SABR 19th Century Conference a hit at Baseball Hall of Fame
From SABR member Bill Francis at BaseballHall.org on April 20, 2012:
The National Pastime’s earliest days were a hot topic of conversation for a group of visitors to Cooperstown on Friday.
The Society for American Baseball Research’s Nineteenth Century Committee is holding its fourth annual Frederick Ivor-Campbell Base Ball Conference at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum’s Bullpen Theater over two days, beginning today and continuing all day Saturday. For the 55 registered attendees from across the country, it’s an opportunity to engage with others that share the same unique passion.
“I was here two years ago and it was the most fun I’ve ever had at a conference in my life, and I look forward to this year’s to be even more fun,” said Long Island’s David Nemec, an author of more than 30 books involving baseball. “The presentations are spectacular and the people are most enjoyable to be with.”
According to Peter Mancuso, the Nineteenth Century Committee Chairman who runs the conference (“actually this conference runs me,” he joked), “there’s wonderful people that participate in this conference at all levels. Even if they are not a presenter, they are in the audience asking some really profound questions. And of course we have the great talent of all of these researchers and writers – they really breathe life into the conference.”
Included among the varied research presentations are “Bridegrooms and Superbas and Dodgers … Oh My!: The Birth of Brooklyn Baseball in the 19th Century,” “The Birth of Baseball Statistics,” “Abner Graves: The Man Who Brought Baseball to Cooperstown,” “’The Great John L.’ and the National Game,” “A Comparison of Alexander Cartwright and William Wheaton” and “John B. Day, the Metropolitan Exhibition Company and the Re-establishment of Major League Baseball in New York City.”
“I learn something from almost everybody I talk to,” Nemec said. “They’ve delved into different types of research than I have. They have a different slant on certain aspects of the 19th century game. To me the 19th century game was a prism of the entire late 19th century, which was a very fluid, fast-moving time. Society and many features of the country changed very quickly, and baseball kept up with it.”
Read the full article here: http://community.baseballhall.org/page.aspx?pid=620&storyid1816=268&ncs1816=3
- To learn more about the Frederick Ivor-Campbell 19th Century Base Ball Conference, visit SABR.org/ivor-campbell19c
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Who was Frederick Ivor-Campbell? Learn more about the 2003 Bob Davids Award winner here
Originally published: April 20, 2012. Last Updated: April 20, 2012.