The 16th Annual NINE Spring Training Conference

March 12-15, 2009

Clarion Hotel Tucson Airport

Tucson, Arizona

THURSDAY, MARCH 12

6:00-6:45 p.m.             Registration

6:45-7:00 p.m.             Welcome: Steve Gietschier

THE CY SEYMOUR SESSION

7:00-8:15 p.m.             Arnold Hano, "Lucky Me: Who Else Ever Saw a Player’s Saliva                                                                  Break a Teammate’s Leg?"

                                    Introduction: Jean Hastings Ardell     

THE SOPHIE KURYS SESSION

Chair:  Bob Gorman

8:15-8:40 p.m.             Lisa Doris Alexander, “Who Are We Celebrating Anyway? Major                                                              League Baseball and the Honoring of Jackie Robinson”

According to the late Jules Tygiel, “The Jackie Robinson story is to Americans what the Passover story is to Jews: it must be told to every generation so that we never forget. But if this is true, and it most assuredly is, what is it that we must not forget?”  In the last few years, Major League Baseball has taken these words to heart and staged elaborate celebrations to commemorate Robinson breaking the color barrier. Beginning with the 60th anniversary of Robinson’s achievement, MLB began playing a Civil Rights game which included panel discussions on race in baseball. In addition, MLB provided players and managers with the opportunity to wear Robinson’s number on April, 15. While there are very few who would argue that Robinson’s accomplishment should not be shouted from the rooftops; however, the recent celebrations seem to focus less on Robinson’s role in the integration process and more on Major League Baseball’s role. This presentation will discuss how Jackie Robinson Day has been commemorated in the past and how MLB is using these honors to both advance and hinder Robinson’s legacy.

 

 8:40-9:05 p.m.             Nikki Willis, “Manny Being Manny: Unpacking Race and Gender                                                               Constructions in the Media Coverage of Manny Ramirez”

Since he joined the Boston Red Sox in the 2001 season, Manny Ramirez has become the poster child for problematic constructions athletes of color.  Already an established power hitter, Ramirez signed an eight-year contract and soon became essential the team’s line-up.  However, as Ramirez grew in terms of his popularity, his image (as it was constructed by media agents) also shifted to include passive aggressive attacks on his talent, work ethic, and alleged distractions within the clubhouse.  Yet Ramirez remains loved by his teammates and fans alike.

Every utterance of “Manny being Manny” by sports journalists reinforces deeply-seeded issues of race-based expectations in baseball culture.  Frequently accused of being indifferent, immature, or unprofessional, Ramirez’s image becomes that of a talented athlete who does not deserve his god-given talents.  The very fact that Ramirez has become simply “Manny” in popular sports culture also speaks to his cult of personality.  He is an affable personality, not a formidable athlete who should be taken seriously.  Although the media industry has constructed a clear image of Ramirez that is safe, contained, and generally non-threatening, I argue that this affable persona is partially the result of Ramirez’s choice to perform as such. 

Although aspects of his persona existed before his arrival in Boston, I argue that playing in such a historically racist city like Boston made this choice to be the lovable clown both savvy and necessary.   This paper will examine how media coverage of Ramirez as a super star athlete offers insight into larger tensions in baseball culture in the U.S. and around the world.  In addition, this paper argues that the constructions of so-called “Manny-isms” has affected his marketability, devalued his many accomplishments, and is also indicative of the current passive racism that is prevalent in baseball culture today.

 

9:05-9:30 p.m.             Jennifer Ring, “Not Your Mother’s National Pastime”

Baseball is America's national pastime, but half the nation has been systematically excluded from playing.  From the time it was professionalized in the nineteenth century, to the aftermath of the Little League Lawsuits of 1973 and the birth  of "Little League Softball," organized baseball continues to insist that it is too strenuous, too violent, and too dangerous for girls and women. Even after post-Title IX successes in other more obviously violent sports, and in disregard of their long abiding affection for and tenacious efforts to gain access to the sport, girls and women are discouraged from playing with boys or establishing their own leagues. What forces account for this? What are the civic implications of masculine exclusivity for a game associated with American national identity? Why is it easier for girls to play baseball in Japan than the United States? How can American girls gain access to their national sport?
 

FRIDAY, MARCH 13

THE SIDD FINCH SESSION

Chair: Larry Gerlach

8:20-8:45 a.m.             Karl Lindholm, “The Dodgers’ Yankee: Branch Rickey’s Maine                                                                 Man—Clyde Sukeforth”

Clyde Sukeforth is not an obscure figure. As Branch Rickey’s arch collaborator and confidante, his role in the Jackie Robinson integration saga is well-known. He was the scout who met with Robinson in Chicago and accompanied him to Brooklyn for the historic meeting with Branch Rickey, when Rickey informed Robinson he wanted a “man with guts enough not to fight back.” Sukeforth was in the room that day, and on the bench as manager of the Dodgers for Robinson’s first game as a major leaguer, after six decades of segregated play. Sukeforth was there when it mattered and he did the job. Rachel Robinson said, “(Clyde) was very kind to both of us, probably one of the most influential people in my husband’s life. He cared about Jackie and our entire family.”

 

He symbolizes competence and dependability in the workplace. Lee Lowenfish in his stunning biography of Branch Rickey refers to the “taciturn native of Maine” as “one of the most trusted members of Rickey’s inner circle.” As such, he was not the star, the boss, one of the principals – it was Rickey’s and Robinson’s show. He was the consummate team player, happier in the shadows than the limelight. Sukeforth was crucial but not central – and that’s just the way he liked it: “I got a lot of credit I don’t deserve,” he said later. “I mean, I didn’t do anything that anybody free of prejudice couldn’t have done or wouldn’t have done. I treated him just like any other human being. . . . . See, coming from Maine, I never thought about color. I don’t feel I did anything special. I was just there.”

 

I argue here that this persona - reticent, austere, prone to understatement - is a perfect representative of his background.  The essay celebrates Clyde Sukeforth as a Yankee archetype, a man of his region, Maine, Northern New England, a territory of distinctive cultural expression. Mainers are practical; they want to be of use; they are diligent workers, proud and industrious. They are used to rugged times, hardship, bad weather, tough choices. They live a hardscrabble life, or at least they did when Clyde Sukeforth was growing up there and adopting the values of his place.

 

 As a Mainer myself, Clyde Sukeforth’s story thrills me. He’s my favorite player, my favorite baseball figure. His narrative is an American story: the young man from the provinces who goes to the city and participates in a mythical drama, and then, after an extraordinary career full of high adventure, returns to his Ithaka, Waldoboro, Maine, to live out his long life, a sage in the tranquility of old age in familiar and reassuring surroundings.

Clyde Sukeforth was born in Washington, Maine in 1901. He died in Waldoboro, 17 miles away, almost 100 years later, in 2000. This presentation looks at Waldoboro’s Clyde Sukeforth, and examines his fascinating life from that cultural frame of reference.

 8:45-9:10 a.m.             Lee Lowenfish, “Scouts Honor: The Goldklang Group’s Effort to                                                               Recognize Baseball’s Forgotten Men”

My “Scouts Honor” presentation will focus on the efforts of the Goldklang Group of minor league franchises to honor each year two scouts at each of their six ballparks for their long and meritorious service to the game of baseball.  Though the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown has on rare occasions noted scouts’ work in their exhibits, the Goldklang project is the first permanent recognition for the least appreciated and arguably most vital members of any baseball organization. It is not easy to appraise what a ballplayer in his teens is capable of doing in his mature years but the best scouts have that ability and it is past time for them to receive some plaudits. Starting in the 2008 season, the project will erect every year at every one of the Goldklang ballparks two plaques with impressive busts of the honorees.  Among the veteran scouts honored in 2008 were longtime Oriole and Indian evaluator Tom “T-Bone” Giordano (Hudson Valley, NY Renegades), the Angels’ Tom Kotchman (Fort Myers, FLA Miracle, father of major league first baseman Casey Kotchman) and a Royals’ pioneer scout Art Stewart (Sioux Fall SD Canaries). Honorees for 2009 will be shortly selected and will also be discussed in the proposed presentation.

