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SHRINE OF THE ETERNALS:
2011 INDUCTION DAY
Sunday, July 17, 2011 ~ 2:00 pm
Donald R. Wright Auditorium, Pasadena Central
Library
285 E. Walnut Street, Pasadena,
California
The Baseball Reliquary will present the
2011 Induction Day ceremony for its thirteenth
class of electees to the Shrine of the Eternals
on Sunday, July 17, 2011, beginning at 2:00 pm,
at the Donald R. Wright Auditorium in the
Pasadena Central Library, 285 E. Walnut Street,
Pasadena, California.
As seating is limited, we encourage all
attendees to arrive by 1:30 pm when the
auditorium doors open; admission is open to the
public and free of charge.
The inductees will be Ted Giannoulas,
Pete Gray, and Maury Wills.
The keynote address will be delivered by
Jean Hastings Ardell.
In addition, the Baseball Reliquary will
honor the recipients of the 2011 Hilda Award,
Chris Erskine, and the 2011 Tony Salin Memorial
Award, Paul Dickson.
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.
For further information, contact the
Baseball Reliquary by phone at (626) 791-7647 or
by e-mail at terymar@earthlink.net.
The 2011 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.
The following is an overview of the day’s
activities:
NATIONAL ANTHEM
The National Anthem and “Take Me Out to
the Ball Game” will be performed by
JON
LEONOUDAKIS, a hardcore baseball fan,
filmmaker, and lead singer and guitarist for two
local bands: The Bluez Express and Johnny Octane
& The Carburetors.
Leonoudakis is one of the producers of
the internationally acclaimed documentary,
The
Wrecking Crew, about the elite group of Los
Angeles studio musicians that helped fuel an
ocean of hit records in the 1950s, ‘60s, and
early ‘70s.
He produced and directed
5:04
p.m.: A First Person Account of the 1989 World
Series Earthquake Game, which the Baseball
Reliquary premiered in 2009.
Leonoudakis is currently at work on a new
documentary,
Not
Exactly Cooperstown: A Year in the Life of the
Baseball Reliquary, set to premiere in
Burbank on September 17, 2011.
2011 INDUCTEES
Hatched in 1974,
TED
GIANNOULAS is one of baseball’s greatest
entertainers as The San Diego Chicken (or The
Famous Chicken), the most popular and iconic of
the mascots that became staples of major league
baseball teams in the 1970s.
In 1974, while a student at San Diego
State University, Giannoulas took a $2-an-hour
job during spring break, wearing a rented
chicken suit for local radio station KGB-FM and
passing out promotional eggs at the San Diego
Zoo.
That gig was so successful that he
decided to give the act a try at home games of
the San Diego Padres, who were so woeful that
they were willing to consider just about
anything to boost attendance.
In no time at all, the Chicken was
running circles around the Padres’ then-mascot,
the pudgy and balding Swinging Friar.
In his book,
Big Hair
and Plastic Grass: A Funky Ride Through Baseball
and America in the Swinging ‘70s, Dan
Epstein notes, “It was love at first cluck
between the KGB Chicken and Padres fans, who
loudly cheered the Chicken’s every pratfall and
prank – especially when the latter came at the
expense of the umpires and visiting players.”
The Chicken would soon become an
entertainment revolution, with people coming to
the ballpark to see him as much as to see the
game, maybe more.
To many fans, the Chicken became a
virtual folk hero, mocking the ceremonious,
parodying the powerful, and cavorting with
gleeful irreverence.
Even the Federal courts sanctioned the
Chicken’s shtick.
In 1999, when the creators of Barney the
Dinosaur sued Giannoulas for pummeling a Barney
lookalike, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals ruled in the Chicken’s favor, citing
“he was engaged in a sophisticated critique of
society’s acceptance of this ubiquitous and
insipid creature,” thus giving him the legal
go-ahead to continue stomping on the annoying
purple dinosaur’s head at ballparks from coast
to coast.
Giannoulas’s comic and mime abilities,
painstaking work ethic, and tolerance for heat
stress conditions have earned him the reputation
as the “Sir Laurence Olivier of mascots.”
He prides himself in not missing an
engagement in over three decades and in
developing an extraordinary relationship with
the fans; the Chicken is often seen signing
autographs at ballparks well past midnight, long
after the players have gone home.
Ted Giannoulas will personally accept his
induction and will be introduced by
ANDY
STRASBERG, who worked for 22 years for the
San Diego Padres in a variety of advertising,
marketing, and promotional capacities.
During his tenure, Strasberg worked
closely with Giannoulas for many memorable
events and routines.
They promoted a Chicken Season Ticket
package, premium giveaway items featuring the
Chicken’s likeness, and many TV ad campaigns
such as the Padres’ “Go See Cal” parody that
included Tony Gwynn as a member of San Diego
State’s baseball team.
In addition to the Padres relationship,
Strasberg was able to negotiate the Chicken’s
appearance on a Donruss baseball card and
co-authored a baseball trivia book with him.
PETE GRAY (1915-2002) remains the lasting
symbol of baseball and World War II.
The one-armed outfielder (he lost his
right arm in a childhood accident) was a
semi-pro star in the coal towns of his native
Pennsylvania and with the famed Brooklyn
Bushwicks.
Gray entered professional baseball in
1942, garnering national attention in 1944 when
he batted .333 for the Memphis Chicks, hit five
home runs, tied a league record by stealing 68
bases, and was named the Southern Association’s
Most Valuable Player.
This extraordinary season earned Gray a
shot with the St. Louis Browns in 1945.
Even with the quality of major league
play at an all-time low due to the World War II
player shortage, Gray was clearly overmatched at
this level, hitting .218 with no home runs in 77
games.
Nonetheless, Gray was a wonder to watch,
and was a study in agility and dexterity as an
outfielder.
After catching a fly ball, Gray would
tuck his glove under his stump, roll the ball
across his chest, and throw, all in one nimble
and fluid motion.
When baseball returned to full strength
in 1946, Gray returned to the minors, and he
barnstormed with exhibition teams for several
more years until retiring to his hometown of
Nanticoke, Pennsylvania.
Gray’s major league career, albeit brief,
was an astonishing and inspirational triumph of
will, causing
Washington Post sports columnist Shirley
Povich to remark, “What Gray might have
accomplished in the big leagues if blessed with
two arms is something for the imagination to
play with.
Surely he would have been one of the
greatest big leaguers of all time.”
Pete Gray’s induction will be accepted by
NELSON
GARY JR., who grew up in Los Angeles and,
like Gray, lost his right arm as a young boy.
In 1944, at the age of three, Gary flew
to Memphis to meet his baseball hero, thus
beginning a lifelong friendship with Pete Gray.
Their initial meeting was a highlight of
the 1986 made-for-TV movie on the life of Pete
Gray, A
Winner Never Quits.
Inspired by Gray, Gary went on to
play baseball at Van Nuys High School and
Occidental College, where he graduated with a
degree in political science.
He currently resides in Atlanta and is
chairman of Leech Gary Asset Management.
MAURY WILLS is universally credited with
returning the stolen base as an offensive weapon
to the National League in the 1960s and setting
the table for future speedsters Lou Brock, Tim
Raines, and Rickey Henderson.
Born in 1932, the Washington, D.C. native
spent nearly ten years in the minor leagues
before he got his shot as a rookie with the Los
Angeles Dodgers in 1959.
The fleet, switch-hitting shortstop
pilfered 50 bases in 1960, the most ever by an
NL player since Max Carey in 1923.
The run-starved Dodgers of the 1960s
turned Wills loose at every opportunity.
Between 1960 and 1965, Wills led the NL
in thefts in six consecutive seasons, including
a then-record 104 stolen bases in 1962 on his
way to copping the NL’s Most Valuable Player
Award.
Wills’s legs led the Dodgers to three
World Series appearances in 1963, 1965, and
1966.
He also received many other kudos,
including Gold Gloves, All-Star Game
nominations, and an All-Star Game MVP.
Wills finished his playing career in 1972
(which also included stints with the Pirates and
Expos), winding up with 586 stolen bases to
complement a .281 lifetime batting average.
Wills briefly managed the Seattle
Mariners in 1980-81, was a baseball analyst for
NBC Sports, watched his son Bump mature into a
major league infielder, worked as a trainer for
numerous MLB teams, and taught the art of base
stealing in Osaka, Japan.
Wills currently works with a variety of
philanthropic organizations, drug abuse
programs, and children’s groups.
Now in his late seventies, life hasn’t
slowed down a whit for Maury Wills – he remains
a man on the go, go, go.
Maury Wills will personally accept his
induction and will be introduced by
FRED
CLAIRE, who was a member of the Los Angeles
Dodgers’ front office from 1969 through 1998 and
served the team as its general manager from 1987
until 1998.
