What Does Whittier College Got That We Ain’t Got?

An Institute for Baseball Studies is what they got that we ain’t got.

EFL alum Joel Perez works at Whittier now. He sent me a link to this article on the Whittier College website, just to rub it in. It’s not the pig with the bat that gets me, nor even all the Chorizero artifacts.  What gets me is this:

“[The donation] strengthens holdings in international baseball and especially Latino baseball in the U.S.,” said Joe Price, the Genevieve Shaul Connik Professor of Religious Studies and co-director of the Institute for Baseball Studies. “It also helps provide local interest to students that will go to Cuba next year and take the course, El Beisbol, A Caribbean Adventure.”

Joe Price is a professor who probably gets load time, or scholarship release time, to “run” the “center” which I happen to know from earlier Joel Perez posts is just a corner in a conference room… and a vehicle for “scholarly” boondoggles to baseball sites for “research” purposes.

Like that “class” going to Cuba to watch baseball.

I like to think I’m a clever guy. I live on the delusion that I have good ideas. But I’m a piker next to Genevieve Shaul Connik Professor of Religious Studies and co-director of the IBS Joe Price and his pals. I have stuff as good they had when they started:

• three shelves of baseball books,
• several hundred baseball cards,
• a thirty-year-old Alan Trammell poster in mint condition,
• a picture of the 1984 Tigers roster on a wall plaque,
• a photo of the last pitch ever thrown at Tiger Stadium,
• street signs for the corner of Michigan and Trumbull,
• a street sign for Edgar Martinez Way,
• a Seattle Mariners Dustin Ackley jersey,
• An Aaron Hill bobblehead,
• An Ichiro Mariners bobblehead,
• a Felix Hernandez Perfect Game commemorative hand towel,
• baseball hats for three major league teams, a Cape Cod League team and the Bruins,
• A GF Bruins national baseball championship t-shirt, well-used,
• A Hagerstown Suns t-shirt, equally well-used,
• Several Mariners and Tigers shirts and sweatshirts in various states of use,
• A Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim scarf in its original packaging,
• Souvenir cups from Safeco, the Great American Ballpark, PNC Park in Pittsburgh, and the Nationals’ stadium.

(I used to have a fantasy baseball league trophy, but I can’t seem to lay a hand on it anymore.) That’s half of what we’d need to start our own corner-of-a-conference-room museum.   I bet we could get the rest from generous donors within our league! In fact, I just saw Mark W. sporting a snazzy Indianapolis Indians baseball cap.

But do we have the level of expertise required, especially in international and intercultural aspects of baseball? Well, I do have a ticket from the time I attended (one after tea session of) a five-day international test cricket match at Lord’s in London, where I talked about the relative merits of baseball and its cricket cousin with an Englishman wearing a Cubs hat.

I am going on sabbatical next fall. When John went on sabbatical he came back with a secret plan to draft Mike Trout.  He beat me to that idea.  So I need something else almost as worthwhile to show for my sabbatical. Maybe it will be the proposal for the Fox Institute of Baseball Studies (the FIBS).

At least our name will be honest.