“I started collecting cards and had a special interest in Native Americans and baseball. About a year ago, we started looking at ways of presenting the information.”

Daugherty’s collection of baseball memorabilia, will be part of a special Tulsa Drillers tribute to Native Americans in baseball on July 29 at ONEOK Field.

“I don’t know how much racism was involved for the Native Americans in baseball during those early days,” said Daugherty. “But from what I’ve been able to find out through research, is that these ballplayers probably faced a more subtle form of racism than Jackie Robinson and other African-Americans faced when they broke into baseball.

“No question some of these early Native American baseball players were taunted by racial slurs. But, racism at any level is racism.”

Daugherty gets to live his two greatest passions. He grew up in a house where he was taught two languages — Cherokee and English.

Now, he is one of the main advocates for preservation and education of the Cherokee language, considered one of the most thorough and complicated languages on earth. Less than one percent of Cherokees are fluent in the language.