Career

Klep was featured on the cover and in a highly regarded feature article in the Spring 2002 issue of Elysian Fields Quarterly. This article covers Klep"s breaking the color barrier. Singer-songwriter Chuck Brodsky memorialized Klep"s time in the Negro leagues in a song entitled, The Ballad Of Eddie Klepp.

A few years after Klep"s turn with the Buckeyes he was playing baseball at Rockview State Prison in central Pennsylvania.

Klep died in 1981, in a state home in Los Angeles, of conditions related to long-term alcoholism. A film based on the story of Eddie Klep has been sold to Adam Sandler"s production company.

Achievements

• Most notably, Klep became the first white American to play baseball in the Negro leagues when he pitched seven innings for the Cleveland Buckeyes on May 29, 1946, in an 8-6 win over the Chicago American Giants in Grand Rapids, Michigan.