Welcome to the Web site for
NINE: A Journal of Baseball History & Culture
and
The NINE Spring Training Conference
on the Historical and Sociological Impact of Baseball
Journal Subscription Information and Current Table of Contents
NINE: A Journal of Baseball History & Culture seeks to promote the study of all historical aspects of baseball and centers on the cultural implications of the game wherever in the world baseball is played. The journal reflects an eclectic approach and does not foster a particular ideological bias. For more information about the journal, including submission guidelines, subscription information, and the current table of contents, please follow this link.
NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture announces
The 19th Annual NINE Spring Training Conference
on the Historical and Sociological Impact of Baseball
Wednesday, March 7-Saturday, March 10, 2012
Fiesta Resort Conference Center
2100 South Priest Drive
Tempe, Arizona
The 2012 conference schedule is linked here.
Call for Papers: The 19th Annual NINE Spring Training Conference invites original, unpublished papers that study all aspects of baseball, with particular emphasis on history and social policy implications. Abstracts only, not to exceed 300 words, should be submitted by December 2, 2011, to:
NINE Spring Training Conference
c/o Trey Strecker
Department of English
Ball State University
Muncie, Indiana 47306-0460
Email: tstrecker@bsu.edu
Email abstracts are preferred. Authors will be notified as quickly as possible whether their papers have been accepted. Authors are required to register for the conference and present their work in person.
Information about conference and hotel registration is here.
Keynote Speaker: Rob Fitts
Rob Fitts graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and received a Ph.D. from Brown University. Originally trained as an archeologist of colonial America, Fitts left that field in 2000 to focus on his passion, Japanese baseball. He has since published numerous articles and three books on the topic. The first, Remembering Japanese Baseball: An Oral History of the Game, won the 2005 SABR/Sporting News Award for Best Baseball Research. His second book, Wally Yonamime: The Man Who Changed Japanese Baseball, is a biography of the first American to play professional baseball in Japan after World War II. Banzai Babe Ruth: Baseball, Espionage, and Assassination during the 1934 Tour of Japan (forthcoming early in 2012) is the story of the attempt to reconcile the United States and Japan through the tour of Major League all-stars in 1934 and the efforts of fanatical ultra-nationalists to drive the nations apart. The story involves international diplomacy, espionage, attempted murder, and, of course, baseball.
Featured Guest: Ila Borders
An all-star Little League prodigy, at age 12 Ila Borders hit 18 home runs. She was named MVP in her junior high and high school years, and in 1994 became the first woman ever awarded a collegiate baseball scholarship. That year, pitching for Southern California College (NAIA), she stepped into history as the first woman to post a complete-game victory in men's collegiate baseball. In 1997, scout Barry Moss recommended Borders to Mike Veeck, who signed her to his St. Paul Saints of the independent Northern League. In 1998, pitching for the Duluth-Superior Dukes of the same league, Borders became the first woman to win a men's professional game since Mamie "Peanut" Johnson of the Negro leagues. Borders ultimately pitched four seasons of professional baseball. She currently works as a firefighter/paramedic in Arizona and coaches baseball for the World Children's Baseball Fair. She is completing a memoir of her life and times in baseball.