30th Cooperstown Symposium brings baseball’s brightest to Museum
The National Pastime reexamined, reinterpreted and reimagined was at the heart of the recently completed 30th Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture.
The three-day affair, held at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, concluded on June 1. It annually brings together approximately 200 academics, students, historians, writers and fans with an interest in the sport. Founded in 1989, the Symposium constitutes baseball’s preeminent academic conference with presentations on virtually every aspect of the game.
“The 2018 Cooperstown Symposium was a milestone. When this began back in 1989 under Al Hall, who was the first director, he thought it would be a one-and-done. Not only has it lasted three decades, but if anything the energy has revved up,” said Bill Simons, history professor at the State University of New York at Oneonta but also the co-coordinator of the Symposium. “It’s a tremendous combination of veteran scholars and people who are just at the beginning of their careers. The symposium remains extremely strong. Some of the very best scholarship in baseball has its roots here.”
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Hall of Fame Librarian Jim Gates, also a co-coordinator of the event, added, “After 30 years, the Cooperstown Symposium remains a vibrant program which allows for scholars to exchange ideas on a host of subjects related to baseball and culture. It is a unique event for the academic world, and we look forward to continuing into the future. Planning for 2019 has already begun.”
Co-sponsored by the State University of New York College at Oneonta and the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, the Symposium examines the impact of baseball on American culture from inter- and multi-disciplinary perspectives.
The 2018 Symposium had almost 60 presentations, held in both the Bullpen Theater and the Learning Center, ranging in topics from “The Integration of the Pacific Coast League: Race and Baseball in the West” and “Walter O’Malley & Bud Selig: A Study in Contrasts” to “Whitman and Fitzgerald on the Virtues of Baseball” and “American Culture and the Baseball Film.”
Acclaimed author Curt Smith, whose presentation was entitled “The First Women of America’s First Game,” called the Symposium “a wonderful experience” for him.
“I liken it to a baseball Woodstock without the illegal drugs,” Smith said. “You’ve got people from not simply around America, but from around the world coming to Cooperstown, N.Y., because they love one thing, baseball and to talk about it and luxuriate in the greatest game of all. So if you love baseball, as I have since about age five, what more could you possibly want?”
Former big league first baseman Dan Ardell, who played for the 1961 expansion Los Angeles Angels, has accompanied his wife, noted baseball historian Jean Ardell, to the Symposium three times over the years.
“As a player, these are aspects that I never thought of. When I first started coming to this I didn’t even think it was baseball. As I get into it I’m much more interested,” Ardell said. “The Symposium brings such a wide range of people and interests that I just wouldn’t have thought of as a player or as a fan today. It’s a great program. So as a player I find it very interesting; as a fan I find it interesting in a very different manner than I would have as a player.”
Filmmaker, author and baseball historian Jon Leonoudakis’ presentation was called, “Swing and a Miss: How Most MLB Teams Fail at Creating and Engaging Fan Experience and How to Fix It.”
“One of the reasons I come to the Symposium as a storyteller is I’m mining for stories. You get really great nuggets and perspectives I just haven’t heard anywhere else,” said Leonoudakis, who was attending his second Symposium. “The other thing I like about it is the collegial environment. And I like the broad, eclectic variety of topics that are covered here. It is a box of chocolates – not all of them are home runs – but variety is what makes the world go around. And it’s great to be at the center of the baseball universe and to have everybody come together and share these stories.”
This year’s keynote address kicked off the Symposium and was given by Librarian of Congress Dr. Carla Hayden in the newly renovated Grandstand Theater on May 30. She was sworn in as the 14th Librarian of Congress in September 2016 after being nominated for the position by President Barack Obama. A trailblazer, she is the first woman and the first African American to lead the national library.
Opening June 29 at the Library of Congress will be the new yearlong exhibition, “Baseball Americana,” which will explore baseball’s past and present and how the game has forged a sense of community for players and fans across the country.
While Dr. Hayden spent most of her time giving insight into “Baseball Americana,” she also shared her own background with the sport.
“Let’s be honest. You’re probably wondering why the Librarian of Congress is the keynote speaker,” she said. “I am a huge baseball fan. This African-American librarian from the Midwest as a little girl dreamt of being a shortstop. You can tell that it didn’t work out.
“I come here as a librarian and a fan and someone who learned at an early age that baseball was more than a game. It was a uniter, it was a place that you could spend time with loved ones, and it’s a place that is always in your memories.”
Afterward, Gates said, “Having Dr. Carla Hayden serve as out keynote speaker was a highlight for the Symposium, but it was also a high moment in my professional career. Her visit to Cooperstown will be well remembered and we hope to see her back in the village again.”
An impressive list of past keynote speakers includes Stephen Jay Gould, Ken Burns, W.P. Kinsella, Eliot Asinof, Roger Kahn, George Plimpton, Marvin Miller, Frank Deford and Janet Marie Smith.
Bill Francis is a Library Associate at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum
