Authors

Stephen C. Wood, Ph.D.

J. David Pincus, Ph.D.

Tom Altherr, Ph.D.

Frank Ardolino, Ph.D.

Kurt Billmeyer, Ph.D.

Ron Briley, Ph.D.

Richard Crepeau, Ph.D.

Nick DeBonis, Ph.D.

George Grella, Ph.D.

George Mastrioanni, Ph.D.

Marty Most

Robert Rudd, Ph.D.

Bill Simons, Ph.D.

Pat Trimble

Academic background: Professor and Chair of Communication Studies at the University of Rhode Island; research areas include argumentation and debate, political discourse, leadership and baseball; B.S., California State Polytechnic University (Pomona); M.A., University of Maine; Ph.D., University of Maryland.

Interest in baseball: A fan of the Dodgers, my home town club. Played no organized ball as a kid, but I did play my share of pickup games.

First memory of baseball: Roy Campanella, his playing, his accident, his book, his courage. I also thought it was nice that when my family moved to Southern California, the Dodgers followed suit.

Greatest baseball moment: Sandy Koufax pitching a perfect game when I was in the stands—it doesn’t get any better than that.

Greatest baseball movie: Cannery Row, few if any would put this movie on their eligibility list, but to the surprise of many people baseball is an intregral element of this film. Nick Nolte and an excellent supporting cast really make it work.

Worst baseball movie: Field of Dreams, come on folks, it's stupid, sappy, sloppy and saccharin. OK, I just put that in there to rile up my co-author, my real answer is: Ed, although the chimpanzee played pretty good ball and small children might laugh at the film.

Favorite baseball player: Sandy Koufax, once you’ve seen perfection, what else is there? “Hitting against him is like eating soup with a fork," Pittsburgh Pirates slugger Willie Stargell said. "I can see how he won 25 games," Yankees catcher Yogi Berra said during the 1963 World Series. "What I don't understand is how he lost five."

Favorite baseball writer: Malamud and Kinsella; Malamud for his dark images, Kinsella for his attitude.

Favorite baseball announcer: Vin Scully, the Sandy Koufax of broadcasters. As kids in the L.A. area, Peter Philips and I would listen to Vin on 33 1/3 vinyl recordings of highlights of his broadcasts as well as the actual broadcast of games. Can you imagine, "let's put a record on and listen to Vin!"

Baseball movie that should be made: The Pete Rose Story . . . not since Babe Ruth has there been a player who loved baseball more, performed so well, and was so flawed off the field.

Academic background: Former Professor of communications/public relations at California State University, Fullerton; Visiting Professor in the Executive MBA program at University of Southern California; and MBA Director and Research Professor of Communication in Walton College of Business at University of Arkansas; B.A. (political science), M.A. (speech communication), and Ph.D. (organizational communication) from University of Maryland, College Park.

Interest in baseball: A baseball nut all my life, as player (Little League to college), coach, scholar and diehard Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers fan.

First memory of baseball: The green of the grass and the enormity of the stands at Yankee Stadium—I’m nine years old, my father surprises me with front row seats and almost grabs a batting practice ball hit by none other than Mickey Mantle (the kid next to me sat with "my ball" the entire game, won by Orioles, 4-3, despite Yogi's home run).

Greatest baseball moment: Dodgers and Giants move to west coast, impact akin to Lewis & Clark’s expedition opening new frontier.

Favorite baseball player: Sandy Koufax—his four prime years may never be equaled.

Baseball movie that should be made: The story of Curt Flood, whose impact on nature of baseball, and sports in general, is unrivaled yet hardly noted.

Academic background: Professor of History/American Studies at the Metropolitan State College of Denver since 1979; a B.A. from SUNY College at Fredonia and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Ohio State University.

Interest in baseball: I played baseball in college and currently play in Denver-area over-40 and over-50 baseball leagues. I have taught a baseball history class since 1991.

First memory of baseball: My grandmother, who was a lifelong Cleveland Indians fan, swearing a lot during the 1954 World Series.

