News Release

The crack of the bat. The smell of hot dogs. The eternal hope that the hometown team will go to the World Series. Baseball is in the air….With Opening Day just around the corner, three noted California baseball authors and researchers will welcome a new season as they discuss important new discoveries about long-overlooked chapters in the history of our national pastime during a panel discussion entitled Baseball’s Untold History: Women, the Gold Rush, and the Ancient Beginnings of the Game from 6 – 7:30 p.m. on March 30 in the Koret Auditorium at the Main Library.

Moderated by baseball expert and San Francisco State University history professor Jules Tygiel, Jean Ardell will describe her studies into the rich, bittersweet and perennially obscured relationship of women to the game of baseball; David Block will reveal his startling new findings about baseball’s true origins; and Angus MacFarlane, will present for the first time his surprising discoveries of the game during Gold Rush San Francisco.

Ardell, author of Breaking into Baseball: Women and the National Pastime, will take a frank look at how the pastime has severely limited women’s access to the game as players, umpires, and policymakers, and at how baseball has exploited women over the years. She also shows how that, despite this treatment, women have always been among the game’s biggest fans and boosters. Her book has been named a finalist for this year’s Seymour Medal.

Block, author of Seymour Medal finalist Baseball Before We Knew It: A Search for the Roots of the Game, will talk about the many myths and misconceptions surrounding the game’s origins. He’ll share his discoveries about the true history of baseball’s evolution in the 18th century, including the surprising role of women in this process.

MacFarlane, a San Franciso historian and longtime resident, will discuss his startling findings about early baseball in San Francisco. Conventional history has always dated the beginnings of baseball in San Francisco to the early 1860s, but MacFarlane has uncovered evidence of ballplaying during the Gold Rush era, and has a compelling theory as to the identity of those early players.

Tygiel’s book, Past Time: Baseball as History was awarded the prestigious Seymour Medal for 2001. His book Baseball’s Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and His Legacy, published in 1983, is considered the definitive Jackie Robinson biography.

This program is co-sponsored by the Lefty O’Doul Chapter of the Society for American Baseball Research, and is free and open to the public. For more information, please call (415) 557-4277.