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What follows is a guide to some of the more significant baseball related holdings in the University Libraries of Notre Dame. Its purpose is to provide researchers with a convenient overview of available resources in this subject area; it does not aspire to be comprehensive. Some types of materials, including virtually all monographs and some annual and periodical titles, are included in the University Libraries Online Catalog, and may be found in various locations throughout Hesburgh Library, as detailed on the individual catalog record. Other materials, including some annuals and periodicals and most yearbooks, media guides, programs, scorecards, and special collections, have no catalog records; these items are held in the Rare Books Unit of the Department of Special Collections, 102 Hesburgh Library. Such items may be consulted in the reading room of the Department, from 8:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. weekdays. Researchers interested in materials specifically pertaining to the history of baseball at Notre Dame should contact University Archives, 607 Hesburgh Library.
Title or collection descriptions on this page are linked to records, inventories, and other appropriate types of finding aid. The dates that follow many of the annual and periodical titles on this page indicate the span of years a given title was published; available holdings are indicated in the linked finding aid. Questions concerning the materials on the page may be directed to the Curator of the Joyce Sports Research Collection, George Rugg, 102 Hesburgh Library.
Complete holdings of the Spalding (1876-1939), Reach (1883-1939), Spalding-Reach (1940-41) and Sporting News (1908- ) annual guides. Historically, the guides have sought to provide a narrative and statistical chronicle of the previous year's events in professional baseball -- though the Spalding and Reach books generally include some treatment of amateur and semi-pro ball as well. From 1883-91 coverage of the two major leagues was largely divided between Reach (American Association) and Spalding (National League); a similar situation obtained nominally after 1900, with the Reach billing itself as the official guide of the new American League, but the emphasis in coverage is not that marked. Given the frequently excellent editorial content of the guides, there is no better source for obtaining a good contemporary overview of a given season.
Complete or near complete holdings of such annual record books as Spalding's Official Base Ball Record (1908-24) and its successor, the Little Red Book of Baseball (1926-32, 1934-71); and the variously titled Sporting News annual record books (1942, 1948- ).
Complete or near complete holdings of Who's Who in Baseball (1912, 1916-); Who's Who in the Major Leagues (1933, 1935-52); and the Sporting News Baseball Register (1940- ). These annuals all emphasize biographical and statistical information on contemporary major leaguers.
Holdings of various annuals emphasizing instructional material. Among these are Hillerich and Bradsby's Famous Slugger Year Book and the extensive Spalding's Athletic Library series, including How to Play Base Ball (1903-35), How to Play First Base (1905-20), How to Play Second Base (1905-20), How to Play Third Base (1905-20), How to Play Short Stop (1905-20), How to Play the Infield and How to Play the Outfield (1905-40), How to Pitch (1905-40), How to Catch (1905-35), How to Run Bases (1905-35), How to Bat (1905-40), How to Umpire (1905-40), How to Organize a League (1919-36), How to Score a Base Ball Game (1911-20), and Official Indoor Base Ball Guide.
Complete holdings of the Whitman/Dell Major League Baseball (1937-39, 1941-53), an annual notable for its inclusion of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League in its 1945 to 1948 editions.
The Sporting News (1886- ). Complete holdings. Microform. The erstwhile "Bible of Baseball."
The Sporting Life (1883-1917). Complete holdings. Microform. Published in Philadelphia by Francis Richter (who also edited the Reach guides for many years), Sporting Life provided much the same sort of detailed weekly coverage of the game as Sporting News -- though Richter's editorial stances often differ from those of the Spinks. Unlike Sporting News, Sporting Life did not concern itself exclusively with baseball; for many years the masthead read "A Weekly Newspaper Devoted to Base Ball and Trap Shooting" - and news on shooting does in fact occupy as much as 25% of each issue.
Baseball Magazine (1908-57, 1964-65). The premier baseball monthly of the first half of the century. Strong holdings from 1922.
Baseball Digest (1942- ). Strong holdings of this baseball monthly from the 1940s into the 1990s.
Near complete holdings in microform of several early sporting weeklies emphasizing baseball: The Ball Players' Chronicle and its continuation, The American Chronicle of Sports and Pastimes (1867-68), and The New England Base Ballist and its continuation, The National Chronicle (1868-70). Also, substantial holdings of The New York Clipper (1853-1924) from 1857 to 1884.
