In a scholarly paper read at the Spring Training Conference of NINE at Tempe, Ariz., this month, I heard a scholar read a carefully annotated paper about “Female Masculinity” as it is exemplified in a novel called Rachel, the Rabbi’s Wife, by Silvia Tennenbaum (Morrow 1978).
March 20, 2013
A new book, so new it bears a publication date two weeks from today, includes interviews with many people in baseball or connected with it in some way. All the people selected for interviews are Jewish because the author is interested in the relationship between American success stories and the values of American Jews.
Feb. 26, 2013
Children’s books have become as important in the publishing field as adults’ books. The Sunday New York Times Book Review always carefully sets aside space that gives attention to newly published children’s books, just as it does for the separate category of adult mysteries. Continue reading “Feb. 26, 2013”
Feb. 19, 2013
Two baseball people are failing to get the recognition they would have gotten a hundred years ago. Continue reading “Feb. 19, 2013”
Feb. 13, 2013
“Women and baseball” is an aspect of baseball history that is becoming recognized. The Schlesinger Library of Radcliffe College in Harvard University owns a copy of my autobiography, A Woman’s Work, the librarian there tells me. Some scholars consider this book a feminist document. The Smith College library has a copy of Chasing Baseball for use in courses on sport history. Did you know sport history is taught in women’s colleges? Smith has also just discovered that I devoted two pages to early Smith baseball in Baseball: The People’s Game, the third volume of the series I wrote for Oxford University Press with Dr. Harold Seymour.
Feb. 6, 2013
The University of Nebraska Press has just announced that U.N.P’s author, Rob Fitts, has won the Seymour Award for the book, Banzai Babe Ruth, published last year. He will receive the award at a banquet that follows the NINE baseball conference in Tempe, Ariz., on March 16.
This announcement omits to reveal the full name of the award. More importantly, it omits to say who will present the award to Rob. Continue reading “Feb. 6, 2013”
Jan. 29, 2013
“This book has the kind of story that would translate well to film–especially if Penny Marshall were available to direct.”
Jan. 28, 2013
Last week, while vacationing in New Orleans, I attended a play at the Shadowbox Theatre. The title was “The Insanity of Mary Girard; A Dream in One Act,” by Lanie Robertson. Mary was a real person, the wife of a famous entrepreneur and philanthropist of the 1800s, Stephen Girard, who had her admitted to an insane asylum because of her so-called “uncontrollable bouts of rage” or “emotional outbursts.”
Dec. 1, 2012
When I interviewed Marvin Miller at his New York office back in the 1960s with my late husband Harold Seymour, we were both impressed with his openness. He never dodged a question, and my transcription of the notes I took at the interview totaled ten full pages.
Nov. 28, 2012
The History Channel has just launched a TV series called ”Mankind: The Story of All of Us,” a series that is supposed to “recount humankind’s full history,” as The Week magazine put it on Nov. 16. Unfortunately, it is very much out of date and therefore full of errors, especially errors of omission.