A key component of the paper will be interviews with selected scouts and the Goldklang group, headed by the father and son team of Marvin and Jeff Goldklang, both former college baseball players, and their vice-president Tyler Tumminia, daughter of 2008 Hudson Valley honoree John Tumminia, long-time Chicago White Sox scout.  The presentation will strive to put the current efforts for scouts’ recognition into the great historical and literary framework provided by the pioneering work of Kevin Kerrane who wrote in Dollar Sign on the Muscle (1985) that scouting is like “a poker game in which all the chips change in value after you win them” and Mark Winegardner’s profile of scout Tony Lucadello, Prophet of the Sandlots (1990), in which the author wrote elegiacally that scouts were “sleepy, hungry, happy, curmudgeonly, gracious three-dimensional people, who climbed trees and argued with their sisters and practiced their pianos (or their relay throws home from the outfield) and yearned to leave something of themselves in this world.”

 

 9:10-9:35 a.m.             Jim Odenkirk, “Henry P. Edwards: Making a Case for His                                             Induction into J. G. Taylor Spink’s Writers Wing of the Hall of Fame”

Informal discussions took place in 1906 and 1907 to establish a baseball writers association.  On October 19, 1908 during the famous World Series between the Chicago Cubs and Detroit Tigers, a group of twenty-three baseball writers gathered at the Hotel Pontchartrain in Detroit.  The seeds were sown for the formal organization of the Baseball Writers of America.

 

As of 2009, fifty-eight Baseball Writers Association (BBWA) members have been inducted into the J.G. Taylor Spink writer’s wing of baseball’s Hall of Fame.  Only four charter members have been selected for this honor, namely Hugh Fullerton, Sr., Harry G. Salsinger, Sid Mercer, and James Isaminger.  Other early notables inducted into the BBWA include Ring Lardner, Grantland Rice, Damon Runyon, Heywood C. Broun, and Fred Lieb.

 

In my judgment, at least one name is missing from the writer’s wing, namely Henry Pierrepont Edwards.  His credentials are noteworthy, to say the least.  One of the founders of the BBWA, Edwards was one of three association members chosen to draft a constitution for the organization.  A longtime sports editor for the Cleveland Plain Dealer (1901-1926), Edwards was a close friend of Ban Johnson, the American League’s first president.  For years Edwards, who covered the Cleveland Indians, routinely conversed with Ernest S. Barnard, president of the Cleveland team.   When Johnson was relieved of his duties in 1927, Barnard became president of the American League.  It was not surprising that Edwards would accept Barnard’s offer to become head of the league’s service bureau.  Barnard died unexpectedly in 1931 and Edwards continued in his position under new president Will Harridge until 1939.  While in office, Edwards initiated several important innovations for the American League and major league baseball.  For example, he was responsible for polling 226 members of the BBWA in 1936 to select the first inductees into the Hall of Fame.

 

Edwards returned to the Plain Dealer in 1940 where he wrote guest columns for the sports pages.  The long-time journalist died in 1949 at the age of 76.  This paper will provide evidence to support Edwards nomination as a bona fide candidate for the writer’s wing of the Hall of Fame.  References include materials from the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY, the Eugene Murdock papers, resources at the Western Reserve Historical Society, the Cleveland Public Library, articles from the Plain Dealer, the Baseball Magazine, and the Sporting News. 

9:35-10:00 a.m.           Ed Edmonds, “Major League Baseball Salary Arbitration in 2009”

One of the more fascinating annual rituals in major league baseball occurs every year between early December and late February when more than 100 baseball players and teams engage in the process of single or final offer salary arbitration. The system, first incorporated into the 1973 collective bargaining agreement, provides a mechanism for establishing the annual salary of a specific group of players. Baseball celebrates the 35th anniversary of salary arbitration this year.

The presentation and the resulting paper will concentrate on the 2009 group. Major league teams have until December 7, 2008, to offer arbitration to their own players who have met the criteria for free agency status. Between January 5-15, 2009, teams and players enter a filing period to determine the group of players without free agency status who will be involved in the 2009 process. A January 19 deadline is critical because both sides are required on that day to exchange their final figures. Between January 19 and the beginning of the hearing stage on February 1, both sides can negotiate with the basic framing of the conversation surrounding the exchanged figures exchanged and, in particular, the midpoint between the two figures.

The presentation/paper will begin with a basic explanation of the system as established in Article VI of the 2007-2011 collective bargaining agreement. The bulk of the presentation will center around two groups: those that exchanged figures and those that proceeded to the hearing stage. After reviewing some historical recent data concerning the non-hearing players concerning how many agreements were reached at, above, or below the exchanged figures, I will present an analysis of the 2009 group. That will be followed by a discussion of the 2009 hearing cases.

 

10:00-10:20 a.m.         Coffee

THE GUS GREENLEE SESSION

Chair:  Kevin Quinn

 10:20-10:45 a.m.         Eric Stoneberg, “The Denver Post Tournament: The Beginning of                                                                 Integration”

 10:45-11:10 a.m.         Geri Strecker, “Fanettes and Big Bats: Cartoon Depictions of                                                                       Oscar Charleston”

Being one of the greatest in any field can promote admiration from supporters and provoke barbs from detractors.  Sometimes the two co-exist.  This is often the case in early baseball cartoons, which simultaneously celebrate strengths and satirize weaknesses or character flaws.  Oscar Charleston is a perfect example of this.  His athleticism was already proven by the time he made his U.S. debut in black baseball in April 1915.  During his three previous years in the army, he had developed a great reputation as a stellar pitcher, a peerless outfielder, and a fierce baserunner.  And his strong masculine build had attracted throngs of female fans.  In the Philippines, Oscar’s accolades were celebrated only in words.  However, once he began playing for the Indianapolis ABCs, photographic and cartoon images began honoring him in newspapers like the Indianapolis Freeman and the Chicago Defender.  Some images focus more on his talents—with large bats, bulging biceps, and fierce glares.  But others evoke his charismatic appeal—with well-dressed fanettes yearning for his attention.  Cartoonists depicted Charleston throughout his career, and the images trace his evolution from a hot-headed rookie to a wise old manager.  One late cartoon from an East-West All-Star game even shows him as a venerable swami, taking on his former pupil Double-Duty Radcliffe, depicted as a black-hatted cowboy.  Charleston cartoons were not limited to U.S. papers.  In fact, while spending many winters in Cuba, he developed a friendship with the cartoonist from a Havana newspaper.  This artist’s depictions again emphasize Charleston’s bat—the biggest and strongest in the Cuban Winter League—but also engage stereotyped features: thick lips, bulging eyes.  This presentation will share some of these cartoons and begin analyzing the rich athletic and social meanings they suggest.

11:10-11:35 a.m.         Stephanie Liscio, “New Season, New Team: The Revolving Door                                     of Negro League Teams in Cleveland, 1922-1940”

In 1922 the city of Cleveland received its first entry in professional Negro League baseball, the Tate Stars. Owned by George Tate and managed by Candy Jim Taylor, the city had high hopes for the team; unfortunately these hopes were dashed by the end of the first season. After the NNL learned of the Tate Stars’ dire financial situation, they threatened to expel them from the league. When creditors and shareholders realized they may never see their money again, they descended upon the team’s offices like vultures. The hope and promise of a new team that Cleveland fans felt just a few months earlier completely disappeared.