He currently is a columnist for MLB.com
and is a member of the board of the Rose Bowl
Operating Company, the First Tee program of
Pasadena, and the Special Olympics of Southern
California.
Claire has taught and lectured for the
Annenberg School at the University of Southern
California for the past 12 years.
KEYNOTE ADDRESS
The keynote address for the 2011
Induction Day will be presented by
JEAN
HASTINGS ARDELL, who grew up in New York
City, the daughter of a mother who loved books
and a father who loved the New York Giants.
A freelance writer since 1988, Jean has
covered a range of subjects, from domestic
violence and Orange County politics to the
environment, but she always returns to baseball.
Each March, she co-chairs the Nine Spring
Training Conference in Arizona; nearly each
June, she speaks at the Cooperstown Symposium on
Baseball and American Culture; and each July,
she attends the Baseball Reliquary’s Shrine of
the Eternals Induction Day.
(In 2003, she introduced pitcher Ila
Borders’ induction into the Shrine.)
She co-edited
Endless
Seasons: Baseball in Southern California,
which will be published in July for the 2011
SABR national convention, and is the recipient
of the 1999 SABR/USA
Today Baseball Weekly Award for Research.
Jean’s baseball writing has appeared in
the Los
Angeles Times, The Sporting News, Elysian Fields
Quarterly, The Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball
and American Culture anthology, and
Nine: A
Journal of Baseball History and Culture.
Her memoir appears in
Diamonds
Are a Girl’s Best Friend: Women Writers on
Baseball (Faber and Faber, 1994).
Her book
Breaking
into Baseball: Women and the National Pastime
was published by Southern Illinois
University Press in 2005.
It had a “cup of coffee” – one week – on
the Los
Angeles Times list of bestsellers, is in
more than 600 libraries, and continues to be
taught in sports history courses at New York
University, Union College, and the University of
San Francisco, among others.
Jean lives in Southern California with
her husband Dan, who in 1961 played first base
for the Los Angeles Angels.
More information on Jean Hastings Ardell
can be found at her Web site:
www.jeanardell.com.
HILDA AWARD
Established in 2001 in memory of Hilda
Chester, the legendary Brooklyn Dodgers fan, the
Hilda Award recognizes distinguished service to
the game by a baseball fan.
To Baseball Reliquarians, the award is
comparable to the Oscar or Emmy: it acknowledges
the devotion and passion of baseball fans, and
the many ways in which they exhibit their love
affair with the national pastime.
The 2011 Hilda recipient,
CHRIS
ERSKINE, has been both graphics editor and a
columnist with the
Los
Angeles Times since 1998.
Starting as a copy editor on the
Times’
national desk in 1990, he advanced to
graphics coordinator, assistant graphics editor,
and deputy graphics editor before assuming his
current position.
He came to Los Angeles from the
Times-Picayune in New Orleans, where he
spent 11 years on the news desk.
Prior to that, he worked for the
Hollywood
Sun-Tattler (Hollywood, Florida) and the
Des
Moines Register.
Erskine received bachelors’ degrees in
journalism and political science in 1978 from
Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa.
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, Chris Erskine
examines the myriad ways that baseball allows
fans to pass time and to connect with their
personal histories.
Chris Erskine will be present to accept
the Hilda Award.
TONY SALIN MEMORIAL AWARD
Established in 2002 to recognize
individuals for their commitment to the
preservation of baseball history, the Tony Salin
Memorial Award is named in honor of the baseball
historian, researcher, and Reliquarian who
passed away in 2001.
The 2011 Salin Award recipient,
PAUL
DICKSON, is the author of nearly 60
nonfiction books and hundreds of magazine
articles.
Although he has written on a variety of
subjects from ice cream to kite flying to
electronic warfare, he now concentrates on
writing about American language, 20th
century narrative history, and baseball.
Born in Yonkers, New York, Dickson
graduated from Wesleyan University in 1961 and
was honored as a Distinguished Alumnae of that
institution in 2001.
After graduation, he served in the U.S.
Navy and later worked as a reporter for
McGraw-Hill Publications.
Since 1968, he has been a full-time
freelance writer, contributing articles to
various newspapers and magazines, including the
New York
Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post,
Smithsonian, Esquire, The Nation, and
Town &
Country, and has authored numerous books.
His baseball titles include
The
Hidden Language of Baseball: How Signs and Sign
Stealing Have Influenced the Course of Our
National Pastime;
The Joy
of Keeping Score: How Scoring the Game Has
Influenced and Enhanced the History of Baseball;
Baseball’s Greatest Quotations (which came
out in a new and expanded edition in 2007);
Baseball:
The Presidents’ Game; and
The Worth
Book of Softball: A Celebration of America’s
True National Pastime.
