for-television movie starring actor LeVar Burton, fresh from his performance in Roots. But the good times did not last. Less than a decade after making his Major League debut, Ron was finished with baseball.

Baseball's Outcast is not just another book about the rise and fall of a troubled athlete. Henig goes deeper, tracing the star player's family roots, exploring the segregated world that Ron was raised in, examining the criminal justice system he was subjected to, and revealing how childhood trauma shaped his success and downfall. Filled with insight from Ron himself, as well as from former teammates, coaches, front-office personnel, inmates, childhood friends, and relatives, Baseball's Outcast provides unprecedented access into Ron's life story and the obstacles he faced every step of the way.

Genres: Baseball

320 pages, Hardcover

Published April 2, 2026

About the author

Adam Henig is the author of "Watergate's Forgotten Hero: Frank Wills, Night Watchman" (McFarland & Company, Inc., 2021). He is author of two other books, "Alex Haley's Roots: An Author's Odyssey" (2014) and "Baseball Under Siege: The Yankees, the Cardinals, and a Doctor's Battle to Integrate Spring Training" (2016).

His next book, "Baseball's Outcast: The Story of Ron LeFlore," will be published in 2026 (Rowman & Littlefield).

Adam's writings have appeared in Time, Detroit Metro Times, Tampa Bay Times, Washington Independent Review of Books, History News Network, San Francisco Book Review, and the website BlackPast.

For more information, visit www.adamhenig.com.

Reviews

[RICK "SHAQ" GOLDSTEIN · Rating 4 out of 5]

RICK “SHAQ” GOLDSTEIN SAYS: A TEENAGE HIGH SCHOOL DROPOUT… HEROIN ADDICT… IN MICHIGAN FEDERAL PRISON… FOR ARMED ROBBERY… AND HAVING NEVER EVEN PLAYED IN LITTLE LEAGUE… BECOMES A MAJOR LEAGUE ALL-STAR… WITH THE DETROIT TIGERS!
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Ron LeFlore born in a Detroit Ghetto to a hard working Mother… and hard working alcoholic Father… ran afoul of criminal laws… as a daily occurrence. Though he was a gifted athlete with blazing speed… and gained interest in football and track... it wasn’t enough to keep him from pulling one petty crime after another. And as this type of life… and story… always seems to emanate… the crimes got bigger… more dangerous… and of course demanded higher penalties.

The author goes out of his way… to paint a dismal picture… though an accurate depiction... of his environment… I was constantly reminded of the way my parents raised me… and lectured me…and I of course emphasized the same realities to my son… and assuredly... other parents… told countless other children… “NO MATTER HOW BAD YOU HAVE IT… THERE ARE MANY PEOPLE WHO HAVE IT WORSE! AND… NO MATTER HOW BIG AND BAD YOU THINK YOU ARE… THERE ARE ALWAYS PEOPLE… BIGGER AND BADDER THAN YOU!”

But Ron… like most out of control delinquents… not only got an Adrenalin rush out of his crimes… but he bought into the self-proclaimed boasts… that he was smarter than others on the street… and a veritable criminal master mind… and after pulling off an armed robbery with a few of his villainous… crook… cohorts… got arrested for armed robbery. (And of course the moronic tough guys turned on each other.)

Ron wound up serving THIRTY-EIGHT-MONTHS IN SOUTHERN MICHIGAN FEDERAL PRISON… “THE LAST STOP IN THE STATES CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM.” In this retched… real-life… kill or be killed… hell-hole… self-believing… big tough guy Ron LeFlore… wound up in solitary confinement… “HE WAS AT THE END OF THE ROAD. ISOLATED AND WITH NOTHING ON THE OUTSIDE TO GIVE HIM HOPE, HE CRIED HIMSELF TO SLEEP SOME NIGHTS… THE TOUGH KID FROM EAST DETROIT NOW SOBBING FOR HIS MOTHER. HE WOULD LATER REFER TO THIS PERIOD IN HIS LIFE AS THE MOST FRIGHTENING THING IN THE WORLD… ALL HIS HUSTLES, LIES, WHEELING AND DEALING, STEALING OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY… IT HAD AMOUNTED TO COMPLETE ISOLATION FROM THE WORLD.”

Assuredly… Ron had to have learned his lesson… but no… then he was charged with disobedience, “RON WAS DRAGGED TO WHAT WAS KNOWN AS *THE-SLAMMER*… WHICH WAS WORSE THAN THE HOLE! WHEN THE HEAVY STEEL DOOR TO HIS NEW CELL LOCKED, RON FOUND HIMSELF IN THE MOST CONFINED SPACE THE PRISON HAD ON ITS PREMISES. THERE WAS NO LIGHT OF ANY KIND. THERE WAS NOT EVEN A BED TO SLEEP ON. THIS CELL WAS HALF THE SIZE OF RON’S IN THE HOLE. ALL HE COULD DO, HE REMEMBERED, WAS SIT HOUR AFTER HOUR, PLAYING WITH YOUR LOWER LIP.”

Ron… had been great in football and track during his very short school boy career... and had not taken advantage of a number of extremely generous… large and warm hearted… coach and mentor types… but believe it or not…

Ron had never played baseball in any league… AND HAD NEVER EVEN PLAYED CATCH WITH HIS FATHER! But… in prison… Ron got involved in the prison baseball team… even though he didn’t even have a microscopic understanding of the subtleties of baseball. His lightning speed caught everyone’s eye… and a former Mafia enforcer… was good friends with the owner of a bar… that was close with the manager of the Detroit Tigers… Billy Martin, (Imagine Billy Martin at a bar!?!) And the word went out… and an exhibition game between the prisoners and the outside world was set up at the prison. Ron was so impressive… that it led to a tryout with the Tigers. The big league team gave him a shot in the minor leagues when he got out of prison… which led to a quick promotion to the big leagues… which led to LeFlore becoming a Major League all-star… a league leader in steals (*OF BASES*) and having a television movie of his life made (ONE IN A MILLION: THE RON LeFLORE STORY) starring LeVar Burton.