The dream of professional Negro League baseball in Cleveland did not die with the collapse of the Tate Stars. In fact, between 1922 and 1940 the city of Cleveland had 10 different black professional teams. Most of them only lasted for a year; a couple of the lucky ones survived for two. Only one team, the 1931 Cleveland Cubs, finished with a winning record while the 1939 and 1940 Cleveland Bears finished at .500. By 1942 the Cleveland Buckeyes formed and had the most success of any black professional team in the city. They had a number of winning seasons, including a World Series championship, before they disbanded in 1950.  

During my presentation I plan to provide a brief history of professional Negro League baseball in Cleveland between 1922 and 1940. Teams did come and go in the Negro Leagues, but 10 teams in 18 years represents phenomenal turnover for a single city. Why did these teams fail? Why did people continually form new teams in Cleveland, even after they watched their predecessors stumble? In some cases there may not be definitive answers, but I hope to shed more light on the constant cycle of team failure in Cleveland.
 

11:35-12:00 p.m.         Roberta Newman and Joel Nathan Rosen, “In the Black: Negro                                                                  League Baseball and the Numbers Game”

Received Negro League history, unable to avoid the issue, has duly noted that the segregated sport was connected, in more ways than one, to the numbers rackets, routinely citing Pittsburgh’s Gus Greenlee as a major force in both fields.   Alex Pompez, who was indicted on racketeering charges in 1937, and Effa Manley, who was quite open about her husband Abe’s involvement in illegal lotteries, are also, often reluctantly or dismissively, mentioned in this respect, never without the disclaimer that numbers bankers and policy kings were, after all, community leaders.  In fact,  black baseball’s connection with the racket runs deep and wide.  Two of the most consistently successful black business enterprises, segregated black baseball and the numbers industry, developed side by side, the latter often serving to finance the former.

From its very outset, Negro League ball turned to numbers bankers for capital.   Even Rube Foster, a professed moralist whose vocal objections to the visible participation of racketeers in his original Negro National League, was financed by Chicago’s policy kings early in his career.  And, throughout its history, like so many other business institutions in black urban communities, professional baseball continued to look toward the numbers for monetary support.  Moreover, at the same time black baseball experienced its inevitable decline after the color line was breached, the numbers rackets ceased to function as a viable black-owned business after World War II.  Like the sport, the numbers syndicates fell the victim of predatory practices by white owners, in this case, the mob. 

This presentation will examine intimate relationship between black baseball and the numbers, paying close attention to the importance of the rackets as a financial force in black urban communities prior to 1947.  Special attention will be paid to conditions leading to the loss of both industries as viable, black owned business institutions, the result of the transition toward a less segregated mainstream economy.

1:00 p.m.                     Ballgame

THE HAL CHASE SESSION

Chair: Ed Edmonds

7:00-7:25 p.m.             Suzanne Wise, “For a Fistful of Dollars: Bribery and Banishment                                     in the Carolina League”

On May 14, 1948 the Reidsville Luckies of the Carolina League began a two game road series against the Winston-Salem Cardinals. Winston-Salem led the league and Reidsville topped the second division. The Luckies trailed 2-0 in the eighth when manager-pitcher Barney DeForge relieved the Reidsville pitcher and took the mound himself. He proceeded to walk four of the next seven batters, allowing three runs to score. Winston-Salem won the game, 5-0.

Later that night a report of betting in the stands led to an investigation that ultimately destroyed a career and embroiled three leagues in franchise rights.

I plan to report on my research so far. It is an intricate tale whose many threads I am still unraveling.

7:25-7:50 p.m.             Gerald Wood, “More Than a Banker: Joe Wood’s Role in the Leonard/

                                    Speaker/Cobb Controversy”

Previous writers of have been preoccupied with (1) how this controversy reflected the political struggles between Judge Landis and American League President Ban Johnson or (2) whether Tris Speaker and Ty Cobb were guilty. I want to add to this discussion the suggestion that equally determinative was the relationship was between Joe Wood and Landis.

There are a number of incontrovertible facts. Wood and Leonard both profitably bet on the game. Wood told both Ritter and Murdock than he served as a banker, but he also declared there were other issues, too dark to be told. Wood used the phrase “and I believed him” to Leonard in describing conversations with Ty Cobb. Landis didn’t put any of the players under oath. When Wood said Speaker wasn’t the other client, that the unidentified other he was “a friend a mine from Cleveland,” Landis didn’t pursue the issue.

This evidence suggests that Joe Wood and Landis collaborated in the creation of a scenario that would stop the bleeding caused by the many baseball controversies since 1920. Cobb bet on the game, and Leonard was motivated by his failure to profit from that bet. Speaker placed the other bet, a fact sidestepped by the Judge when he allowed Wood to give an answer necessary for keeping the investigation within safe boundaries.

Though there remains no way of knowing whether the game itself was fixed, the pattern suggests that Wood “took the fall” for his friends Tris Speaker and Ty Cobb. That is why Landis offered to help Joe with any fall-out at Yale. Having a clear sense of the historical moment, the Judge wanted to (1) establish time limits on players’ previous liability and (2) make appropriate punishments for future betting on baseball. He was able to carry out these revisions in 1927 because Smoky Joe Wood was the agent for such reforms.

7:50-8:15 p.m.             Jeffrey Standen, “Pete Rose and Baseball’s Rule 21”

This paper examines two aspects of baseball great Pete Rose’s claim for inclusion in baseball’s Hall of Fame: first, the moral equivalency that Rose has asserted between his gambling and the misdeeds of other players who have been included in the Hall; and second, the claim that Rose’s repeated lies about his gambling form an additional reason to deny Hall admission.  On the first issue, the paper employs behavioral analysis to illustrate or suggest the effect of Rose’s bets on team incentives to win contests.  On the second issue, the paper employs game theory in analogizing Rose’s now-admitted prevarications to that of other wrongdoers accused of crime.  The paper concludes that the reasons given for Rose’s denial from admission to the Hall of Fame are not very convincing simply because his behavior, although admittedly a willful violation of a known rule, was from a consequentialist perspective not very serious.  What is left is a moral case against Rose, and here Rose’s arguments about the known misconduct of other enshrined players can be considered on their own merits.

All investments involve risk, to varying degrees. Rose's bet on the Reds to win is not much different from a team owner's purchase of the club: the owner's profits and the franchise value will both increase commensurate with the team's success on the field.  Rose was taking on "single‑game‑equity" positions.  With the advent of legalized ticket resellers and websites that create futures markets in game tickets, investors can also take short-term positions in the success of sports teams.  A manager or player who bets on his team to win bets consistently with his team's interests, and so his bet is harmless to the team's goals, or perhaps even enhances the manager's interest in striving to win.  Many other behavioral aspects of the bet will be considered.

 8:15-8:40 p.m.             Glenn Knowles, Kevin Quinn, and Keith Sherony, “Are Steroids-                                     Era Players’ Performances Really That Grand?”

When Barry Bonds surpassed Hank Aaron’s all-time home run record on August 7, 2007, many MLB officials, participants and fans shared a collective sigh of relief. The shadow suspected steroid use cast over the game would no longer be each day’s front page news. But while the heaviest cloud lifted, clear skies were not ahead. The questions of who did what and when, who knew about it, and how it affected the game linger on. The Mitchell Report released December 13, 2007, named eighty-nine MLB players who are alleged to have used steroids or drugs. The report, however, did not evaluate the effects steroids had on players’ performance or the game.

