Homestead is a natural with the Grays," Knorr said. "The success of this one, and I think this one is going to be successful, is going to be key."
Knorr, a former Pittsburgher who now resides in Harrisburg, has helped bring the conference to famous Negro League cities such as Harrisburg; Kansas City, Mo.; Chicago; Memphis, Tenn.; and Cleveland since its inception in 1998.
To Knorr, Homestead is a natural location for this weekend's three-day conference, but he couldn't get much interest from anybody local.
Knorr said he hoped to hold the conference at the Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area Museum, located along E. Eighth Avenue in Homestead, but his requests fell on deaf ears.
"I wanted them to come to Homestead but I couldn't get a local interest," Knorr said.
But that hasn't stopped Knorr from pushing ahead to make Homestead a site in the future.
"It is not my conference to pick who gets it," Knorr said. "But I am on the site committee. If Homestead would want it, I would assume we would go back there in a couple years."
The Jerry Mallory Conference plans to travel to Birmingham, Ala., Baltimore and Memphis within the next three years.
"If everything works out, we could go there in 2013, but they aren't interested. So who am I kidding?" Knorr said. "I hope their eyes get opened up by what goes on here this weekend."
The Jerry Malloy Negro League Conference came about in 1998 after Knorr noticed that, when he would attend the Society for American Baseball Research Conference, the Negro League Committee of which he was a part always seemed to gravitate toward the SABR conference.
"I go to the national SABR conferences and one of the great things is that you see people you know," Knorr said. "I noticed that the Negro League committee would be hanging out with each other in the SABR conference and we would sort of be lost in the crowd. So I said, why don't we meet and focus on Negro League baseball?"
And that's what they have done since 1998.
The conference is to encourage the study and research of African-American baseball and its influence on society, sports history and racial barriers.
The conference promotes activities to enhance scholarly, educational and literary objectives.
Knorr is expecting at least 140 to attend the conference that spanned from Thursday until tonight.