His most recent baseball books are
The
Unwritten Rules of Baseball: The Etiquette,
Conventional Wisdom, and Axiomatic Codes of Our
National Pastime and
The
Dickson Baseball Dictionary: Third Edition,
which were both published in 2009, and
Baseball
Is . . .: Defining the National Pastime,
published in 2011.
Originally published in 1989,
The
Dickson Baseball Dictionary ranks as the
author’s most popular book.
The most authoritative and comprehensive
guide to baseball terminology ever compiled,
The
Dickson Baseball Dictionary was awarded the
1989 Macmillan-SABR Award for Baseball Research
and has been hailed as “a staggering piece of
scholarship” (Wall
Street Journal) and “absorbing and
enlightening reading” (Sports
Illustrated).
An expanded second edition came out in
1999, followed by a third edition in 2009 with
more than 10,000 entries and double the size of
the original.
Dickson is currently working on his first
biography, scheduled for publication in 2012,
which is tentatively titled
The Life
and Good Times of Bill Veeck – The Man Who
Changed Baseball.
A resident of Garrett Park, Maryland,
Dickson is a founding member and former
president of Washington Independent Writers and
a member of the National Press Club.
He is a contributing editor at
Washingtonian magazine, has served as a
consulting editor at Merriam-Webster, and
currently is sports editor with Dover
Publications.
More information on Paul Dickson can be
found at
www.pauldicksonbooks.com and
www.baseballdictionary.com.
Paul Dickson will be present to accept the Tony
Salin Memorial Award.
PARKING INFORMATION
Free parking is available in the
University of Phoenix underground parking
structure, which is located just north of the
Pasadena Central Library on the corner of
Garfield Avenue and Corson Street.
The entrance to the parking structure is
on Garfield.
Although the ceremony does not begin
until 2:00 pm, we encourage attendees to arrive
by 1:30 pm (when the doors to the auditorium
open) as seating is limited.
If you arrive when the library opens at
1:00 pm, this will allow you ample time to view
the Baseball Reliquary’s exhibition,
Patriotic
Pitch: The Empire of Baseball (see details
below), which is being presented in the display
cases in the North Entrance, Business and
Humanities Wings, and Centennial Room through
July 30.
BASEBALL RELIQUARY
EXHIBITION:
PATRIOTIC PITCH: THE EMPIRE OF BASEBALL
July 5-July 30, 2011
Pasadena Central Library
285 E. Walnut
Street, Pasadena, California
In conjunction with the 2011 Induction
Day ceremony of the Shrine of the Eternals, the
Baseball Reliquary presents
Patriotic
Pitch: The Empire of Baseball, a provocative
and eye-opening historical look at how the
“national pastime” has been used to sell and
export the American dream.
At home, baseball has often promoted
patriotism and nationalism, while beyond our
shores it has bolstered U.S. foreign and
military policies.
Mixing political analysis and baseball
lore, the exhibition is based on Robert Elias’s
book, The
Empire Strikes Out: How Baseball Sold U.S.
Foreign Policy and Promoted the American Way
Abroad (The New Press, 2010, ISBN
9781595581952).
The displays utilize photographs,
artworks, artifacts, and documents to illustrate
key elements of Elias’s original research, from
the myth of Abner Doubleday’s invention of
baseball to the game’s appearance in America’s
long history of wars, interventions, and
diplomacy.
Over 20 paintings and prints from artist
Ben Sakoguchi’s
Orange
Crate Label Series: The Unauthorized History of
Baseball offer further insight into the
exhibition’s narrative, driven by compelling
stories, unusual events, and unique individuals.
Patriotic Pitch: The Empire of Baseball will
run from July 5 through July 30, 2011 at the
Pasadena Central Library, 285 E. Walnut Street,
Pasadena, California.
The displays are found in several
locations throughout the library, including the
cases in the North Entrance, Business and
Humanities Wings, and Centennial Room.
Library hours are Monday-Thursday, 9:00
am-9:00 pm; Friday-Saturday, 9:00 am-6:00 pm;
and Sunday, 1:00-5:00 pm.
For further information, contact the
Baseball Reliquary by phone at (626) 791-7647 or
by e-mail at terymar@earthlink.net.
The exhibition is made possible, in part,
by a grant from the Los Angeles County Board of
Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts
Commission.
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