 

Evaluating the effects steroids have on performance, especially hitting home runs, is tricky business because much of the information we have to work with is muddled. Some prodigious home run hitters have been caught or admitted using banned drugs; others are shrouded in evidence that is only circumstantial. Explanations given for the remarkable number of home runs hit in the late 1990s include, in addition to steroid use, improvement in the overall conditioning of athletes, and dilution of playing talent resulting from league expansion.

THE DAMON RUNYON SESSION

Chair: Steve Gietschier

9:00-9:30 p.m.               Jennie Paul, "The Yankee Princess"
 

When Babe Ruth's 92-year old daughter threw out the first pitch in the final game played at Yankee Stadium on September 21, 2008, there was instant recognition and respect for her and the father who gave her a reason to be there. She and the crowd were able to enjoy Babe's past glory and legacy just before the walls came tumbling down at Yankee Stadium. It was a defining time that had as much to do with history as the present and the future. How many fathers and daughters have such defining moments where recognition, respect, appreciation, and tears occupy the same moment and at the same time represent so many other moments before them? It turns out, quite a few. I discovered this when I started to tell audiences of men about the love-hate story I shared with my dad, Gabe Paul, the man who brought the glory back to the New York Yankees in the late 1970s.

The Yankee Princess is a father-daughter, love-hate story that takes place between me, Jennie Paul, and my Dad, Gabe Paul--a behind-the-scenes baseball legend in his own right. Like the very popular book and ESPN mini-series, The Bronx is Burning, which implies that the Yankees comeback story was hope restoring to those living in fear outside the ballpark, the concept behind The Yankee Princess juxtaposes a unique time in sports for the New York Yankees against our back story. It is emotionally riveting, engaging and highly contemporary with the issues fathers and daughter still struggle with and celebrate today. It talks about that unique time for the New York Yankees and fathers and daughters everywhere within the context of my own story. My dad is credited with restoring the Yankees to their powerful position in the major leagues, previously earned by baseball greats like the Babe and Joe DiMaggio and later followed by a long losing streak. My dad made winners out the Yankees by bringing George Steinbrenner into the ownership group, Billy Martin to the management team, and free agents Catfish Hunter and Reggie Jackson to the field, along with many other baseball greats. Gabe Paul's decisions for the New York Yankees in the 1970s culminated in a pennant win in 1976 and back-to-back World Series wins in 1977 and 1978. In less than three years, the New York Yankees went from doormats to champions under dad's guidance and control. The effect these decisions had on our father-daughter relationship is quite a different story, and I tell it here from three distinct points of view: the sportswriter I was becoming; the Yankee Princess I had already become, thanks to Dad; and the woman I am today, 30 years later. Audiences are drawn into this sports tale via true, never-before-told stories surrounding the Yankees as told from the voice of objectivity, the voice of the not so innocent, and the voice of experience.

9:30-10:00 p.m.             Charlie Vascellaro, "On the Cactus League Trail"

My presentation is based on a series of stories concerning my annual travels through the Cactus League and how I have been able to parlay my enthusiasm for the spring training season into working as professional fan.  The foundation of my program is a magazine story and slide show presentation on the Lost Ballparks of the Cactus League.   During my research for the story, I began collecting ballpark artifacts which have in turn found their way into museum exhibits and other peoples academic presentations.

SATURDAY, MARCH 14

THE TED WILLIAMS SESSION

Chair: Eric Salo

8:20-8:45 a.m.             Ron Briley, “Challenging Cold War America in the Mexican                                                                        League: Mark Winegardner’s The Veracruz Blues and the Story of                                     Danny Gardella”

When former New York Giants outfielder Danny Gardella died at age eighty-five on 6 March 2005, the baseball world paid little attention to his passing.  But in the late 1940s, Gardella posed a clear and present danger to the baseball establishment when he challenged the game’s reserve clause.  In 1946, Gardella failed to sign a contract with the Giants and bolted to the Mexican League.  Gardella and other major leaguers enticed south of the border by Mexican entrepreneur Jorge Pasquel were blacklisted for five years by Baseball Commissioner A. B. “Happy” Chandler and unable to resume their baseball careers in the United States when the Mexican League folded.  Denied an opportunity to make a living playing Major League Baseball, Gardella sued the sport, arguing that baseball’s reserve clause was in restraint of trade and violated antitrust law.

The vitriolic reply of the baseball establishment was to label Gardella a radical thereat to the American way of life embodied in the traditions of the national pastime.  Brooklyn Dodgers executive Branch Rickey, who deserves credit for defying baseball’s color line by signing Jackie Robinson, was also a staunch anticommunist Republican who interpreted any challenges to management prerogatives as examples of Bolshevism.  Speaking in Baltimore on 13 April 1949, Rickey proclaimed that individuals questioning baseball’s sacred reserve clause were persons “of avowed communist tendencies who deeply resent the continuance of our national pastime.”  Commissioner Chandler also employed rhetorical excess in describing the dire consequences for the American way of life posed by the Gardella law suit.  Insisting that he tried to reason with Gardella and others who deserted the United States for Mexico during a time of national crisis, Chandler argued, “I tried to get them to live up to their obligations and responsibilities.  This was a fight against baseball in the United States.  These players joined a group who said they were going to kill baseball in the United States.”

Baseball and the republic were saved in 1949 when Gardella agreed to a settlement with Organized Baseball, but the reserve clause would be unable to withstand the forces of labor discontent unleashed by Gardella’s legal challenge and call for economic justice.   The Major League Players’ Association backed Curt Flood’s unsuccessful Supreme Court case against the reserve clause in 1970, and five years later, arbiter Peter Seitz ruled in favor of players Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally and against baseball ownership by deciding that management could not maintain a player’s services indefinitely.

Gardella was proud of the role he played in baseball’s labor wars.  Blazing a path later followed by Curt Flood, Gardella asserted, “I feel I let the whole world know that the reserve clause was unfair.  It had the odor of peonage, even slavery.”  In an obituary for Gardella, sportswriter Maury Allen observed that the former player should be remembered as a family man with a sense of humor which prevented him from taking the game too seriously.  But Allen concluded that Gardella’s role in challenging the reserve clause and baseball ownership should never be forgotten as “. . . he is the guy responsible for the $26 million a year salary of Alex Rodriguez and the millions all the others now get just for playing that little kid’s game of baseball.”

Mark Winegardner’s 1996 novel The Veracruz Blues features Danny Gardella as a major character and tells the story of the American presence in the 1946 Mexican League campaign through the eyes and ears of the fictional Frank Bullinger, Jr., who fancied himself as “the youngest and most lost member of the Lost Generation.”  While containing elements of the satirical approach to the Cold War and McCarthyism exhibited by Philip Roth in The Great American Novel (1973), Winegardner’s novel celebrates the role played by the Pasquel brothers and Mexican League in the integration of baseball.  The novel fits within the literary and cinematic tradition of Americans seeking to work out their conflicting ideas south of the border—a legacy of imperialism explored in such films as The Magnificent Seven (1969) and The Wild Bunch (1968).  This reading of The Veracruz Blues will seek to place the novel within such a cultural milieu while also examining Winegardner’s insights into the politics of 1950s America through Danny Gardella—a working-class stiff who challenged the orthodoxy of the baseball establishment and triggered the reactionary cultural tendency to portray any questioning of the post World War II consensus as evidence of communist sympathies.  Danny Gardella, thus, may be perceived as representative of the endeavors of conservative elements in American politics and culture to discredit the cause of reform in post World War II America.  Gardella represented ideas of labor and racial progress which continue to struggle for their place within the American mainstream which provides bailouts for failing banks but blames unions for the shortcomings of automakers.  Winegardner’s Veracruz Blues restores Danny Gardella to his proper and deserved place within this progressive legacy.