Greatest baseball moment: So many to choose from, but I’ll take Mazeroski’s 1960 World Series home run, because it beat the Yankees.

Greatest baseball movie: Bull Durham, but Field of Dreams and The Natural are very close seconds.

Favorite baseball player: Brooks Robinson, because I was an Orioles fan in those years.

Favorite baseball writer: Roger Angell, but if John Updike had written on baseball more, I’d choose him.

Baseball movie that should be made: Either one of my upcoming books with Charlie Metro, or if I ever finish my novel, Cooperstown, then that one.

Academic background: Professor of English at the University of Hawaii, where I teach Shakespeare, modern drama, and on occasion, sports literature and films.

Interest in baseball: I have been interested in baseball all my life, beginning as a fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers and continuing as an historian of baseball, particularly in Hawaii.

First memory of baseball: The archetypal one of playing catch with my father, who began to take me to games at Ebbets Field when I was six years old.

Greatest baseball moment: When Joe Pepitone, right before he signed with the Yankees, pitched batting practice to our pony league team because his brother Jimmy was on the team.

Baseball movie that should be made: A new version of the Jackie Robinson Story made in 1950.

Academic background: Lecturer, Northern Arizona State University, School of Communication. B.A. in Marketing, Idaho State University, M.A. in Organizational Communication, Ph.D. in Communication Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Interest in baseball: Extreme until the last strike, now less. If they strike again?

Greatest baseball moment: I was in attendance for the infamous Kirk Gibson home run in the 1988 World Series.

Baseball movie that should be made: from the book If I Never Get Back by Darryl Brock.

Academic background: Assistant Headmaster and a history teacher at Sandia Preparatory School in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He is also adjunct professor of history at the University of New Mexico, Valencia Campus. His work on sport and film has appeared in such journals as Film & History, The History Teacher, Social Education, Nine, Baseball History, Organization of American Historians Magazine of History, Literature/Film Quarterly, and various anthologies.

Interest in baseball: An avid baseball fan since I began to follow the Houston Colt .45s in 1962. Growing up in rural West Texas and picking cotton as a kid, these radio broadcasts were a God send.

First memory of baseball: The purchase of a pack in baseball cards around 1958. The rest is history.

Baseball movie that should be made: the Jackie Robinson story with Denzell Washington and directed by Spike Lee.

Academic background: B.S., University of Minnesota, 1963; M.A., Marquette University 1967; Ph.D., Florida State University, 1974; All degrees in History. Ph.D. dissertation on baseball.

Interest in baseball: I cannot remember when I was not a fan. This comes from my father, who was a player at the amateur level and then became an umpire at the Legion, high school, and Little League levels. Minor league baseball in Minneapolis was a favorite.

First memory of baseball: Probably of my father umpiring on a Sunday afternoon game in the neighborhood city park.

Greatest baseball moment: Having a field pass for the seventh game of the 1965 World Series and mingling with players and media people before the game on the field.

Greatest baseball movie: Difficult choice, but I still have a fondness for Bang the Drum Slowly.

Worst baseball movie: Easy choice. Babe Ruth, the John Goodman version is even worse than the William Bendix version.

Favorite baseball player: Hall of Fame third baseman Ray Dandridge, I saw him when he played in Minneapolis.

Favorite baseball writer: I still think the best writing on baseball I have ever read is the fiction of Robert Coover.

Baseball movie that should be made: A film based on Robert Coover's Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. would be something to behold.

Academic background: Ph.D. in Communications (Advertising) and Marketing, University of Tennessee-Knoxville. Previously taught at the Goizueta Business School, Emory University, Cal State-Fullerton, Texas A&M, LSU and Pepperdine University.

Interest in baseball: I’ve been a player and fan since I was old enough to walk. It's as much a part of me as breathing.

First memory of baseball: Tossing the ball with my father in the yard when I was four-years-old.

Greatest baseball moment: Spending two hours with Hank Aaron discussing the ethnocentricity of baseball trading cards.

