The 19th Annual NINE Spring Training Conference

March 7-10, 2012

Fiesta Resort Conference Center

Tempe, Arizona

 

 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 7

 

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

 

6:45-7:00 p.m.             Welcome

 

7:00-8:15 p.m.             THE CY SEYMOUR SESSION

 

Ila Borders, "A Conversation with Ila Borders”

 

Perry Barber, “Words and Music of the Diamond: Baseball in Song”

 

                                  

 

 

THURSDAY, MARCH 8

 

8:00-8:20 a.m.             Coffee

 

8:20-8:30 a.m.             Opening

 

 

 

8:30-9:50 a.m.             THE PETER GAMMONS SESSION

 

                                    Chair: Kevin Quinn

 

James R. Walker, Robert V. Bellamy, and Lawrence A Wenner, “Baseball, Cultural Citizenship, and Television”

 

Tanya Lovejoy, “’Was Anyone Out There Watching Last Night?’  Why New England Sports Network (NESN) Needed Roger Clemens:  Sports Media Ownership and the Televised Sports Text”

 

Roberta Newman, “The MLB Fan Cave: Pitching to the ‘Bros’ in Hyper-reality”

 

 

 

9:50-10:00 a.m.         Coffee

 

 

 

10:00-11:50 a.m.         THE MARGARET GISOLO SESSION

 

                                    Chair: Jean Hastings Ardell

 

Mark P. Parillo, “Softball and the Redefinition of Gender: What Material Culture Suggests”

 

Dan Drane and Colin Penuel, “You Can Change the Name but Can You Remove the Concept of Dixie from Dixie Youth Baseball”

 

Bill Ressler, “Culture and Diversity in the Minor League Clubhouse: An Organizational Communication Perspective”

 

Kat Williams, “Isabel ‘Lefty’ Alvarez: The Rascal of El Cerro”

 

 

 

1:00 p.m.                     Ballgame: Royals vs. Rockies

 

 

 

7:30-9:00 p.m.             Roundtable Discussion: Baseball and Pedagogy—What Works and What Doesn’t

 

 

 

 

FRIDAY, MARCH 9

 

8:30-9:50 a.m.             THE HILDA CHESTER SESSION

 

                                    Chair: Roberta Newman

 

Steve Gietschier, “Slugging and Snubbing: Hugh Casey, Ernest Hemingway, and Jackie Robinson—A Baseball Mystery”

 

Raymond Doswell, “19 for 31: Jackie Robinson Steals Home and History”

 

Andy McCue, “Barrio, Bulldozers and Baseball: The Clearing of Chavez Ravine”

 

 

9:50-10:00 a.m.         Coffee

 

 

 

10:00-11:50 a.m.         THE BRANCH RICKEY SESSION

 

                                    Chair: Lee Lowenfish

 

Samuel Gale, “’It’s a Press Victory’: The Role of the African American Press in Desegregating Major League Baseball”

 

Mitchell Nathanson, “Race, Rickey, and ‘All Deliberate Speed’”

 

Robert F. Garratt, “Horace Stoneham: The Neglected Pioneer”

 

John Sillito, “’Building the Pirates of Tomorrow’: Race, Mr. Rickey, and R. C. Stevens, 1952-55”

 

 

 

11:50 a.m.-1: 30 p.m.    Lunch (On Your Own)                        

 

 

 

1:30-3:00 p.m.             THE EDD ROUSH SESSION

 

                                    Chair: Jim Odenkirk

 

Charles Alexander, “Pete Rose and Ty Cobb: A Dichotomy, Not an Analogy”

 

Steve Steinberg, “The Day John McGraw Lost Control of His Team . . . and Quit”

 

Ed Edmonds, "Armando Marsans, the Major League’s First Cuban Star, and His Federal League-National League Fight”

 

 

 

3:00-3:15 p.m.         Break

 

 

 

3:15-4:45 p.m.             THE CONNIE MACK SESSION

 

                                    Chair: Geri Strecker

 

Kristin Anderson and Chris Kimball, “How (Not) to Build a Ballpark: Location, Finance, Construction, and the Courts in the 1880s”

 

Maureen Smith, “Constructing History and Heritage 21st-Century Style: Major League Baseball and Statues”

 

Lee Lowenfish, “A Hall Grows in Lubbock”

 

 

 

4:45-5:00 p.m.          Break

 

 

 

5:00-6:30 p.m.             THE ICHIRO SUZUKI SESSION

 

                                    Chair: Bill Ressler

 

Rebecca Alpert, “Bud Selig: The First Jewish Commissioner of Baseball”

 

Bill Staples Jr., “From Internment to Hope: Celebrating Japanese American Baseball in Arizona”

 

Steve Treder, “The Pioneer’s Pioneer: Masanori Murakami”

 

 

 

SATURDAY, MARCH 10

 

8:30-9:50 a.m.             THE BILL JAMES SESSION

 

                                    Chair: Ed Edmonds

 

Paul Bursik, Kevin Quinn, and Keith Sherony, “Buckner, Bartman, Bobby Thomson: The Folklore and Fact of Pivotal Plays”

 

Roberto D. Sirvent, “Baseball, Civic Identity, and the Just Society”

 

Paul Brewer, “Sabermetrics and “The Age of Fracture’”

 

 

 

9:50-10:00 a.m.         Coffee

 

 

 

10:00-11:50 a.m.         THE DIZZY DEAN SESSION

 

                                    Chair: Trey Strecker

 

Scott D. Peterson, “’A Novelty in Baseball Literature’: Ella Black and the 1890 Pre-Season”

 

Stuart Shea, “Major League Baseball Broadcasters: Local Heroes at the Mike”

 

Willie Steele, “Poetic Players: Baseball Poetry from Within the Game”

 

Ron Briley, “The Eighth Wonder of the World: Houston’s Astrodome as a Metaphor of Modernism and Alienation in Robert Altman’s Brewster McCloud (1970)”

 

 

 

1:00 p.m.                     Ballgame: Reds vs. A’s

 

 

 

 

6:30 p.m.                     THE BILL KIRWIN SESSION

 

                                    The Society for American Baseball Research’s Seymour Medal Award

 

         Banquet

 

                                    NINE Keynote Speaker: Robert K. Fitts