8:45-9:10 a.m.             Alexander R. Wieland, “Cold War Innings: The Cuban Revolution                                     and the Demise of the Havana Sugar Kings”

Disclaimer:  The views expressed herein are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of State or of the U.S. government.  This work is based upon fully declassified documentation.

From 1954 to 1960, the Havana Sugar Kings competed as the Cincinnati Reds' entry in the AAA International League.  In its short existence, the club produced a number of future major leaguers, among them Cookie Rojas, Leo Cardenas, and Mike Cuellar, and captured not only the IL's Governor's Cup, but also the Junior World Series title in 1959.  On July 7, 1960, however, International League president Frank Shaughnessy announced that the Sugar Kings would immediately transfer operations to Jersey City, New Jersey for the remainder of the season. Hastily renamed the Jersey City Jerseys, the team played out the 1960 campaign and folded a year later.  

In most histories of Cuban and Latin American baseball, the abrupt end of the Sugar Kings is explained mainly as the watershed moment where professionalism was supplanted by amateurism in the Cuban game.  Where it is discussed in greater detail, the move is often generally attributed to the rise in tensions between the United States and Fidel Castro, following the latter's overthrow of the regime of Fulgencio Batista in January 1959.  Surprisingly, though, the politics, both business and international, surrounding the Sugar Kings' abrupt transfer have not heretofore been explored in depth.  Why did baseball officials feel that transfer was the only viable option for the club, despite the fact that the Sugar Kings seemingly escaped the Cuban government's broad nationalization of U.S. businesses in the summer of 1960?  Was player safety the overriding imperative for the move as Shaughnessy publicly proclaimed?  Was there anything significant about the timing of the league’s decision?  From almost the moment of Castro's assumption of power, the presence of the Sugar Kings had become a political interest.  As observed by some baseball historians, including Peter C. Bjarkman, Castro took a personal interest in the fortunes of the Sugar Kings. The new Cuban leader considered the team a point of pride and pledged his commitment to ensuring its continued presence in Havana.  What has not been examined is how this interest was received in the U.S., particularly as political relations between Washington and Havana continued to deteriorate in the winter of 1959-60.  

Using recently declassified documentation at the National Archives, especially the records of the U.S. State Department, this paper will seek place the transfer of the Sugar Kings more clearly within the international political context of the period. At the same time, it will also attempt to use the case of the Sugar Kings' transfer to look more broadly at the place of sports, and baseball in particular, as a symbol of U.S. identity during the Cold War.

9:10-9:35 a.m.             Justin W. R. Turner, “1970s Baseball Diplomacy Between Cuba                                     and the United States”

In 1999, the Baltimore Orioles became the first American professional baseball team to play a game in Cuba.  Thanks to a minor policy change from the Clinton administration designed to foster more contact between Cubans and Americans, the Orioles took part in a two-game series against Cuba’s national baseball team in an exchange dubbed “baseball diplomacy.”  In reality, however, efforts to use baseball to improve the relationship between Cuba and the United States began in the 1970s, having been inspired by the so-called “Ping Pong Diplomacy” with China.  No such exchange occurred until 1999. 

 

This paper examines how and why baseball diplomacy failed during the 1970s.  Newspaper articles and accounts from secondary literature provide the narrative for these episodes.  State Department documents released through the National Security Archives reveal the internal opinions and discussions surrounding baseball diplomacy.  Ultimately, baseball diplomacy failed to materialize during the 1970s because it could not overcome the political pressures of the Cold War.  The State Department never lent more than tentative support to attempts by Major League Baseball officials to send a team of All-Stars on a goodwill exhibition tour of Cuba.  Furthermore, the Ford administration insisted on using the baseball exchange as a diplomatic carrot to entice concessions from Havana.  When no such concessions were offered, and when Cuba began participating in a civil war in Angola, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger called off baseball diplomacy.  Though the idea was again considered during the Carter Administration, baseball diplomacy during the 1970s failed to produce any baseball games between Cuba and the United States, nor did it generate any measurable thaw in diplomatic relations.

9:35-10:00 a.m.           Steve Treder, “Ronald Reagan, Peter Ueberroth, and the 1980s”

In so many ways, the 1980s in the United States were distinctly not like the 1970s.  The ‘70s had been the era of gas lines, stagflation, and Jimmy Carter’s “malaise” speech; the ‘80s, under the breezily optimistic presidential leadership of Ronald Reagan, were a time of economic growth, rising stock prices, and the most buoyant national spirit since the early 1960s.

The fortunes of Major League Baseball reflected this dynamic.  The ‘70s had been an uneasy period, featuring the first-ever players’ strike, generally stagnant attendance, and great anxiety (at least among management) regarding the impact of free agency; indeed it seemed that the tenure of Commissioner Bowie Kuhn consisted of awkward lurches from one crisis to the next.  Contrast this with the sport’s mood under Kuhn’s successor Peter Ueberroth:  robust fiscal health and a slick, well-manicured image of confident success.

For both the nation at large and baseball in particular, of course, the truth underneath the gleaming sheen was more complicated, and more troubling.  Reagan’s presidency was also host to the Iran-Contra scandal, and amid the generally strong economy was an alarming rise in national debt, increasing income inequality and unprecedented rates of violent crime.  Under Ueberroth’s tenure, MLB endured an ugly cocaine scandal, and Ueberroth and the owners were found to be guilty of conspiracy to commit collusion against the players.

Reagan and Ueberroth were each good-looking, charismatic Californians, extraordinarily skilled communicators in whom an easygoing charm masked a relentlessly ambitious ego.  While their accomplishments were genuine and considerable, both careers also included more than the usual degree of discrepancy between carefully cultivated public persona and dark-edged behind-the-scenes activity.

10:00-10:20 a.m.         Coffee

THE KING KELLY SESSION

Chair:  Jean Hastings Ardell

10:20-10:45 a.m.         Tom Altherr, “Basepaths, Mile Markers, and Dialects: The                                                                           Agricultural, Surveying, and   Linguistics Aspects of the Origin and                                     Development of Baseball and Baseball-Type Games before 1840”

In previous work, I have made some preliminary remarks about what I think many baseball historians have overlooked: the connections of the game to agriculture, not just pastoralism, but actual farming, to surveying and land-bounding, and to linguistic and dialectic terminology pertaining to baseball and baseball-type games.  I would like to expand on those preliminary observations based upon further research and offer a more comprehensive paper on the topic.  The paper is largely theoretical, but also draws on primary-source materials I have located in recent years as part of my continuing study of pre-1840 North American ball games.  I also refer to recent research by scholars such as David Block, John Thorn, and Larry McCray in sports history, as well as several agricultural/landscape historians, most notably John Stilgoe.  For surveying history, I will be consulting several classic texts, as well as interviewing two longtime local historians who are versed in their profession's history.  And for issues of terminology, I have studied several much older dictionaries (mostly at the American Antiquarian Society) as well as regional glossaries of archaic and local dialects.

