The Baseball Reliquary will present the
2007 Induction Day ceremony for its ninth class
of electees to the Shrine of the Eternals on
Sunday, July 22, 2007, beginning at 2:00 PM, at
the Donald R. Wright Auditorium in the Pasadena
Central Library, 285 East Walnut Street,
Pasadena, California. The doors will open at
1:30 PM, and admission is open to the public and
free of charge. The inductees will be Yogi
Berra, Jim Brosnan, and Bill James. The keynote
address will be delivered by Tomas Benitez. In
addition, the Baseball Reliquary will honor the
recipients of the 2007 Hilda Award, Cass Sapir,
and the 2007 Tony Salin Memorial Award, Mark
Rucker.
The festivities will commence with
an Induction Day tradition, the ceremonial bell
ringing in honor of the late Brooklyn Dodgers
fan Hilda Chester; everyone who attends is
encouraged to bring a bell to ring for the
occasion. The National Anthem and “Take Me Out
to the Ball Game” will be performed on the
ukulele by multi-instrumentalist Don Kirby.
For further information, contact the
Baseball Reliquary by phone at (626) 791-7647 or
by e-mail at
terymar@earthlink.net. The 2007 Induction
Day is co-sponsored by the Pasadena Public
Library and is made possible, in part, by a
grant from the Los Angeles County Board of
Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts
Commission.
2007 INDUCTEES
The highest honor afforded an
individual by the Baseball Reliquary is election
to the Shrine of the Eternals. Three individuals
are elected on an annual basis in voting
conducted by the membership of the Reliquary.
Similar in concept to the National Baseball Hall
of Fame, the Shrine of the Eternals differs
philosophically in that statistical
accomplishment is not a criterion for election;
the Shrine, rather, honors individuals who have
impacted the baseball landscape in ways that do
not necessarily have anything to do with
numbers. The 2007 electees, a class which has
made significant contributions to the language
and literature of baseball, will join previous
inductees Jim Abbott, Dick Allen, Moe Berg, Ila
Borders, Jim Bouton, Roberto Clemente, Rod
Dedeaux, Dock Ellis, Mark Fidrych, Curt Flood,
Josh Gibson, William “Dummy” Hoy, Shoeless Joe
Jackson, Bill “Spaceman” Lee, Marvin Miller,
Minnie Minoso, Satchel Paige, Jimmy Piersall,
Pam Postema, Jackie Robinson, Lester Rodney,
Fernando Valenzuela, Bill Veeck Jr., and Kenichi
Zenimura.
The master of the malapropism and
one of the most popular figures in baseball
history, LAWRENCE PETER “YOGI” BERRA
played 19 seasons in the major leagues
(1946-1965), all but four games of it with the
New York Yankees, and later went on to both
coach and manage. One of only a few catchers to
ever field 1.000 in a season (1958), Berra was
acknowledged as a master at handling a pitching
staff and was behind the plate for Don Larsen’s
perfect game in the 1956 World Series. Berra was
also a feared slugger and one of the greatest
clutch hitters of all time, with 358 career home
runs and five 100-plus RBI seasons. But it was
his unique persona that transcended the game.
Berra endeared himself to millions of Americans,
not just baseball fans, and graciously absorbed
their affectionate teasing for his mangled
phrases and colorful expressions that became
known as “Yogi-isms.” When his career was over,
Berra played on a record ten World Series
champions and in an unmatched 14 World Series.
Yogi Berra is unable to attend the
ceremony due to a previous charity commitment.
His induction will be accepted by CHARLIE
SILVERA, who spent nine years with the
Yankees as a backup catcher, playing in the
shadow of Yogi Berra but at the same time
garnering six championship rings. Silvera, who
went on to coach and scout for several major
league teams (he still works as a scout for the
Chicago Cubs), has graciously agreed to stand in
for Berra once again and to tell a few anecdotes
about his illustrious former teammate.
Nicknamed “The Professor” by his
peers, the spectacled and scholarly JIM
BROSNAN was not only a consistent relief
pitcher during his nine-year major league career
(1954-1963), but also the author of two
best-selling autobiographies that traded not on
the lascivious or outrageous but on the simple
daily grind – the camaraderie, humor, surprises,
and disappointments – of life in the big
leagues. His 1960 book, The Long Season,
a diary of Brosnan’s 1959 season with the St.
