The Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture, 2000

This is an anthology of 19 papers that were presented at the Twelfth Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture, held June 7–9, 2000 and co-sponsored by the State University of New York at Oneonta and the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. Capped by Roger Kahn’s essay on the rise and fall of great baseball prose, this Symposium plumbed such topics as baseball in the classroom, the national pastime and American Christianity, corporate encroachment, and the difficult course pursued by a Negro League team owner who also happened to be white and female.
These essays, divided into sections titled “Baseball and Culture,” “Baseball as History,” “The Business of Baseball” and “Race, Gender and Ethnicity in the National Pastime,” cut through the quick and easy judgments of the media and offer instead the longer, more informed view of scholars and researchers.

William M. Simons is professor of history at the State University of New York–Oneonta.
Alvin L. Hall is director of Continuing Education and Summer Sessions at East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania.

Edited by William M. Simons. Series Editor Alvin L. Hall
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 336
Bibliographic Info: notes, tables, index
Copyright Date: 2001
pISBN: 978-0-7864-1120-7
eISBN: 978-0-7864-8170-5
Imprint: McFarland
Series: Cooperstown Symposium Series

Acknowledgments      x
Prefacenbsp;     1
Introduction      3

PART 1: BASEBALL AND CULTURE
“When Homer Smote His Bloomin’ Lyre”: Some Observations on Sportswriting      19
Safe at Home: Forging Intergenerational Alliances      25
“Jesus Is Standing at the Home Plate”: Baseball and American Christianity      40
Physical Literacy in Baseball and Other Sports      59
A Flexible Metaphor: Baseball in the Classroom      73
“Walter Johnson” by Jonathan Richman: The Portrait of a Hero in Song      84

PART 2: BASEBALL AS HISTORY
“This Town Isn’t Big Enough for Both of Us”: Politics, Economics, and Local Rivalries in St. Louis Major League Baseball      95
Basebell During World War II: An Exploration of the Issue      117
Baseball in a Football Town: The Neighborhood Diamond, Heavy Industry, and High Attendance (1930–1949      136
The Game in Sepiatone and Soft Focus: Nostalgia and American Baseball in Historical Context      147

PART 3: THE BUSINESS OF BASEBALL
Major League Umpires and Collective Bargaining      167
Customer Discrimination in Memorabilia: New Evidence for Major League Baseball      184
Despoiling the Sleeve: The Threat of Corporate Advertising Upon the Integrity of the Major League Uniform      203

PART 4: RACE, GENDER, AND ETHNICITY IN THE NATIONAL PASTIME
Houston’s Latin Star Cesar Cedeno and Death in the Dominican Republic: The Troubled Legacy of Race Relations in the Lone Star State      219
Comparative Ethnicity: Joe DiMaggio and Hank Greenberg      237
Baseball in the Ocean State: Rhode Island Black Baseball, 1886-1948      257
“She Loved Baseball”: Effa Manley and Negro League Baseball      275
Black Players on the Field of Dreams: African American Baseball in Film      296
“I Haven’t Got Ballplayers. I’ve Got Girls”:Portrayals of Women in Baseball Film      308

Index      325