10:45-11:10 a.m.         John Thorn, “Abner Cartwright”

Abner Cartwright, Alexander Doubleday . . . these composite names stand
for an exceedingly odd couple whose identities have been stolen,
accomplishments merged, and stories intertwined for more than a century
now. What both men share is that their hard-won fame in real life was
hijacked after their deaths by unprincipled advocates with ulterior
motives, and as a result each was credited with something he did not
do—that is, invent baseball. This essay addresses the often funny
conflation of their purported ingenuities that I epitomize as "Abner
Cartwright." Examined herein is not only the mixup in the last days of
the Mills Commission--the mysterious Mr. Wadsworth, Alex Cartwright, and
General Doubleday--but also the key players in the comedy of errors,
Duncan F. Curry and Will Rankin, with Bruce Cartwright lurking behind
the arras.

11:10-11:35 a.m.         Monica Nucciarone, “An Examination of the Claim Regarding                                                                    Alexander Cartwright Spreading Base Ball across American during                                     the California Gold Rush”

Harold Peterson, in his book The Man Who Invented Baseball, centered the evidence for his claims on specific diary entries that illustrated Cartwright’s participation as Baseball’s Johnny Apple Seed during the California Gold Rush.  Once I viewed the existing transcribed copies of the diary, it was easy to realize that the transcriptions were inflated with possibly some remembrances from stories heard long ago by the transcriber.  The transcriber himself, Cartwright’s grandson, admitted to the reader that he included “all available sources” within his transcriptions.  The solution in my mind was to view the alleged original diary for myself in the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, Hawaii.   

When I finally reviewed the diary in person I was more perplexed than before. There were no references to baseball whatsoever. My next thought was to wonder if this was indeed Cartwright’s original gold rush diary.  And, if it was not, then who would author such an item giving Alexander Cartwright credit, and why?  Furthermore, if it was Cartwright’s original gold rush diary, then why did the typed transcriptions include mentions of baseball when the original did not? My first step to solving this puzzle was to hire someone who was an expert at analyzing handwriting.  The Bishop Museum, for understandable reasons, would not let the diary leave the premises of the archives, so I needed to locate a handwriting expert in Honolulu. What was discovered is something that still cannot be fully explained, yet brings us closer to a better understanding of what likely did not occur while traveling westward.

In addition, only three other diaries have been uncovered of the several men who began their gold rush journey with the Newark Overland Company, Cartwright’s original company of travelers: Robert Bond, Cyrus Currier, and Charles Glass Gray. None mention baseball in their diaries.

11:35-12:00 p.m.         James Brunson III, “’ The American Ideal of Manly Beauty':                                  

                                    Isaac Broome’s Base Ball Vase, 1875-76"

This paper represents my ongoing fascination with baseball representations during the postbellum Gilded Age, the period of economic ascendency in the Unites States following the Civil War.  It specifically examines the socio-cultural history of Isaac Broome’s Base Ball Vase, a sculptural object designed specifically for the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition of 1876.  A portrait painter, sculptor, fresco artist, and writer, Broome (pronounced “Vroome”) produced a series of aesthetic objects in Parian ware, sculptural imitations of white marble, both in surface and tint.  Among them were two covered baseball vases:  nationalistic spirit, partly inspired by the formation of the National Base Ball League, they attracted so much attention that one of the vases was moved to the Art Gallery of Memorial Hall a month after the fair opened.  In 1887, one of the baseball parian vases was given to the National League of Professional Baseball Players to serve as a pennant trophy.  Base Ball Vase is, arguably, the first great work of American ceramic to be officially classified as art.

In material terms, Baseball Vase dovetails neatly with the production of baseball trophies (badges, bats, and balls made of wood, gold and silver), objects that embodied what the 19th century social critic Thorstein Veblen called symbols of “conspicuous consumption” and “sumptuary display.” Veblen coined these terms to define the cultural behavior of the country’s new and expanding leisure class.  Historian Regina Lee Blaszczyk demonstrates that this self-conscious pursuit of beautifully-decorated objects represented the cultural delineation of material refinement and difference—indeed, the democratization of difference.  Broome represented the highly-paid labor aristocracy, artisan-craftsmen who used their creativity, skills, embellishing technologies, and understanding of fashion to satisfy the consumer’s physical and psychological needs.

Base Ball Vase merits attention for another reason: rather than just viewing it as a rarefied high-art object, this paper explores how it participated in a cultural discourse of white racial masculinity.  By discourse, I mean an organizing set of beliefs and social practices that build, modify, and naturalize constructs such as gender and race.  I will argue that it is within this framework that Base Ball Vase takes part in the construction of white racial masculinity, by serving as both a material expression of, and a site for, gendering/racializing beliefs and practices. Thus my idea is not new.  American art historian Martin Berger has recently examined the paintings of Thomas Eakins, zeroing in on how the postbellum artist fashioned and marketed white manhood to his middle-class contemporaries. Eakins’s Base Ball Players Practicing (1875), a contemporary of Base Ball Vase, for instance, offers a heroic portrait of the white ballplayers of the Philadelphia Athletics. 

Heroic portraits were foundational to postbellum baseball representations, and the foundation of binary definitions that supported notions of class, gender, and race.  Eakins, who produced a number of canvases devoted to hunting, sailing, rowing, and playing baseball, was intensely interested in the refined beauty of the white male body (Eakins photographed and painted black male bodies as well).  Broome’s work also engages in heroic portraiture—its sense of male control over interior space extended to the aesthetic design and production of decorative objects.  Broome created baseball works for the aesthetic parlor, fashionable white goods styled, as literary critic Bridget T. Heneghan has demonstrated, “racially ‘white’—because white goods were the popular elite products and markers of upper- or middle-class refinement and because respectable, middle-class, or sentimental characters of a literary nature were allowed a fictive white skin.”

Taking my lead from Heneghan’s theoretical framework grounded in material culture, I view Broome’s marblelike objects not as a “monolith of whiteness” but as “a fictive white skin.” His “white things” permit me to focus on the material object as a constituent agent of these ideas, zeroing in on visual moments of social construction.  Skin color is the easiest cue for racial stereotypying and those parian sculptures that confuse the beholder’s understanding of the visible differences between white skin and white marblelike forms. So where does this leave blackness?  Is it a symbol of the non-white parian racial other, black, mulatto, quadroon, or Octoroon?  Or is it an emblem of class struggle, color defining the greatest distance from wealth and privilege? As iconologist W.J.T. Mitchell argues, blackness and whiteness are not colors at all. They designate both sides of the baseball color line, the veil between the races that W.E.B. DuBois announced in 1903 as the problem of the 20^th century.  Base Ball Vase can symbolize a beautiful form fashioned into a prized objet d’ art, personify the national body, or simply, the triumph of baseball as the National Pastime.

1:00 p.m.                     Ballgame

THE BILL KIRWIN SESSION

6:30 p.m.                     Banquet

                                    Keynote Speaker: Peter Morris, "Whatever Happened to Baseball                                     History?"

                                   Introduction: Trey Strecker

SUNDAY, MARCH 15

THE BILLY SUNDAY SUNRISE SESSION

Chair: Geri Strecker

8:20-8:45 a.m.            Dave Laliberte, "Baseball at Native American Boarding Schools

                                  in Minnesota: A History"

Near the close of the nineteenth century, the burgeoning American republic witnessed numerous social reforms bent on perfecting the national community.  For many Native Americans, long proponents of strong cultural ties, this complex era saw the proliferation of Indian Industrial schools, institutions designed to “civilize” native children—often by erasing their tribal heritage—toward full American citizenship.  In Minnesota, several off-reservation boarding schools arose, training both Ojibwe and Dakota students to speak English, accept Christianity, and labor industriously.          

