Jim Creighton (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY)

Call for papers: 2021 Brooklyn 19th Century Baseball Interdisciplinary Symposium

Jim Creighton (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY)SABR’s Nineteenth Century Committee is seeking abstracts for research presentations for the upcoming Brooklyn 19th Century Baseball Interdisciplinary Symposium, which is scheduled for Saturday, November 13, 2021.

Abstracts of 200 to 400 words for a research presentation of 20-25 minutes in length on any topic related to the amateur through early professional period of baseball in Brooklyn should be submitted to Peter Mancuso by March 15, 2021, with presentation title, your name, and contact email. See below for a list of suggested topics.

If the Symposium is held virtually/online, you will need to have access to a computer equipped for Zoom (audio and visual).  If the Symposium is to be held in person, it will be from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Saturday, November 13 at St. Francis College, located in the historic neighborhood of Brooklyn Heights, in downtown Brooklyn, New York. A final decision on the venue will be made by June 15.

The 2021 Brooklyn 19th Century Baseball Interdisciplinary Symposium will be the fifth in our series of city-specific interdisciplinary symposiums on 19th century baseball. Previous symposiums were held in New York City (2014), Philadelphia (2016), Cleveland (2018), and Minneapolis (2019).

Click here to learn more about SABR’s Nineteenth Century Committee.

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List of Suggested Topics:

  • Brooklyn-New York City rivalry
  • Support of baseball (Pastimes, Atlantics, Enterprise et al.) by the Hugh McLaughlin political machine
  • Baseball and suburbanization – Excelsiors as Knickerbocker satellite
  • Various roots that NYC-style baseball took to Brooklyn (suburbs, shipyards, market culture)
  • Mass transportation – railraods, ferries, streetcars, stages, etc.
  • The first fans: 1858 Fashion Course admission charge, 1860 disrupted Atlantics/Excelsiors championship game, 1862 Union Grounds: first ballpark
  • Henry Chadwick and modern sportswriting, invention of baseball stats; the alliance of journalism and the baseball movement
  • Jim Creighton and the birth of modern pitching and the strike zone
  • Other Brooklyn or baseball topics between the 1840s through 1870s


Originally published: February 15, 2021. Last Updated: February 11, 2021.