Louis Cardinals and Cincinnati Reds, took
readers inside the world of the professional
ballplayer in ways that had never occurred
before. The Long Season didn’t rely on
sex, drugs, and bad behavior to sell
(euphemisms, anonymity, and decorum prevailed
throughout), but rather on the quick wit,
irreverent appeal, and keen observances of
Brosnan, a constant reader and self-proclaimed
bibliophile. The book received raves from the
public and sportswriters, though some
ballplayers were not as generous and saw the
book as a betrayal of fraternal rules. Brosnan
never viewed the book as a betrayal; he simply
wrote the human side of what he saw. After his
1959 trade to Cincinnati, Brosnan teamed up with
lefty Bill Henry to create one of the most
lethal one-two punches in bullpen history. He
also found time to write another book,
Pennant Race, a diary of the 1961 season in
which the Reds won the National League flag.
Brosnan retired in 1963 with a record of 55-47
and 67 saves (figured retroactively) and has
continued to write newspaper and magazine
articles along with baseball books for young
readers.
Jim Brosnan is unable to attend the
ceremony due to health reasons. His induction
will be accepted by longtime Sports
Illustrated contributor and former
Chicago Sun-Times sports columnist,
JOHN SCHULIAN. Schulian’s widely
anthologized work has been included in many
sports books, and his recently published
Twilight of the Long-ball Gods: Dispatches from
the Disappearing Heart of Baseball
reaffirmed his status as one of the finest
sportswriters of our time.
An author, historian, and statistics
analyst, Kansas native BILL JAMES
has been one of the most influential figures in
baseball since he turned his inquisitive sights
on the game in the mid-1970s. Using his annual
Baseball Abstracts to question
conventional wisdom, he developed his own
analytical tools (Runs Created, Win Shares,
Pythagorean Winning Percentage, et al.) with
which he tweaked the nose of the major league
establishment and revolutionized the way fans,
the media, and baseball insiders think about the
game. The corn-fed clarity of his writing style,
combined with an acerbic wit and careful
presentation of data in the Abstracts and
subsequent books, made James the most widely
read and imitated apostle of sabermetrics, the
search for objective knowledge about baseball
(after SABR, the acronym for the Society for
American Baseball Research). James’ knowledge of
the game also made him a valuable asset for
players and agents, some of whom hired him to
assist in arbitration battles with management.
Since 2003, James has been employed by the
Boston Red Sox as Senior Baseball Operations
Advisor, giving him a chance to put some of his
theories into practice. In addition, since 2006,
James’ life and ideas have been chronicled in
two books, The Mind of Bill James: How a
Complete Outsider Changed Baseball, written
by Scott Gray and published by Doubleday, and
How Bill James Changed Our View of Baseball,
edited by Gregory F. Augustine Pierce and
published by ACTA Sports.
Bill James will be in attendance to
personally accept his induction, and he will be
introduced by RICH LEDERER, a
Southern California native and a major
contributor to the Baseball Analysts Web site,
which utilizes a sabermetric approach in
examining college, minor league, and major
league players and teams.
KEYNOTE ADDRESS AND AWARDS
The keynote address for the
2007 Induction Day will be presented by
TOMAS J. BENITEZ, who has been an artist
and arts administrator for over 25 years. He has
contributed immensely to numerous Los Angeles
community-based organizations, including serving
as Executive Director of Self-Help Graphics and
Art and currently as Development Director for
Plaza de la Raza. Also a baseball fan and
scholar, Benitez has worked closely with the
Baseball Reliquary as an advisor on the highly
successful and multi-faceted project,
Mexican-American Baseball in Los Angeles: From
the Barrios to the Big Leagues.
The ceremony will also feature the
presentation of the 2007 Hilda Award, named in
memory of the beloved Brooklyn Dodgers fan Hilda
Chester and given annually to a fan for his/her
extraordinary passion for and dedication to
baseball. This year’s recipient is CASS
SAPIR, who traveled to 189 minor league
and major league stadiums in 157 days during the
2006 baseball season, an odyssey which saw him
raise $25,000, and generate enormous publicity,
for the Jimmy Fund, a Boston-based charity that
raises funds for cancer research.
Another highlight of the ceremony
will be the presentation of the 2007 Tony Salin
Memorial Award, named for the late baseball
author and researcher, which annually honors one
individual for his/her dedication to preserving
baseball history. This year’s recipient is
MARK RUCKER, prominent baseball photo
archivist and founder and president of the
Boulder, Colorado-based Transcendental Graphics,
an historical photo agency which, in Rucker’s
words, “aims to preserve the strange and
marvelous” and “has successfully distracted all
who know him from his true life’s work.” Rucker
has provided baseball images of all kinds to
countless books and projects, including Ken
Burns’ multi-part film series Baseball
and ESPN documentaries. |