Prominent scholars including David Wallace Adams and Brenda J. Child have written extensively on Industrial institutions, detailing the acculturating tactics of the schools and the varied responses of indigenous children.  Moreover, emerging scholarship—including recent works by John Bloom and Sally Jenkins—has illuminated athletics as a noteworthy component of many boarding school curriculums.  Still, while significantly broadening scholarship on Industrial sports, these and other writings have focused predominately on football at the nation’s largest institutions, neglecting sports at smaller, regional schools and overlooking baseball’s distinct popularity amongst Native boarders.

This paper, then, details Laliberte’s original research into baseball at several boarding schools in late nineteenth century Minnesota, including St. John’s and Morris Industrial Schools.  Laliberte describes the origins, participants, and organization of these unique teams, and comments on their competitions versus local white clubs.  In the process, Laliberte evidences that both Ojibwe and Dakota boys refashioned baseball from an assimilationist tool into an instrument of tribal persistence—in language, values, and traditions—thus transforming the national pastime in imaginative and surprising ways.

8:45-9:10 a.m.            Kristin Anderson and Chris Kimball, “A Thoroughly Modern Sporting 

                                   Amphitheater: Civic Development and the Building of St. Paul's

                                   Lexington Park, 1897"

On May 1, 1897, the St. Paul Saints played their home opener against the Milwaukee Brewers. Led by opposing managers Charles Comiskey and Connie Mack, the teams took to the field at a brand new facility, Lexington Park. With the exception of a few years at the turn of the twentieth century, Lexington Park would be the home of St. Paul’s professional baseball team until 1956. Its long-term success can be attributed in part to the original decisions and planning about location and function. Unlike earlier St. Paul ballparks, it was not built on leased land, and so it was relatively free of the complicated annual lease negotiations and the resulting facilities investment issues. Further, Lexington Park was not a project of the baseball club. Instead, this new facility was undertaken by a businessman, whose professional work in insurance and real estate had made him wealthy and prominent in St. Paul—and in Buffalo before that. He brought both baseball and real estate experience to the Lexington Park project.

Built at the close of the nineteenth century, Lexington Park looked forward to twentieth century patterns and developments, anticipating the increasingly important public presence of baseball parks in the urban landscape.

 

9:10-9:35 a.m.             Timothy J. Jurkovac, “The Hegemony of the Ballpark: Recasting                        

                                    Jacobs Field in a Critical Light"

Hegemony implies the existence of an organized consent of subordinate groups to values that help perpetuate the dominance of the ruling class.  Sport plays a significant role in this regard by, as Sociologist George Sage (1998) suggests, serving as a primary mechanism for winning the hearts and minds of the subordinate class through instilling in them respect for and conformity to a social structure that reinforces the existing power structure in society. 

There is perhaps no more visible manifestation of hegemony in professional sport than the capitulation of the American public to spending tax dollars on subsidizing the construction of stadiums for billionaire owners and their millionaire athletes.

All across the country, states and communities are facing a growing fiscal crisis while providing much needed tax revenue and tax abatements for professional sport facilities.  The argument put for by supporters of these measures is that the billions of dollars being spent on these modern day cathedrals will revitalize the local economy and enhance the aesthetic beauty of the community.  In addition, a day at a modern “retro” ballpark will significantly improve the fan experience by combining the traditional turn of the century charm of a Fenway Park or Wrigley Field with high tech amenities such as luxury suites, club seating, open spaced concession areas, television monitors throughout the park and full service restaurants.

This research takes a critical look at what stadium construction has meant in Cleveland, Ohio by dissecting the impact “Jacobs Field” has had on both businesses around the park and the fan experience itself.  More specifically, the issue of weather support for and continued appreciation of the ballpark has been in the best interests of local merchants and fans will be addressed.

9:35-10:00 a.m.           Arline F. Schubert and George W. Schubert, “Let’s Build a New                                                               Stadium or Sport Facilty: Is It a Judicial Question or a Political                                    Issue?  Perhaps Both!”

One of the most controversial issues in modern professional sports is the mobility of professional sports franchises.  Many people perceive professional sports teams as beneficial for the local economy and essential to an area's civic identity.  The presence of a professional sports franchise from one of the four major sports is often regarded as a prerequisite to becoming a "big league" city or state.  Marlin Schneider, a Wisconsin State Representative joked in 1995, "Without the Milwaukee Brewers, the Milwaukee Bucks, or the Green Bay Packers, Wisconsin ain't nothen' but another Nebraska."

In their book, Public Dollars, Private Stadiums: The Battles Over Building Sports Stadiums, Kevin Delaney and Rick Eckstein question the building of stadiums with public dollars when studies indicate there is only a remote economic impact to the communities.  Nevertheless, professional teams have been credited with providing jobs and injecting millions of dollars into the economy of an area.  Owners soon realized that the economic image they had projected into an area had a value to them as well. 

With so much money and status on the line, professional spots teams have become highly sought after.  Their movements from city to city have led to public outrage, lawsuits, and legislative proposals. The owners of professional sports teams have been able to obtain generous deals from city and state officials by threatening to move their franchises. If the owners do not receive the support they seek, they move their team to  more accommodating city or state.  Typical benefits for the owners include the use of publicly owned sport facilities at below-market rents and taxpayer funding  for the construction and maintenance of new facilities.  Often, as suggested by Kevin Delaney and Rick Eckstein, the benefits demanded by owners end up as financial losses to the communities.

Stadiums and sport facilities are being erected at an astonishing pace.  In the 1960's, $5000 million was devoted to new sports facilities.  In the 1970's, the figure was $1.5 billion; in the 1980's the figure was the same as the 1970's.  I the 1990's, a total of $8 billion was devoted to constructing stadiums and sport facilities; most of this amount was spent between 1996 and 1999.

In recent years teams in all sports have increasingly demanded their own facility for financial, aesthetic, and scheduling reasons.  Movement away from multi-purpose facilities is a major reason for the building boom.  The professional teams are reluctant to share facilities and owners demand and receive new publicly-financed buildings and the tax-payers end up paying the bill for the new stadiums.  

10:00-10:20 a.m.         Coffee

THE MARIANO RIVERA CLOSING SESSION

Chair: Ron Briley

10:20-10:45 a.m.         Scott Peterson, “Fighting the Devil with His Own Weapons: The                                                                Brotherhood War Rhetoric of Henry Chadwick, Tim Murnane, and                                     Ella Black”

The 1890 baseball season brought out war rhetoric that had been put to rest 25 years earlier with the surrender at Appomattox as journalists from all parts of the country lined up to support the righteous National League or the rebellious Brotherhood. After holding a series of secret meetings, the dissatisfied players formed a league of their own and went head-to-head with the “magnates” in seven of the eight National League cities. As was the case with early assessments of the Civil War, supporters of the National League expected the Brotherhood to fold within a few months of opening day, but the rebels surprised their detractors by lasting out the whole season. As a backdrop to this new internecine conflict, America was undergoing a number of significant cultural changes: young men and women were migrating from small towns and rural areas to large cities,  privately owned business were becoming more and more corporately owned, and shifts in religion left people searching for authentic experiences. As a product of American culture, the game of baseball reflected these changes, which can be observed in the journalism of that period.

 

My paper will examine the 1890 Sporting Life columns of three baseball journalists: Henry Chadwick, known even then as the father of baseball writing, Tim Murnane, a former professional ball player turned writer, and Ella Black, a baseball enthusiast from Pittsburgh who became a regular correspondent to the Sporting Life during that season.  In general, Chadwick supported the National League cause, while Murnane and Black backed the Brotherhood. The purpose of my paper will be to see how their different backgrounds and perspectives are reflected in their “war rhetoric” and their reactions to the changes in the game of baseball, which in turn are reflections of the larger changes in American society.

