The 27th Annual NINE Spring Training Conference
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4
THE CY SEYMOUR LEAD-OFF SESSION
Baseball by the Book: An Evening with Justin McGuire
Participants: Jeremy Beer, James Brunson, Ron Rapoport
Justin McGuire is the creator and host of Baseball by the Book, a podcast that has featured interviews with more than 200 authors, since its launch in 2016. An award-winning journalist, McGuire spent eight years as a senior editor at Sporting News, including more than three years directing coverage of Major League Baseball for the venerable publication. He is a former National League Cy Young and Rookie of the Year voter and a member of SABR.
Listen to the “Baseball by the Book” podcast, live from the 2020 NINE Conference. Host Justin McGuire is joined by baseball writers James Brunson, Jeremy Beer, and Ron Rapoport to discuss the history and lasting legacy of the Negro Leagues. The podcast was recorded during the conference’s leadoff session. For more on the 2020 NINE Spring Training Conference, click on the program link below.
THURSDAY, MARCH 5
THE HENRY WIGGEN SESSION (Chair: Rob Sheinkopf)
Mitchell Nathanson, “Jim Bouton and the Butter-Yellow Box”
Jason Cannon, “The Chief Admirer and Supporter of Baseball”: William Howard Taft and the Influence of Public Relations
James R. Walker and Judith R. Hiltner, “Red Barber: Writer”
Paul Scimonelli, “Joe Cambria: Saint or Scoundrel?”
Curt Smith, “Baseball Broadcasting: Its History, Highlights, and Hall of Fame.”
THE DAVE PARKER SESSION (Chair: Justin Turner)
Alex Nunez, “A Catcher’s Mask: Vincent Nava, Baseball’s Color Line, and Mexican American Racialization”
Amy Essington, “The Integration of Minor League Baseball, 1946-1962”
Jeremy Beer, “Oscar Charleston, Branch Rickey, and the Breaking of a Different Baseball Color Line”
John Migliaccio, “‘The Fifth Clown-ist of the Negro Sports World!’: The Battle for Black Baseball’s Soul”
Jay Hurd, “Matilda Sissieretta Jones (1868-1933): African American Opera Diva and Baseball Promoter”
Field Research: Dodgers vs. Athletics at Hohokam Park
THE ROB EDELMAN SESSION ( Chairs: Roberta Newman & Jean Hastings Ardell)
Jon Leonoudakis, Breakfast with JFK and Jackie Robinson: A Lion in Winter
Larry Foley, The First Boys of Spring
FRIDAY, MARCH 6
THE HIDEO NOMO SESSION (Chair: Jason Cannon)
Bill Staples, Jr., “Early Baseball Encounters in the West: The Yeddo Royal Japanese Troupe Play Ball in America, 1872”
Rob Fitts, “Scapegoat!: How the First Japanese Professional Ball Player was Framed as a Spy”
Terumo Rafferty-Osaki, “Swinging for the Fences: The Borderlands of Nikkei Incarceration”
John Harney, “Oh Sadaharu: A Japanese Baseball Legend in the Cold War”
THE BO BELINSKY SESSION (Chair: Allison Levin)
Fabio Montella, “Paige and Yastrzemski: A Long Island Narrative”
Steve Gietschier, “Cleaning Up and Tumbling Down: Who Played for the White Sox after the Black Sox?”
Dan Levitt, “John McGraw and the Creation of the Modern Sports Movement”
Lauren Tuiskula, “‘The most red-blooded baseball in America’: Industrialization and the Blackstone Valley Baseball League”
Scott D. Peterson, “1914: The Year of the Busher”
THE CONNIE WISNIEWSKI SESSION (Chair: Kat Williams)
Rob Sheinkopf, “My (First) Year in the Big Leagues”
Herman Howard, “Ken Burns: Infusion of Entertainment-Education Theory into the 2016 PBS Documentary on Jackie Robinson”
Lisa Doris Alexander, “‘I Throw the Rhymes to the Mic and I Strike ‘Em Out’: MLB References in Hip-Hop Lyrics”
Ed Edmonds, “The Wire-to-Wire 1990 Cincinnati Reds: A Thirty-Year Retrospective”
THE GARRY TEMPLETON SESSION (Chair: Dan Levitt)
Anne Keene, “The Glory Days of Ted Williams and America’s MLB Fighter Pilots”
Steve Treder, “The Triumph of the Whiff: A History of the Strikeout”
Doug Feldmann, “Growing up American: The Confluence of Public Education and Baseball in the United States”
Allison Levin, “A Return to Greatness: The Tumultuous History of the Bullpen Cart”
Dave Bohmer and Paul Hensler, “Into the Jet Age: Commissioner Successes and Struggles in an Era of Change”
SATURDAY, MARCH 7
THE DOROTHY SEYMOUR MILLS SESSION (Chair: Johnny Moore)
Katie Neipris, “Gendered Baseball Spectatorship in The National Police Gazette”
Jordan Max-Ryan Englekirk, “They’ll Piss on Your Back and Tell Ya It’s Raining: MLB Umpires, the Performance of Masculinity, and a Culture of Honor”
Brett Mizelle, “Fast Curve: Baseball, Pornography, and Masculinity in the Culture of (Non-Conformity) of the 1950s”
Stephanie Liscio, “’He Was Always Thinking of the Club First’: Hank Greenberg and the Trade of Minnie Minoso”
THE RUBE WALKER SESSION (Chair: Lisa Alexander)
Jay Thomas, “Clubhouse Case Study: Two Summers behind the Scenes at Wrigley Field”
J.S. Moore “108 Stitches for the Mind: Baseball Reminiscence Therapy and Alzheimer’s Relief”
Geoff Griffin and Alexandria Griffin, “The Jesus Boys: How a Tiny Religious Commune Played a Huge Role in Baseball Integration”
Justin Turner, “From the L.I.E. to the P.R.C.: The C.W. Post Pioneers Play Ball in China”
Joseph L. Price and Charles S. Adams, “The Enigma of O’Malley’s Scrapbooks”
Field Research: Padres vs. Diamondbacks at Salt River Fields
THE BILL KIRWIN SESSION
Seymour Medal Award: Jeremy Beer, Oscar Charleston. Presented by Scott Bush, CEO, Society for American Baseball Research
Keynote: Ron Rapoport, author, Let’s Play Two: The Legend of Mr. Cub, The Life of Ernie Banks
For more than two decades, Ron Rapoport was a sports columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times and the Los Angeles Daily News, as well as a sports commentator for National Public Radio’s “Weekend Edition Saturday.” He is the recipient of the Ring Lardner Award for Excellence in Sports Journalism and the National Headliner Award, and has written a number of books about sports and show business. His most recent book, Let’s Play Two: The Legend of Mr. Cub, The Life of Ernie Banks, is the definitive and revealing biography of Chicago Cubs legend Ernie Banks, one of America’s most iconic, beloved, and misunderstood baseball players.