25th Annual NINE Spring Training Conference





WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 28
Celebrating 25 Years of NINE: Larry Gerlach
THE CY SEYMOUR LEAD-OFF SESSION
Arnold Hano, “Introduction: Memories of Alou”
“Alou: My Baseball Journey,” A Conversation with Coauthors Felipe Alou and Peter Kerasotis
THURSDAY, MARCH 1
THE ALBERT LASKER SESSION (Chair: Willie Steele)
Lindsay Bell, “Hero’s Mountain: Kenesaw Mountain Landis and the Politicization of Baseball Idols”
Roberta J. Newman, “We Love Baseball, Hotdogs, Apple Pie, and Chevrolet . . . and Beer, Cat Food, and Margarine: Baseball and Advertising in the Era of Mad Men”
Justin Turner, “MLB, ‘God Bless America,’ and a Pre-Twitter Anthem Controversy”
THE MAMIE “PEANUT” JOHNSON SESSION (Chair: Stephanie Liscio)
John Burbridge, “Jackie Robinson and Jersey City”
Joseph Eaton, “The Cubs and ‘The Race’: Northside Baseball, the Chicago Defender, and African-American Chicago, 1969-1975”
Daniel T. Durbin, “Pressures: Stories from the African-American Experience in Major League Baseball”
FIELD RESEARCH: Rangers vs Athletics at Hohokam Stadium
THE CRASH DAVIS SESSION (Chair: Lisa Doris Alexander)
Three films by Jon Leonoudakis: “Doug McWilliams: A Man with an Eye for Baseball,” “Jackie Robinson: A Lion in Winter,” and “Jim ‘Mudcat’ Grant: Baseball and Vietnam”
FRIDAY, MARCH 2
THE PAM POSTEMA SESSION (Chair: James Walker)
Joseph L. Price, “How to Read a Ballpark”
Allison Levin, “All in Good Fun? The Emasculating Rituals of MLB Players”
Jordan Max-Ryan Englekirk, “Florida: Where Americans Go to Die and Umpires Are Born”
THE JACK KEEFE SESSION (Chair: Trey Strecker)
Jason Cannon, “’We Have Got Too Much Murphy’: Cubs Fans and the World Series Ticket Scandal of 1908”
Jim Leeke, “Moose and Eddie: Harry McCormick and Edward Grant in the Great War”
Scott D. Peterson, “’Finding the Real’: Dixon, Lardner, Broun, and the ‘Great Cultural Divide’”
Robert F. Garratt, “Jazz Age Owner: A Literary Life of Charles A. Stoneham”
THE MIKE VEECK SESSION (Chair: Bill Ressler)
Dan Levitt, “From Deadball to Techball: The Evolution of Baseball Innovation”
Al Piacente, “Not Our Mother’s (or Father’s) Baseball?”
Jon Leonoudakis, “Swing and a Miss: How Most MLB Teams Fail at Creating an Engaging Fan Experience, and How to Fix It”
THE EDGAR MARTINEZ SESSION (Chair: Roberta Newman)
Paul Hensler, “Issues of Race, War, and Cultural Zeitgeist: Baseball in the Late 1960s”
Stephanie Liscio, “Franchise Wanted: A Suburban Community’s Push for a National League Team”
Charlie Vascellaro, “Reconciling the Ravine”
Charles S. Adams, “Seattle, the Mariners, and the Lack of an Adequate Myth”
SATURDAY, MARCH 3
THE ROY CAMPANELLA SESSION (Chair: Lee Lowenfish)
Steven Gietschier, “Baseball’s Other Czar: Judge Bramham Confronts the Depression and Saves the Minors”
Lawrence Baldassaro, “An Oral History of Italian American Major Leaguers from the 1930s to the Present”
Steve Treder, “1946: Major League Baseball’s 1492”
THE BILL VIRDON SESSION (Chair: Justin Turner)
Robert Bellamy and James Walker, “Pirates Pinned-In, Again? Missing the Video ‘Gravy Train’”
Michael E Lomax, “Organized Baseball’s Business Model”
Mitchell Nathanson, “More Than Just California Dreamin’?: California Labor Code §2855 and Its Applicability To Major League Baseball”
Ed Edmonds and Frank Houdek, “Celebrating the 2017 World Series: The Astros and Dodgers Meet the Law”
FIELD RESEARCH: Brewers vs Rockies at Salt River Fields
THE BILL KIRWIN SESSION Galleria Ballroom
The Society for American Baseball Research’s Seymour Medal Award Presentation, with SABR CEO Marc Appleman and Dorothy Seymour Mills
Jerald Podair, City of Dreams: Dodger Stadium and the Birth of Modern Los Angeles
Roundtable Discussion: “Baseball and the West” with Jerald Podair (City of Dreams: Dodger Stadium and the Birth of Modern Los Angeles), Lee Lowenfish (Branch Rickey: Baseball’s Ferocious Gentleman), Andy McCue (Mover and Shaker: Walter O”Malley, the Dodgers, and Baseball’s Western Expansion), and Robert F. Garratt (Home Team: The Turbulent History of the San Francisco Giants)