10:45-11:10 a.m.         James W. Walker, “The Baseball-Radio War: 1931-1935"

The emergence of radio in the 1920s as a significant new medium of mass communication was greeted by most Major League owners with suspicion and apprehension.  The owners feared the new medium would reduce attendance and compromise their symbiotic relationship with the newspaper industry.  East coast and American League teams were especially anti-radio, while some clubs in the mid-west, especially the Chicago Cubs, were pro-radio.  Initially, teams received limited, if any, rights fees to allow the broadcasting of their games.  Thus, there was little economic incentive to let radio in the ballpark door.  However, a few forward thinking owners saw radio as a positive promotional devise that could sell baseball to new customers, including women working in the home.  It might also charm children, spawning the next generation of fans.  Since the games were played during the day, women and children were the major groups in the radio audience.  As the 1930s dawned, the Great Depression forced owners to consider new options for replacing revenues lost from declining attendance.  At the same time, some sponsors, General Mills in particular, were aggressively promoting the sponsorship of baseball on the radio to sell breakfast cereal (Wheaties) to children.  The growing war between baseball and radio came to a head at a series of league meetings in the early 1930s.  In this paper, I will examine what took place at these pivotal confrontations between lords of America’s national pastime and the medium that millions used every day to pass the time.  The resolution of this conflict would change the relationship between baseball and radio, establishing a blueprint that would carry over to television.

11:10-11:35 a.m.         Jean Hastings Ardell, “The Other Finley and the Kansas City/                                                                     Oakland A’s”

Charles O. Finley is a name well known to baseball fans and historians. As the irascible owner of the Kansas City Athletics/Oakland A’s from 1960 to 1980, Charlie O. was a master of sales and promotion, an iconoclast who never fit in with the baseball establishment, and an often contentious adversary of local politicians and sports media in both towns. Yet Finley never lived full-time in either Kansas City or Oakland -- he was busy running his large insurance company in Chicago and raising his seven children with his wife Shirley on their farm in LaPorte, Indiana. How then was he able to take a franchise that never had a winning season in Kansas City, move it to Oakland prior to the 1968 season, and field a team that would dominate baseball through the first half of the 1970s?

Part of the answer to this question can be found in the untold story of another Finley – Charlie’s first cousin, Carl Augustus Finley, Jr., who arrived in Kansas City in 1963 to help run the club. It is a saga of two men with very opposite temperaments, interests, and talents, and a story that demonstrates what life in major-league baseball can do to a man and his family and his dreams. Carl’s story, however, is virtually unknown. He is barely mentioned in histories of the franchise, and the National Baseball Library has no file on him. Yet without Carl, it is doubtful that the franchise would have come to flourish as it did. This paper is based upon extensive interviews with Carl’s daughter Nancy, who grew up, literally, in the Oakland A’s front office of the 1970s, and others who worked with or knew him.

 

11:35-12:00 p.m.         Robert Bellamy and Joseph Sora, “Publicity, Copyright, and                                                                        Fantasy: The MLBPA and MLBAM Foul Out”

On June 2 of last year, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to reconsider the case of Major League Baseball Advanced Media (MLBAM) v. C.B.C. Distribution and Marketing (CDM).  This affirmed the lower court decision that CDM could continue to market fantasy games using MLB statistics free of any license from MLBAM and without paying any copyright fees.

MLBAM (pronounced “M.L.-BAM”) has been the greatest economic success of MLB in the last decade, providing the teams equal shares of rapidly growing Internet, multimedia, and other “advanced media” revenue streams.  The success of MLBAM has reduced the economic disparity between the “haves” and the “have nots.”   When this “spreading of the wealth” is combined with MLBAM/MLBPA partnerships, there is little doubt that baseball owners and players are in a stronger economic arrangement than ever before, a situation that greatly reduces the prospect of future work stoppages. 

Our paper is a consideration of the facts and implications of MLBAM v. CDM.   Such an examination provides a way of analyzing the changing economic structure of MLB and its relationship with its ownership (the thirty teams) and various business partners.  Chief among these partners are the players themselves via partnership deals with the MLBPA, deals that have now been devalued by the decision of the courts.

POSTER PRESENTATIONS

Kevin Quinn and Paul Bursik, “Putting Off the Day: The Tenure of MLB Managers, 1903-2007”

Since the beginning of MLB’s modern age in 1903, there have been a total of 460 individuals who have had the pleasure of being a big league manager.  However, as long-time manager Leo the Lip Durocher noted, the job is not for those seeking employment security.  More than one out of every seven AL and NL teams between 1903 and 2007 made a mid-season managerial change.  Fully a quarter of managers saw their careers fail to last longer than 150 games.          

Perhaps even more interesting is the fact that other MLB managers had relatively long careers despite a distinct lack of competitive success.  Of the 176 men who managed in at least five different seasons, nearly half (47%) had career losing records.  Worse yet, 14% of them went less than .450 - four of them were below. 400 in their careers.  A greater mystery is how the one-third of the 77 ten-season managers avoided the axe despite being sub-.500 lifetime – and how nearly 10% of this group survived so long despite posting .475 records or worse.

The purpose of this presentation is to investigate manager tenure in MLB.  How long was the average manager’s career in different eras?  Why did some unsuccessful managers seem to be able to keep their jobs?  What does it take for a team to finally fire its manager?  Have some franchises been traditionally more tolerant of losing managers than others?  Do economic conditions make teams more or less patient with their skippers?  These and other questions are considered by examining the stories and records of Manny Acta to Don Zimmer, with all the Casey Stengels, Connie Macks, Fred Haneys and Zack Taylors in between.

Ron Selter, “The Impact of Urban Geography on Major League Ballparks, 1901-1930”

This presentation will focus on the restrictions imposed by the urban environment on major league ballparks.  Geographically constrained ballparks will be identified and their configurations and dimensions analyzed.  Data and analysis will be presented for pre-Classic (wooden) ballparks and Classic ballparks (steel-and-concrete). 

 

(1)  Major league baseball teams in the first three decades of the 20^th Century were private enterprises with no access to the right of eminent domain.  As a result, ballparks had to be built on privately acquired available parcels and could not exceed in size one complete city block.

 

(2)  The street grid patterns in the large cities of the East and Midwest (where major league teams were located) resulted in usually rectangular or in few relevant cases trapezoidal shaped city blocks.  In addition several of the city blocks selected as a site for a new ballpark were composed of numerous separate land parcels including pre-existing buildings and businesses.  In some cases, ballparks had to be configured to fit around existing parcels whose owners refused to sell.

 

(3)  The rectangular shape of most ballpark sites led to generally asymmetrical ballparks, mostly with deep left fields and shallow right fields. 

 

(4)  In some cases the alignment of the playing fields attempted to compensate for the restricted dimensions (usually in right field) by making the foul line meet the perimeter fence at more than 90 degrees.

 

(5)  With the growing popularity of baseball in the 1910s and 1920s, several ballparks were expanded.  Because of the restricted size of the ballpark sites, expansions were accomplished by either double-decking the grandstand, and/or adding new bleachers in the outfield.  The importance of baseball in their respective cities led in two cases to obtaining the assistance of local governments to facilitate the expansion of the ballpark. 

 

(6)  The Lively Ball Era in the 1920s had another impact on the geographically constrained ballparks.  Because of the increase in home runs to (for the time period) unheard of levels, by the end of the 1930 season half of the ballparks in the NL had right-field screens.

 

Conclusion--the majority of major league ballparks in this time period were constrained by urban geography.  The distinctive character of Classic ballparks was largely determined by accidents of urban street patterns.

 

Link to conference registration here.