Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Second day of nothing turning up
Today I spent a few hours digging through the archives of local newspapers at the Greer Library. It is a very small branch so their services are limited. However I did get some promising information that the Victor Mill Boss was possibly sanctioned for luring in players with fake jobs so that they could play for his team. I saw this on two seperate occasions. That of course does not validaite it but I will continue to search and hope that I can produce more than just hersay over the next few days. It is starting to get a little frustrating that I can not seem to find what I am looking forward. Hopefully my meeting tomorrow night will turn something up. I am starting to wonder if I may have chosen too narrow of a topic.
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Those days can be very frustrating---today I got a book that I had special ordered and it had NOTHING I could use in it. Arrgghhhh!!!
ReplyDeleteBy the way---have you looked into whether the newspapers of this region are available for the years that you are considering. I'm wondering how frequently mill ball games were covered by the media. While I doubt that would have much in the way of 'inside scoop' it might show a little about how important these contests were with the larger public. It would also be interesting to know whether writers looked down on these players, or lauded them as hometown heroes!
Hey, Jeremy! Thanks for your kind comment earlier. I really enjoy reading your blog as well. Your enthusiasm is infectious!
ReplyDeleteSlow days suck, but maybe they aren't that slow after all? I guess it's hard to tell in the grand scheme of things.
You mentioned heresy in this post, which seems like an interesting point. Maybe the heresy you're finding isn't so insignificant? If it turns out to be true then it would be an interesting fact that this boss used the promise of jobs to lure people to play baseball. If it's false, if it is just heresy, then this record still supports your idea that something going on in this period influenced people to believe that there was a connection between jobs and baseball, now you just have to find out what that thing is. It kind of works like if you think of people who deny the moon landing. We know that a man landed on a moon, but some people deny this fact. You could just say they're crazy and their beliefs are just heresy, but if you did you might also miss a cultural strain that makes them fear the government (Vietnam era), disbelieve science in favor of a faith in nature (maybe they were hippies? it was the 60s...), or a cultural fascination with the rise of Hollywood (maybe the growth of the movie industry during the time made people think the man they saw on the moon was actually an elaborate set designed as part of Hollywood's exploding cinema stage?). I kind of made this up on the fly, so I'm not sure if it helps your research or even makes sense, but maybe heresy can be a good thing for you?
Best of luck!