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THE HILDA AWARD
Named in memory
of legendary Brooklyn Dodgers baseball fan Hilda
Chester, the Hilda Award was established in 2001
by the Baseball Reliquary to recognize
distinguished service to the game by a baseball
fan. The award is an old cowbell, Hilda
Chester’s signature noisemaker, encased and
mounted in a Plexiglas box bearing an engraved
inscription. The Hilda is awarded annually at
the Baseball Reliquary’s Shrine of the Eternals
Induction Day. The recipients are as follows:
2001: REA WILSON
In the summer of 2000, at the age of 77, Rea
Wilson of Seal Beach, California made a
pilgrimage to all thirty Major League ballparks,
traveling alone and sleeping in her van, making
a trip that she and her husband had dreamed of
before he succumbed to cancer in 1993.
2002: DR. SETH HAWKINS
Affectionately referred to by his friends as Dr.
Fan, retired professor and St. Paul, Minnesota
resident Seth Hawkins has pursued a lifelong
desire to bear witness to baseball history.
Among the many baseball milestones he has been
present for is every 3,000th hit recorded in the
Major Leagues since 1959 (total of 19). He also
witnessed Henry Aaron’s 715th career home run
and Pete Rose’s 4000th career hit as well as
numbers 4,191 and 4,192, the hits that tied and
broke Ty Cobb’s all-time career mark. He was on
hand for the 300th career wins of Phil Niekro,
Don Sutton, and Tom Glavine. And the list goes
on.
2003: RUTH ROBERTS
A lifelong New York baseball fan, Ruth Roberts
of Port Chester, New York has expressed her love
of the game through writing music and lyrics for
some of the liveliest baseball anthems of the
last half century. Along with her frequent
collaborator, Bill Katz, Roberts wrote the 1956
song, "I Love Mickey," a celebration of Mickey
Mantle which was recorded by Teresa Brewer, and
followed that up in 1960 with "It’s a Beautiful
Day for a Ball Game." In 1963, she wrote "Meet
the Mets," which is played before every Mets
home game. In fact, the song is such a staple
among generations of New York baseball
enthusiasts that some diehard Mets fans have
requested that, upon their death, "Meet the
Mets" be sung at their funeral before their
casket is closed.
2004: JENNIE REIFF
A graduate of Pitzer College in Claremont,
California, where she majored in American
History, Jennie Reiff is so obsessed with
baseball played in a bygone era that she goes to
Halloween parties dressed up as her favorite
19th century ballplayer, Big Ed Delahanty, and
hands out cards with his biography since no one
at the parties has any idea who he is.
2005: DR. DAVID FLETCHER
Among an extremely rare breed of Chicago
baseball fans who root for both the White Sox
and the Cubs, Dr. David Fletcher started a
campaign and Web site to reinstate to the ranks
of Organized Baseball one of the most acclaimed
infielders of the deadball era, Buck Weaver, one
of the notorious Black Sox players who was
banished from professional baseball for life in
1920. Fletcher, who in 1998 was married at home
plate where the old Comiskey Park once stood,
has also launched an ambitious project to build
the Chicago Baseball Museum.
2006: BILL MURRAY
Comedian and actor Bill Murray, the first
"celebrity fan" to receive the Hilda, is a
Chicago Cubs fan extraordinaire and part owner
of the St. Paul Saints (a franchise in the
American Association, an independent
professional baseball league), for whom he also
serves in the capacity of team psychologist.
2007: CASS SAPIR
In 2006, documentary filmmaker Cass Sapir
crisscrossed the nation in an old Honda,
traveling to every Minor League and Major League
ballpark, a total of 189 stadiums, in an
astounding 157 days. The Cambridge,
Massachusetts resident used his self-financed
road trip (maybe "odyssey" is a more appropriate
term) as a means of raising money and awareness
for the Jimmy Fund, a Boston-based charity that
raises funds for cancer research.
2008: JOHN ADAMS
A baseball fan whose devotion to the hometown
team has reached almost mythic proportions, John
Adams of Brecksville, Ohio is celebrating in
2008 his 35th consecutive year of pounding his
bass drum in the bleachers at Cleveland Indians
games, come rain or shine. Adams has twice
thrown out a ceremonial first pitch at Jacobs
Field and was honored in 2007 with his own
bobblehead night (naturally, it was designed so
that his arms could be bobbled up and down to
bang on a toy drum).
2009: BOB COLLEARY
A
Brooklyn-born TV writer now living in Los
Angeles, Bob Colleary is a collector of relics
from baseball’s past. At one time or another he
owned Donn Clendenon’s 1969 Mets World Series
ring, Babe Ruth’s spittoon, and the lineup card
from Game Six of the 1975 World Series which was
won by Carlton Fisk’s 12th-inning
homer. As a gift to his long-suffering Bucky
Dented Red Sox fan friends, he also performed a
complex ritualistic exorcism which Reversed The
Curse using a straight razor which had once
shaved Babe Ruth. While much of his collection
has been redistributed throughout the collecting
landscape, his prized possession remains Bill
Veeck’s wooden leg, which is the centerpiece of
his Strat-o-Matic baseball league of the same
name. The annual draft lottery is conducted each
New Year’s Eve by placing dice inside the leg
and rolling them onto the floor.
2010: SISTER MARY ASSUMPTA ZABAS
A
member of the Roman Catholic women’s religious
community of the Sisters of the Holy Spirit
since 1962, Sister Mary’s passion for baseball
has been focused largely on her beloved
Cleveland Indians. She wrote and edited her own
segment, “Tribe Habit,” for the ABC television
news affiliate in Cleveland.
Baking cookies for the Indians players
since 1984 eventually led to a small business
operation called “Nun Better” Cookies, with the
profits helping support her religious community.
She also had two cameo appearances in the
1989 film,
Major League, and even has her own baseball
card (made by Upper Deck in 1997).
2011: CHRIS ERSKINE
Chris Erskine’s weekly columns in the
Los
Angeles Times, “Man of the House” and “Fan
of the House,” have been widely lauded for their
wry insights and (often) tongue-in-cheek
celebrations of fatherhood, life in the suburbs,
and sports as a way of establishing
relationships with children and sharing a
distinct sense of belonging with others in his
community.
His wide-ranging observations on the
national pastime always come from the
perspective of a fan, engaging baseball with a
warmth and poignancy which allow his readers to
reflect on the enduring nature of being a true
supporter.
Whether ruminating on the experience of
being a volunteer coach for Little League
baseball or rhapsodizing about a Chicago-style
hot dog at an Angels game, he examines the
myriad ways that baseball allows fans to pass
time and to connect with their personal
histories.
2012: ARNOLD HANO
Arnold Hano attended his first baseball game in
New York in 1926 as a child, and saw all the
greats of that era from his seat in the
bleachers.
Memorable moments he witnessed in
baseball history include the last game Babe Ruth
pitched for the New York Yankees (1933), Don
Larsen’s perfect game in the World Series
(1956), and Sandy Koufax’s first no-hitter
(1962).
His account of the first game of the 1954
World Series between his beloved New York Giants
and the Cleveland Indians,
A Day in
the Bleachers, is a classic of baseball
literature and one of the most enduring
expressions of the meaning of fanhood,
especially of those who sit in the bleacher
seats.
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