CFP: 2012 NINE Spring Training Conference

NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture announces The 19th Annual NINE Spring Training Conference on the Historical and Sociological Impact of Baseball

Wednesday, March 7-Saturday, March 10, 2012

Fiesta Resort Conference Center
2100 South Priest Drive
Tempe, Arizona

Call for Papers

The 19th Annual NINE Spring Training Conference invites original, unpublished papers that study all aspects of baseball, with particular emphasis on history and social policy implications. Abstracts only, not to exceed 300 words, should be submitted by December 2, 2011, totstrecker@bsu.edu<mailto:tstrecker@bsu.edu> .

Authors will be notified as quickly as possible whether their papers have been accepted. Authors are required to register for the conference and present their work in person.

Keynote Speaker: Rob Fitts

Rob Fitts graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and received a Ph.D. from Brown University. Originally trained as an archeologist of colonial America, Fitts left that field in 2000 to focus on his passion, Japanese baseball. He has since published numerous articles and three books on the topic. The first, Remembering Japanese Baseball: An Oral History of the Game, won the 2005 SABR/Sporting News Award for Best Baseball Research. His second book, Wally Yonamime: The Man Who Changed Japanese Baseball, is a biography of the first American to play professional baseball in Japan after World War II. Banzai Babe Ruth: Baseball, Espionage, and Assassination during the 1934 Tour of Japan (forthcoming early in 2012) is the story of the attempt to reconcile the United States and Japan through the tour of Major League all-stars in 1934 and the efforts of fanatical ultra-nationalists to drive the nations apart. The story involves international diplomacy, espionage, attempted murder, and, of course, baseball.

Featured Guest: Ila Borders

An all-star Little League prodigy, at age 12 Ila Borders hit 18 home runs. She was named MVP in her junior high and high school years, and in 1994 became the first woman ever awarded a collegiate baseball scholarship. That year, pitching for Southern California College (NAIA), she stepped into history as the first woman to post a complete-game victory in men's collegiate baseball. In 1997, scout Barry Moss recommended Borders to Mike Veeck, who signed her to his St. Paul Saints of the independent Northern League. In 1998, pitching for the Duluth-Superior Dukes of the same league, Borders became the first woman to win a men's professional game since Mamie "Peanut" Johnson of the Negro leagues. Borders ultimately pitched four seasons of professional baseball. She currently works as a firefighter/paramedic in Arizona and coaches baseball for the World Children's Baseball Fair. She is completing a memoir of her life and times in baseball.

Registration

Conference registration forms are available online on the NINE Website at http://nine.iweb.bsu.edu/registration.htm .

The $195 conference registration fee includes the Saturday evening banquet and tickets for two spring training games, if paid prior to January 13, 2012. After January 13, the conference fee will be $205, and game tickets
are not guaranteed.

Send your registration form with your conference fee to:

Dan and Jean Ardell
P. O. Box 482
Corona del Mar, CA 92625

For further information about conference registration, please contact Jean Ardell at jeanardell@yahoo.com.

Registrants should make their hotel reservations directly with the Fiesta Resort Conference Center on the Web at http://www.fiestaresortcc.comor by phone at 1-800-528-6481. Rates are $99.00/night single or double;
$109/night three per room; $119/night four per room. To ensure the conference rate; rooms must be booked before February 15, 2012. Be sure to mention NINE: A Journal of Baseball History & Culture.

Trey Strecker, Editor
NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture
Department of English
Ball State University
2000 W. University Ave.
Muncie, IN 47306-0460
NINE Web site: http://nine.iweb.bsu.edu