Gill: Naples’ Dorothy Seymour Mills plays a role in new baseball documentary
From Kristine Gill at the Naples Daily News on July 11, 2016, on SABR member Dorothy Seymour Mills:
When a documentary filmmaker in Kansas City set out to examine the history of amateur baseball, there was one book he turned to for the bulk of the project.
“Baseball: The People’s Game,” was written by Dorothy Jane Mills, a Naples author and an authority on the sport, and her late husband Harold Seymour.
“Nobody’s written very much about the amateur game but she had done it — and her husband — many, many years ago,” filmmaker Mark Honer said. “That book was like the bible I used to guide me.”
Mills appears as an expert source in the documentary called “Town Teams: Bigger than Baseball.” She will have two screenings of the film this week at The Carlisle Naples, 6945 Carlisle Court. Both are free and open to the public.
“Amateur baseball is the foundation on which all other types of baseball are built,” Mills said. “It helped build America because it built rivalry.”
Cities with teams were included along newly built railroad lines and hotels went up in towns that people were likely to travel to for games. Cities that built parks and stadiums charged admission and made money that way.
Traveling teams introduced diversity to towns, as well, Mills said. There were all women teams from Boston, New York and Chicago. A team out of Nebraska had mostly Americans Indians. There was an all-black team and a team for the House of David where all players wore long black beards, including the women.
“The diversity was good for people to be exposed to,” Mills said. “These were spectacles for people in these towns.”
Read the full article here: http://archive.naplesnews.com/lifestyle/naples-woman-her-book-help-with-baseball-documentary-36700ea6-c91b-30c1-e053-0100007fc2c4-386216391.html
Originally published: July 19, 2016. Last Updated: July 19, 2016.