, new york, that's why the baseball hall of fame is in cooperstown.t started subsequently you know that was basically a fiction created to further this miss of rural virtue. because in cities they were considered dirty and messy, and a gang full of immigrants and all that. this noble gang could not possibly you know have this there, so they devised this history. and they carried the day enough to get to the the hall of fame built in cooperstown. even now the hall of fame itself has acknowledged it is pretty much made up. >> so what of the actual origins? do you know? i don't know? >> there's a wonderful guy name john thorne, who is a fantastic writer. and he is now starting in major league baseball. and he wrote baseball in the garden of eden. it traces the early years of how the game itself developed. and in fact, it developed from many games, some of which are english games, like not only cricket, but rounders. and there were different versions played in different areas. a lot of it was in new england. >> like james mason or something? >> no no. and

, new york, which is why the baseball hall of fame is in cooperstown. baseball historians discovered that was basically a fiction created to further this myth of a kind of rural virtue because in cities -- cities were considered dirty and messy and full of immigrants and all that, this noble game could not possibly have really had its roots there. so they devised this history and it carried the day enough to get the hall of fame built in cooperstown, but, in fact, now even the hall of fame itself has acknowledged that it was pretty much made up. >> what is thought to be the actual origins? do you know? i don't know. >> yeah, there's a wonderful guy named john thorn who is a fantastic writer, who is the official historian of major league baseball who wrote a book called "baseball in the garden of eden" and it traces the early years of how the game itself developed. and, in fact, it developed from many games, some of which are english games like not only cricket, but rounders. and there were different versions played in different areas. a lot of it was in

collaboration the library did with major league baseball, espn, and the baseball hall of fame in cooperstown. we've got some incredible things here on display, things you've probably never seen before. let's start with some of the earliest. so right now we're standing in the front of the exhibit looking at origins and early days where we've got some interesting artifacts that suggest that baseball has a history that's much longer than the 19th century. in fact, we've got an example here from a medieval manuscript. these are little miniature figures that were part of the border of a book produced in 1334. and you can see here we've got a monk and a nun with a ball and a bat and a couple of monks and nuns in a very primitive outfield. but it shows you bats and balls were being played for centuries before europeans began calling different kinds of games baseball. our next stop here is this cute little book i absolutely adore. it's one of my favorite items in our collections. it's a little pretty pocketbook from 1787. and it includes here a little wood cut drawing of children playing baseball wi

. >> i would like to welcome you all to cooperstown. i'm the director here, david kent. we are very opportunity tonight to have an esteemed historian and award-winning writer who is not only an historian, but he's very into baseball. so it is a good combination because right now it is the 100th anniversary of one of the most infamous scandal inside baseball history, the black sox scandal where members of the chicago white sox were accused of throwing the world series to the cincinnati reds. and it -- it brought about many changes in baseball, including getting a commissioner and getting eight players on the white sox banned from baseball for life. so -- but, the story of that is not really a simple one. it's very complicated. so, the title of tonight's talk is called "field of myths." 100 years after baseball's 1919 black sox scandal. finally, separating the many myths from the reality. so this should be a fascinating talk, and i am excited to welcome david pietrusza our speaker tonight. >> well, thank you. [ applause ] >> yeah. we're -- we're gathered here, tonight, on

this was a collaboration with mlb, espn and the baseball hall of fame in cooperstown. today we will look at baseball fanatically, including the experience at the ballpark, the business of baseball, how immigrants and immigration have affected baseball and the art and science of winning. so this is our section on at the ballpark. what we have here is an original fire insurance map. and what this shows is that d.c.'s original baseball stadium was really in the heart of the urban community. you can see that it's next to a number of businesses and residences. we have a college of dentistry, a hospital and a lot of row houses here and a lot of fans would often gather late in the day to sit on the roofs and watch a free game of baseball. but what these fire insurance maps do, and we have them for a number of cities here in the library is show that these stadiums are right in the midst of their community. they're not out in some idyllic pasture as we kind of think of that with early baseball. this was updated in the early 20th century. another thing we're talking about here a

this is one of the holy grounds in baseball with cooperstown, with fenway park, wrigley field. of the first things that comes to mind is field of dreams. it encompasses all that is good not in the game but in life, family relationships, redemption, pursuing your dreams, going the distance. that has not been lost on major league baseball. >> this is number one, watching field of dreams as a kid, it's such a story that is even beyond baseball, an american story, it's a story about inspiration, about making dreams come true, about a father and son playing catch and listen, i'm just jealous i'm not with the yankees playing against the white sox or one of these kids that get to make their dreams come true. will: so just to give you a little bit of insight, todd and jillian, what makes this so special, the story goes that two weeks after the movie wrapped up, it debuted, the field was here but it was going to go back to being a corn field but if you build it they will come, people started showing up, people started showing up and taking the sights in and they realized i think we have

. >> on the game that they love in cooperstown, new york.i'm steve infanti. >> and now kron 4 sports. >> might something like a broken record yet because the giants are still the best team in baseball this weekend. the orange and black had a big-time weekend series against the nl central division-leading brewers looking to take the series with the win today. gabe kepler and company trying to maintain their four-game lead in the national league west and the sky has been on fire since coming back from injury. this week. brandon belt hit 2 home runs yesterday. today. he did it again as a pinch hitter this 2 run blast in the 7th that tied the game at 44 then in the 8th tommy la stella was also been red hot after coming back from injury ends with an 11 pitch at that with a single to center. brandon crawford scored the go ahead. run and eventual gamewinner giants win 5 to 4 to take 2 of 3 games from the brewers. have been playing for do well to a chance to sweep the raiders at the coliseum this afternoon. first inning oakland jumps out in front ri

eye that shortened his career, and why have the boston sports writers not voted dom dimaggio into cooperstown where he belongs. >> dominic, and certainly one of the greatest advocates for dominic's greatest inclusion into hall of fame was ted. ted often lobbied for dominic. but i think that, and you know, it is certainly a number of players lost prime years of their career. i loved dominic dimaggio as a player, and any objective analysis of his career numbers, he probably, he probably belongs in the hall of very good rather than the hall of fame. any of the panelists agree or disagree? >> i agree with that. it is also not just the boston writers who determine this, but the national writers who determine who goes into the hall of fame. >> so we have a simple question, who won the game between babe ruth's all-star team and the navy pilots. >> that is all you, girl. >> the pilots. not going to tell you the score. it was a fabulous game, but the pilots. >> so if you don't tell us the score, but give us a highlight moment in the game. >> oh, gosh. well, there's -- oh. i know that at the very begin

this was in the league office files and major league baseball dumped it across the street here in cooperstown at the hall of fame and the national baseball library. now, they didn't have the staff to go through all this stuff. they just sort of keep it, and treasure it. and preserve it for the baseball researchers. primarily, for members of the society for american baseball research. and these guys really went to work. and they went card by card by card, and they figured out what the black sox were making. and -- and you got to have context. okay? so, they were making something. well, the numbers of what any of them was paid in 1919 were -- are pretty pathetic, compared to what they're being paid now because the dollar is pretty pathetic, now. but what were the black sox playing -- being paid then? well, consider this. the white sox finished sixth, in 1918. okay? it was the war. they had lost some guys. other teams had lost guys, too. so, it probably all evened out. but they -- they went from world champions, in 1917, to sixth place in 1918. and yet -- and yet, at the beginning of that season