| 2009 Yoseloff Grant Recipients |
| By Susan Petrone |
Tamara Burnett, 20, will use her grant to explore the history of Major League Baseball’s influence in the Dominican Republic and how that history has impacted the current situation in the country. Some problems that have arisen due to the MLB’s influence include age verification, bonus skimming, and the buscones agent system, all of which take advantage of young men who are simply looking for the chance to play in the Major Leagues.
William Dowell, 39, will take a closer look at the baseball game played on May 31, 1909, between the Bloomington Bloomers and the Decatur Commodores of the Illinois-Indiana-Iowa baseball league (also known as the Three-I League). This 26- inning game was the longest recorded game in professional baseball (based on innings played) until 1981. The game, which was won by Decatur, 2-1, involves controversy, spectacular plays and a pitching performance that will never be duplicated. Dowell will focus on what happened in the game, what it meant to the communities involved, and what impact it may have had on players.
Henry Fetter’s research on free agency arbitration will examine the December 1975 precedent-shattering decision that did away with the reserve clause. Prior to this, in June 1972, the Supreme Court ruled against Curtis Flood and affirmed baseball’s long-standing exemption from the antitrust laws. Fetter will examine the records of the arbitration, which are housed at the Kheel Center at Cornell University.
Robert Fitts, 43, will research the doomed attempt to reconcile the United States and Japan though the tour of Major League all stars in 1934 and the efforts of the ultranationalist War Gods Society to drive the two nations apart. Fitts will investigate the use of sport in diplomacy as well as the widely held belief that the love of baseball can unite cultures. It will touch on the larger issues of the globalization of sport, the difficulties of forging cross-cultural friendships, and the timely issue of how nationalism and fanaticism blind and separate people, ultimately leading to war.
Mike Haupert, 48, intends to examine the determinants of wages in professional baseball for both men and women. By looking at both male and female professional baseball players, he will create a measurement of a wage gap and calculate the degree to which this wage gap is discriminatory. He hopes that this research will add to our knowledge of the business operations of professional baseball, provide a first look at the business of the All American Girls Professional Baseball League, and deepen understanding of gender differences in wages.
Amber Roessner, 29, will examine the role early sports journalists played in the promotion of baseball and its stars. Among her research questions are how first- and second-generation sports journalists portrayed the game and the major stars of the day; what autonomy, if any, these cultural icons had in their portrayals; readers’ reaction to coverage of sports stars; and what popular press portrayals of such icons as Cobb, Mathewson, Merriwell, and Ruth reveal about changing conceptions of masculinity at the turn of the twentieth century.
Barney Terrell, 36, will examine the Union Association (UA), which lasted only for the 1884 season. He will explore whether Henry Lucas started the UA simply to gain his own National League dub and was whether the UA was a major league? I.e., was it covered as being on par with the NL and the AA by contemporary writers, or as being on par with a "minor league" such as the Eastern or Northwestern League?
| | Created On: 2009-11-05 |
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Page Link: http://www.sabr.org/sabr.cfm?a=cms,c,2925,34,0
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