Academic background: Professor of English and Film Studies at the University of Rochester, where I teach mostly American literature (especially modern) and film. Aside from many articles, essays, and reviews on baseball, I publish a great deal on detective fiction and related genres, and film. In addition to scholarly work on film, I write a weekly movie review for City Newspaper, an alternative weekly in Rochester, and do another weekly review on WXXI-FM, an NPR affiliate in Rochester.

Interest in baseball: Stems from my childhood on Long Island, when three major league teams played in New York and I spent my summers reading books and playing baseball. I have followed the sport as a fan and as a scholar for almost my whole career.

First memory of baseball: Besides playing in grade school, is the 1947 season and World Series of 1947, when I became a Brooklyn Dodgers fan (I have never ceased since then, despite their departure from Brooklyn).

Greatest baseball moment: Many, especially three World Series, 1955, 1963, and 1981, but especially 1955, glorious year, when the Dodgers beat the Yankees.

Greatest baseball movie: The best baseball movie may be Bull Durham, which catches some of the humor, irony, and gritty reality of the game; a couple of others have some scenic and sentimental charm—The Natural and Field of Dreams.

Worst baseball movie: A very difficult choice, but perhaps Safe at Home might qualify, though it's merely one among many.

Favorite baseball player: Pee Wee Reese—he was a wonderful player on a wonderful team, and as I later found out, a terrific human being; also as a then-undersized shortstop—I grew later—I identified with him; I loved the guy and still do, as a man, as a player, as a Dodger.

Favorite baseball writer: Roger Kahn, whose Boys of Summer is still about the best book ever written on baseball and what it can mean.

Favorite baseball broadcaster: Vin Scully—you don't have to be a Dodger fan to know he is the best, at baseball, at language, at life behind the microphone; whoever is second isn't even close.

Baseball movie that should be made: A film of Robert Coover's Universal Baseball Association, one of the two most brilliant baseball novels of them all. I'd love to make it myself and immodestly believe I'm the guy to do it, employing mixtures of animation and live action, interpenetrating shots, scenes, and sequences, morphing
characters, ritualized action, etc.

Academic Background: Professor of Communications at California State University, Fullerton specializing in film studies; also taught at Syracuse University and University of Massachusetts. B.A. from Penn State; Master's and Ph.D. from Syracuse University. Former disc jockey and news director for radio stations in Hazleton, PA; State College, PA; and Syracuse, NY.

Early memories of baseball: Recreations of actual broadcasts of games. I don't know if anyone understands what recreations are, but essentially, the local sports announcer "called" the game as information came over the news wire services. This was done in small towns in Pennsylvania. George didn't do these but worked at stations were it was done. His true passion for baseball emerged somewhat late in his life, but once it enveloped him, he couldn’t get enough of it—from watching games on TV, to reading books, to going to Anaheim Stadium to watch the Angels, to studying the game’s evolution through film.

Favorite baseball movie moment: "Who's on First?" by Abbott and Costello (in Naughty Nineties and One Night in the Tropics).

Greatest baseball moment: Visiting Cooperstown and the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in 1994 when he was among friends and fellow authors during the presentation of their paper on non-baseball films. The development and presentation of that research at the Symposium on Baseball and American Culture became the genesis of Reel Baseball. Never did he feel as close to the game as he did during those few joyous days.

Academic background: Associate Professor of Communication and Forensics Coach, Boise State University.

Your interest in baseball: Beyond a life-long fan's passion for the game, baseball interests me as the American institution that seems to most clearly reflect our culture's salient ideological aspirations.

First memory of baseball: A brutally cold night game in Candlestick Park's inaugural season. I fell asleep, but I am reliably informed the Giants won.

Greatest baseball moment: My bases-loaded, game-winning triple (or three-base error, depending on how you scored it) in the championship game of my otherwise undistinguished first season in Pony League Baseball. After that, I was hooked.

Greatest baseball movie: Pride of the Yankees (1942). The only baseball movie to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture until Field of Dreams, and the only one other than The Natural to deserve one.

Worst baseball movie: Roogie's Bump (1954). Few films are so bad in so many ways.

