The Cooperstown Symposium--The Wrap-Up

Aside from the amount of knowledge to be gained, the best part of the Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture is the camaraderie provided by other presenters and attendees. Some would label participants in the symposium as academics, but I'd prefer to call them well-informed, conversant fans of the game. For someone like me (and I'm definitely no academic!), it provides an opportunity to meet up with old friends (and professors) like Dave Ogden (an expert on minority participation in amateur and youth baseball), Peggy Beck (an authority on agents and Indians baseball), Roberta Newman (a fellow Yankee diehard and knowledgeable New Yorker) and Joel Nathan Rosen (a long-suffering Indians fan and overall historian of the game).

Then there is Alan Levy (who knows all things Rube Waddell), Ron Briley (who shares with me an interest in the decades of the sixties and seventies and), and the always outgoing Bill Simons (an expert on Jewish baseball and a survivor of the failed Israel Baseball League). Unless you're at an actual ballpark, where else can you meet such a diverse and entertaining group of baseball fans?

Another benefit to the symposium can be found in the form of newsgathering about the Hall of Fame itself. During my three days at the symposium last week, I picked up a few worthy tidbits.

*First, and this is something that hasn't been reported anywhere else, sources tell me the Hall of Fame has extended the olive branch to Tim Robbins, inviting him and Susan Sarandon back to Cooperstown for a 20^th anniversary celebration of Bull Durham. As most of you undoubtedly remember, former Hall president Dale Petroskey withdrew a 2003 invite to Robbins after his unfavorable remarks about the war in Iraq. The new invitation has apparently been in the works for months, dating back to when Petroskey was still in office. There's no word on whether Robbins has accepted or declined the re-invitation to Cooperstown.

*Second, a reliable source tells me that morale among staffers at the Hall has "skyrocketed" since Jeff Idelson was named president this spring, succeeding Petroskey. Idelson has incorporated some small changes, including the implementation of "casual Fridays" throughout the year (instead of just during the winter), as a way of making the staff happier and more comfortable. Idelson's intelligence has also come under high praise, making him, in the words of one Hall official, the "right guy for the job."

*Third, the Hall has already begun preparations for its 21^st Symposium in 2009. Hall officials have targeted George Mitchell and Doris Kearns Goodwin as principal targets in their search for a keynote speaker.  Mitchell, in particular, would be a major coup for the Hall of Fame.

Yes, the 2008 symposium provided a cavalcade of information, both about baseball history and the current state of the game. As always, the event was well organized and attended. Special thanks go out to Hall of Fame Library director Jim Gates, longtime library acquisitions manager Helen Stiles, and SUNY Oneonta's Bill Simons, all of whom helped in putting on a wonderful show.