on the prairie diamond

Via Ron Kaplan’s Baseball Bookshelf comes an announcement for the 15th annual Nine Spring Training Conference, March 13-16. If only we could be in Tuscon for Royse Parr’s presentation on “Ben Harjo’s All-Indian Baseball Club”:

Ben Harjo, a full-blood Creek Indian, formed a professional Indian baseball club that was financed by his oil-rich, full-blood Seminole Indian wife, Susey. After touring Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas by team bus in 1932, the team won the prestigious “Little World Series” in Denver, Colorado. In 1933, the team toured 15 states from their Holdenville, Oklahoma, home to Maine with 46-year-old Jim Thorpe initially as a gate attraction/coach and then as the playing manager.

Alas, we can only hope someone is kind enough to blog conference reports and dream of Cactus League play. Find the full program here.

Also via Ron Kaplan, a call to contribute to an anthology on “Baseball and Politics,” edited by Ron Briley:

This collection will focus upon the intersection between baseball and the political arena-nationally as well as locally. A diverse range of political opinion will be encouraged in the volume. Possible topics for investigation include:

* Racial integration and discrimination in the sport
* The politics of stadium construction and financing
* Baseball and the women’s question
* Gays in baseball
* Baseball and religion
* Baseball and imperialism
* Baseball and war (Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War, Iraq War)
* Political opinions and activities of baseball players and management [...]

For more topics and information about submitting, click here.

Image: Baseball Follows the Flag from the A.G. Spalding Baseball Collection, New York Public Library Digital Gallery.