Favorite baseball player: Edgar Martinez who was a good and decent man and the finest right-handed hitter who will never be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Favorite baseball writer: Henry Chadwick. More than its first best promoter, he was baseball’s original conscience.

Academic background: Ph.D., University of Oregon, 1983, Telecommunication and Film; taught at Boise State University since 1985.

Interest in baseball: As a fan, I just love watching the game. As an academic, I am interested in the ideological meanings of baseball. My research focuses on the vision of what constitutes an ideal culture contained within baseball’s ideology, and the ways that vision is represented in baseball films.

First Memory of baseball: Going to Boise Braves (Class C, Pioneer League) games as a kid.

Worst baseball movie: It’s a toss-up between Chasing Dreams and Blue Skies Again.

Favorite baseball broadcaster: No one in particular at the moment. I miss broadcasters like Dizzy Dean, Pee Wee Reese, and even Joe Garagiola. The contemporary “I’ve been to Broadcasting School” types don’t do much for me.

Baseball Movie That Should Be Made: Kinsella’s The Iowa Baseball Confederacy. I think this would have made an even better baseball film than Field of Dreams.

Academic background: Chairman of the History Department at State University of New York at Oneonta. A specialist in U.S. social history, my teaching responsibilities include a course in sport history. Editor of The Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture, 2000 and The Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture, 2001, anthologies published by McFarland.

Interest in baseball: For me, baseball is life. It’s all there—fathers and sons, loves won and loves lost, times past and times to come. Baseball is my vantage point to everything else.

First memory of baseball: I remember myself as a very young boy watching my father play the outfield for a team called the Mohawks. I can still picture Dad running down a fly ball.

Greatest baseball moment: My son Joe had played first base the whole game; then in the last inning with his team one run ahead and the bases loaded and no outs, Joe was called in to pitch. He struck out the side.

Greatest baseball movie: Field of Dreams is my favorite baseball movie. I once served as the driver for W. P. Kinsella, the author whose writings provided the basis for the film.

Worst baseball movie: The Babe Ruth Story, William Bendix was great as Chester A. Riley, but not as George Herman Ruth.

Favorite baseball player: My two favorite baseball players are Hank Greenberg and Ted Williams.

Favorite baseball writer: Roger Kahn—The Boys of Summer is a classic. I once had the honor of editing one of his essays.

Favorite baseball broadcaster: I grew up with the Red Sox of the 1950s, and Curt Gowdy was the voice of summer.

Baseball movie that should be made: The life of Ted Williams—peerless hitter, war hero, American original—would make a great movie.

Academic background: Instructor of Integrative Arts in the College of Arts and Architecture at the Pennsylvania State University, with an emphasis on popular culture and mass media. Written for numerous popular culture journals and sports magazines, and presently finishing a dissertation/book on Babe Ruth and the Media of the 1920's.

Interest in baseball: I grew up playing baseball in various organizations and semi-professional leagues and have been a New York Yankee fan since 1958. I am particularly interested in baseball as a process of socialization and culture, and still collect baseball memorabilia and the card sets I had as a kid.

First memory of baseball: Playing baseball with my father in the backyard and then listening to the Cleveland Indians on the radio in the 1950s. When my brother and I wanted to root for the Tribe, my father insisted we pick different teams so that we could root against one another; my brother picked the Red Sox and I selected the Yankees, to my father's dying regret.

Greatest baseball moment: Hitting a game winning home run in old Buffalo County Stadium (the same place Roy Hobbs hit his in The Natural) but mine did not set off any fireworks or showers of light.

Greatest baseball movie: The Natural and Eight Men Out. The one I most want to see is the 1927 Babe Comes Home, but all prints have disappeared, because of a studio fire at First National in 1929.

Favorite baseball writer: Mark Harris as a novelist (Bang the Drum Slowly and The Southpaw), Roger Kahn as historian and Red Smith as columnist.

Baseball movie that should be made: There has never been an accurate or good film made about the life of Babe Ruth; it would be amazing: part biography, part pornography, and all tall tales.