As Ron’s fame grew… he continued to be his own worst enemy… which is the lingering theme from beginning to end. Thinking only of himself… drugs… alcohol... impregnating women… and not paying child support… and saying some of the stupidest things… a person in his position could say.

NOTE/QUESTION: On page 19… the author states that Ron at the age of ten long jumped “NINETEEN FEET AND TEN INCHES”. I personally… was not only astounded by that figure/statement… I found it almost too much to believe. In my limited internet research… here is what I found as the record in that event and age group:

The USATF national record for 9-10 year old boys in the long jump is 16 feet, 8 inches (5.08 meters), set by Kendrick Law in 2014. Another notable record, often cited as a top age-group mark 17 Feet 2 ¾ inches by Zak’r Roberson in2017.

[Lance · Rating 4 out of 5]

While every professional athlete, no matter their background, has an interesting story to share about the rise to becoming one of the best at their profession, former Major League Baseball player Ron LaFlore had a very different path to get to that point. His story of going from a convicted criminal serving time in prison to becoming an All-Star outfielder is covered in this book by Adam Henig.

LaFlore grew up in a poverty-stricken, mostly Black area of Detroit. Succumbing to life on the streets, he took to committing various crimes to obtain money. During an armed robbery, he was arrested and sentenced to serve time at Jackson State prison. While I was certainly interested in LaFlore’s baseball career, I found this section of the book to be the best as Henig did a masterful job of describing LaFlore’s life in prison, his change in behavior from rebellious to model prisoner due to athletics and the ways he developed his skills in baseball, a sport he never played before suiting up for the prison team.

A scout from the Detroit Tigers discovered LeFlore through connections and he was granted a 48 hour pass to attend a tryout at Tiger Stadium. While still fairly raw with his fielding and hitting, it was LaFlore’s speed that eventually earned him a contract with the Tigers and more importantly, an early release from prison.

From there, the book is mainly about his baseball career, where he became an all-star with the Tigers during the 1976 – 78 seasons, led the American League twice in stolen bases and was a fan favorite. He teamed up with a local sportswriter to pen an autobiography, which became a best-seller and also was made into a made-for-TV movie that starred LeVarr Burton playing LaFlore. Henig’s writing was also very good here, including when he injected aspects of LaFlore’s personal life that not only affected LaFlore’s performance on the field, but also his standing with teammates and the Tigers’ front office.

That led to a trade to the Montreal Expos, where he led the National League in stolen bases, becoming the first major league to accomplish the feat in both leagues. However, again due to difficulties with getting along with teammates and the front office, the Expos released him after just one season, 1980. After that, he tried to catch on with the Chicago White Sox, but that didn’t end up well either.

Here is where the book turns into simply a brief summary of his life after baseball, save for one incident where he and his wife were invited to a reception for former players in Detroit, only to have several issues such as the lack of a hotel reservation make it more difficult. I found this to be quite an abrupt end to the book after all the great detail about his life before and during baseball.

I wish to thank Bloomsbury Academic for providing a copy of the book via NetGalley. The opinions expressed in this review are strictly my own.

https://sportsbookguy.blogspot.com/20...

[Mike Kennedy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Baseball’s Outcast tells the remarkable true story of Ron LeFlore, a convicted criminal who became an MLB All Star for the Detroit Tigers in the 1970s. If you did not know this story was real, you might easily assume it was written for Hollywood. In fact, it was later adapted into a made for TV movie by CBS.

Ron LeFlore grew up in extreme poverty and turned to stealing at a young age. What began as petty theft gradually escalated into a full life of crime, eventually leading to his arrest after an armed robbery. He was sentenced to Jackson State Prison, where his life unexpectedly began to change. A gifted natural athlete, Ron joined the prison baseball team after realizing that players received some of the best treatment and privileges available to inmates.

Through a fellow inmate with Italian mob connections, word of Ron’s talent reached Billy Martin, who sent a scout to see him play. Ron was given a tryout, released from prison, and soon began a meteoric rise through professional baseball that ultimately landed him in the major leagues.

The book kept my interest throughout, and I especially enjoyed the detailed storytelling about Ron’s early life and his years in baseball. One drawback is that once Ron’s playing career ended, the rest of his life is summarized in just one chapter. I would have liked to read more about that period, including his time in the Senior Leagues.

Overall, this is an engaging story about baseball, redemption, and overcoming tremendous obstacles. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys baseball or simply appreciates a powerful and inspiring life story.

Thank you to NetGalley, Adam Henig, and Bloomsbury Academic for a free advanced copy for an honest review.

[Greville Waterman · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a story! If you wrote a film script of Ron LeFlore's life it would certainly be rejected as being totally beyond belief.

The young black man from the harsh ghettos of Detroit, an armed robber and convicted felon who discovers his incredible athletic gifts whilst incarcerated and somehow ends up having an illustrious Major League baseball career with the Detroit Tigers and Montreal Expos, becoming an All Star, winning the award for the most stolen bases in both leagues before being overwhelmed by his demons and returning to poverty and obscurity.

There is so much fertile material for the author to work with and work with to Adam Henig most certainly does.

A bio-pic was made of his life called "One in a Million".

Ron LeFlore certainly lived up to that title and this engrossing and wonderful book is also one in a million too.

Highly recommended.