Save the date! 2026 SABR Northern New Jersey 19th Century Baseball Interdisciplinary Symposium
Save the date! SABR’s Nineteenth Century Research Committee will host the Northern New Jersey 19th Century Interdisciplinary Symposium as a special virtual event on Saturday, November 14, 2026. The focus of this symposium will be on the rich early baseball and related history of the region, which extends from the New York state border south through Monmouth and Mercer counties.
Registration for all SABR members will open around July 1 at SABR.org. The cost will be $15 per person. The one-day Zoom event will run from approximately 12:00 PM to 5:30 PM Eastern Time on November 14.
The symposium will be highlighted by a keynote address from Jonathan Mercantini, Associate Provost for Special Projects and Professor of History at Kean University. He is an appointed member of the New Jersey Historical Commission and a Trustee of the New Jersey Council for the Humanities. The welcome address will be given by John Thorn, the Official Historian of Major League Baseball and the c0-founder of SABR’s Nineteenth Century Committee.
Here is the schedule of research presentations for the symposium (all times listed below are in the Eastern Time Zone):
- 12:00–12:15 PM: Introduction
- 12:30–1:00 PM: John Zinn, “From Paterson to the Majors: How a New Jersey Semi-Pro Team sent Four Players to the Major Leagues”
- 1:10–1:50 PM: Welcome address, by John Thorn
- 2:00–2:30 PM: Thomas W. Gilbert, “The Elysian Fields and Baseball: A Story in Three Occurrences”
- 2:30–3:00 PM: Break
- 3:00–3:40 PM: Keynote address, by Jonathan Mercantini
- 3:50–4:40 PM: Jonathan Popovich, “A Game of Ball: Reconstructing the Elysian Fields, 1845-1865”
- 4:50–5:20 PM: Justin Mckinney, “1873 Elizabeth Resolutes: New Jersey’s First Big League Ball Club”
- 5:20–5:30 PM: Closing comments
This will be the seventh Interdisciplinary Symposium hosted by the Nineteenth Century Committee. Previous symposiums were held in New York City (2014), Philadelphia (2016), Cleveland (2018), Minneapolis (2019), Brooklyn (2021), and Providence (2022).
Originally published: March 18, 2026. Last Updated: June 16, 2026.