The Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture, 2019 and 2021

Selected from the two most recent proceedings of the Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture (2019 and 2021), this collection of essays explores subject matter centered both inside and beyond the ballpark. Fifteen contributors offer critical commentary on a range of topics, including controversial decisions on the field and in Hall of Fame elections; baseball’s historical role as a rite of passage for boys; two worthy catchers who never received their due; the genesis and development of the minor leagues; and baseball’s place in popular culture.

William M. Simons is a professor of history at the State University of New York–Oneonta.

Edited by William M. Simons
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 296
Bibliographic Info: tables, notes, index
Copyright Date: 2022
pISBN: 978-1-4766-7838-2
eISBN: 978-1-4766-4714-2
Imprint: McFarland
Series: Cooperstown Symposium Series

Acknowledgments vii
Introduction
William M. Simons 1
Part I. Missed Calls—Umpires and Electors
“Nobody’s Perfect”: Armando Galarraga’s (Im)Perfect Game
and Instant Replay
Todd F. McDorman and Donovan Bisbee 16
Rigged Elections: The Baseball Hall of Fame’s Blacklisting
of Marvin Miller
Peter Dreier 36
Part II. Coming of Age
Josephine Morhard: The First Lady of Boys’ Baseball
Ruth Hanford Morhard 66
The First Game as a Rite of Passage: Implications for
American Culture
Mark L. Pelesh 80
Part III. Baseball in the Hinterlands
Becoming New Englanders: Immigrants, Sports, and
Connecticut Yankees in Mid–Twentieth Century America
R.A.R. Edwards 92
Bringing Canadian Baseball Out of Hockey’s Shadow
Robert Elias 109
Part IV. The Catchers—Masked Men
Blackball’s “Ironman”: Catcher Larry Brown
Keith B. Wood 128
Moe Berg and the Media: Competing Interpretations
of the Enigmatic ­Catcher-Spy
William M. Simons 145
Part V. The Minor Leagues—Past and Present
Economics of Minor League Baseball, 1876–1900
Daniel R. Levitt 178
An Age and Place as Golden as Any Other: The 1930s
and 1940s Newark Bears and Eagles
Curt Smith 189
­MLB-Atlantic League Agreement Rule Changes: Tinker,
Not Evers, No Chance
Wayne Patterson 205
Part VI. The Game in Poetry, Prose, and Music
Shubert to Ziegfeld to White: Baseball in Broadway
Musical Revues, 1908–1922
Jeffrey M. Katz 222
Jack Kerouac and Fantasy Baseball
Thomas Wolf 238
“A Great Slow Contraption”: Baseball in the Writings
of Michael Chabon
Richard J. Puerzer 246
Birds on the Bat and Squirrels on the Field:
The St. Louis Cardinals in the Postseason
Joseph Stanton 256
Index 269