Baseball Conference

15th Annual Baseball in Literature and Culture Conference
Friday, March 26
James Union Building
8 am - 4:30 pm
Featuring Hall of Famer Fergie Jenkins (catch Fergie on the radio Sunday)


Conference Program (I'm on first...)


:45-8:15  Registration and Breakfast
8:20-8:30 Welcome, Warren Tormey, Conference Coordinator
            Dr. John McDaniel, Dean, College of Liberal Arts
8:30-9:15 Dr. Jim Carothers, University of Kansas:
            “Baseball Fictions and Baseball Facts”

9:20-10:20  Concurrent Sessions A
Session A1:  “Negro League Contexts”
Location: Hazlewood  Chair:  George Fleet
Daniel Anderson, Dominican University:  “The ‘Lost Art’ of Baseball:  James Weldon Johnson, Class Consciousness, and the Negro Leagues”
Andrew Hazucha, Ottawa University:  “Jackie Robinson, Richard Nixon, and the Politics of Race”
Stephanie Liscio, Case Western Reserve University:  “New Season, New Team:  The Revolving Door of Negro League Teams in Cleveland, 1922-1940”

Session A2:  “Baseball in Reflective Essay”
Location:  Dining Room C  Chair:  Sarah Bunting
R Dean Johnson, Eastern Kentucky University: “Baseball and Dating”
Phil Oliver, Middle Tennessee State University: “From Gibson to McGwire: Reflections from a Cardinals Fan on Childhood Indoctrination, Adult Disillusion, and the Steroid Era” 
Nick Bush, Motlow State Community College: “Envisioning the Baseball Intellectual”

10:30-11:30  Concurrent Sessions B
Session B1:  “Baseball and Ethical Negotiation”
Location:  Hazlewood  Chair:  Stephanie Liscio
Ron Rembert, Wilmington College: “Umpiring as Principled Negotiation?”
Tom Wells, Schreiner University: “Cheating isn’t Cheating if We’re Laughing – a closer look at It Happens Every Spring”
Warren Tormey, Middle Tennessee State University:  “’The Old College Try’:  Eddie Collins and the 1919 Black Sox”

Session B2:  “Baseball in Class Contexts”
Location:  Dining Rm. C  Chair:  Andrew Hazucha
Kevin Grace, University of Cincinnati: “Cubans, Class Perceptions, and Cincinnati Baseball”
Matthew Bruen, New York University: “Baseball, Class, and Local Identity in Philip Roth’s ‘Goodbye Columbus’”
Crosby Hunt, Middle Tennessee State Univeristy:  “DeLillo and Baseball:  Studying the American Communal Psyche in the Big Event-the Cataclysm”  

11:40-12:05  Concurrent Sessions C
Session C1:  “Baseball and Mysticism”
Location:  Hazlewood  Chair:  Ron Kates
Ron Bombardi, Middle Tennessee State University:  “Logic and Mysticism in the Philosophy of American Baseball”
Session C2:  “Baseball Fiction”
Location:  Dining Room C  Chair:  R Dean Johnson
Norman German, Southeastern Louisiana University:  “Two Readings from Switch Pitchers”
12:15-1:45 Luncheon and Ferguson Jenkins Talk
Tennessee Room 
12:15-12:45 Lunch
12:45-1:30  Ferguson Jenkins (20 min + ~10 min. Q & A;  Book Signing to follow)
1:45-2:45 Concurrent Sessions D
Session D1: “Baseball, Maturing, and Aging”
Location:  Hazlewood  Chair:  Dan Anderson
Pete Carino, Indiana State University: “The Seasons of Henry Wiggen, Athlete and Everyman: Mark Harris’s It Looked Like Forever and the Notion of Athletic Exceptionalism”
Steven Walker, Middle Tennessee State University: “The Bull Dancer”
Carl Schinasi, Miles College: “Baseball and the Meaning of Life Redux”
Session D2: “Recovering Baseball History”
Location:  Dining Rm. C   Chair:  Kevin Grace
Jim Blackstock, Cleveland OH:  “The Marriage of Radio and Baseball, 1930-1960”
Stacey Graham, Middle Tennessee State University:  “America’s Sport:  Baseball Primary Sources at the Library of Congress”
Robert Barrier, Kennesaw State University:  “’Yes, We Played Town Ball’:  Colonial-Era Baseball in 20^th Century Appalachia”
 2:55 -3:55 Concurrent Sessions E
Session E1:  “Damn Yankees”
Location:  Hazlewood  Chair:  Matthew Bruen
Tom Veve, Dalton State College: “A Grapefruit League Memoir”
Samuel Ball, Ohio University:  “The Pitcher Who Lost the 1960 World Series:  Ralph Terry and Mazeroski’s Home Run” 
Craig Klugman, Fort Wayne, IN: “Damn! A Re-evaluation of ‘The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant’ and the Musical that Followed”
Session E2:  “Baseball and Myths of Creation” 
Location: Dining Rm. C   Chair:  Tom Wells
Stephen Andrews, Grinnell College:  “What’s Fair is Fouled:  Mary Rogers, Alexander Cartwright, and the Police Reform Act of 1845”
George Fleet, Youngstown State University:  “The Story Begins:  The Introduction of Baseball (in) Literature in the 19^th Century”
Jeremy Larance, West Liberty University:  “In the Beginning, Someone or Another Hit a Ball with a Bat:  The Compulsion to Create a “Genesis” in the Canons of Baseball and Cricket”

4:00-4:30  Plenary Session F
Session F1:  Roundtable Discussion:  

Location:  Hazlewood Chair:  Warren Tormey 

Moderators:  Sarah and Dave Bunting, tomatonation.com 

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