A small collection of American League and National League team newsletters, mostly from the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s.
A collection of 560 American League and National League team yearbooks, 1947 to 2001.
A collection of 615 American League and National League team media guides, 1941 to 2001.
A collection of over 2400 American League and National League regular season and exhibition game programs and scorecards. Most of the programs in the collection date from the decades of the 1930s, 40s, 50s, and 60s; examples from the Dead Ball Era (1900-20) number no more than a half dozen. Finding aids to home game programs for all franchises may be accessed by clicking on the links below:
A group of 88 World Series programs, spanning the years 1926 to 1996.
A group of 26 major league All-Star Game programs, from 1937 to 1986.
A collection of approximately 2300 minor league baseball programs and scorecards. Programs issued by clubs from all levels of organized baseball, and from all parts of the United States, are included; teams from the Pacific Coast League are especially well represented. The programs date mostly from the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, though items ranging in date from the 1890s to the 2000s are included. Finding aids to home game programs for all franchises represented in the collection are currently available, and may be accessed by clicking on the links below. Teams are listed alphabetically, by home city.
A small collection of earlier college programs and scorecards; most are from eastern schools and date from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
A collection of sixty-four autographed baseballs, 1914-1996. Included are team-signed, group-signed, and single-signature balls; signatures of close to fifty Hall of Famers are represented. An illustrated on-line catalog of this collection has recently been added to this website. Gifts of John J. Evers, Jr; Emmit Jennings; Mike Ravine.
A collection of materials on the All-American Girls Baseball League, 1943-1954. Most of the collection consists of records compiled by Dr. Harold T. Dailey, a South Bend, IN dentist and president of the league's South Bend Blue Sox franchise from 1948 to 1950. Much of the Dailey material is included in a set of ten loose-leaf notebooks totaling over 1100 leaves, with items r. and v.; these were apparently intended as a documentary history of the league, and perhaps as source material for a narrative history Dailey never found time to write. Included are minutes of the meetings of the AAGBL Board of Directors, financial information, and player information and statistics, as well as correspondence, newspaper clippings, printed ephemera, and photographic materials. Much of the documentary material is in the form of transcriptions from the originals, onto heavy Manila stock. Notebooks are arranged chronologically, and cover the full span of the league's history, from 1943 to 1954, with an emphasis on the South Bend franchise. Finding aids to the 314 photographic prints in the Dailey notebooks and elsewhere in the AAGBL collection may be consulted by clicking on the following categories:
A collection of 120 open reel audio tapes, most about forty-five minutes, of interviews conducted by Lawrence S. Ritter for his seminal oral history The Glory of Their Times (1966). From 1963 to 1965 Ritter sought out and interviewed players of the 1900-1930 era, editing the resulting tapes into one of the most entertaining and significant of all baseball books. These tapes are copies of the originals, which are now in Cooperstown. Gift of Lawrence S. Ritter.
An accumulation of scrapbooks on American baseball. These consist almost entirely of newspaper clippings from local dailies and sporting weeklies; content includes both off-field developments and game accounts and box scores, with a general emphasis on the professional game at its most elite level. Dates vary, but the greatest emphasis is on the years 1870-1885. Many of the scrapbooks are held only in microform, while in other cases only the paper originals are held.
Research notes and other materials accumulated by Marshall Smelser while writing his 1975 biography of Babe Ruth, The Life That Ruth Built. Included are 1) a file of approximately 1500 index cards, chronologically arranged, indicating the news and feature stories on Ruth that appeared in The New York Times, 1914-1969; 2) a file of approximately 6500 index cards of facts and observations pertaining to Ruth, with sources, arranged by chapter (i. e., in the sequence in which the relevant material appeared in the book); 3) a collection of 74 photographs relating to Ruth, most of which appeared in the book. Smelser was a long-time professor of history at the University of Notre Dame. Location: HESB Special Coll (Sports).
A collection of materials on the Pete Rose gambling investigation of 1989. These materials, consisting primarily of photocopies of documents and clippings, were assembled in 1989 by journalist Jim Newton of the Fort Hamilton (OH) Press, and acquired by the University Libraries in 1990. Included are copies of the Dowd Report (Major League Baseball's investigation into Rose's activities) with its many attendant volumes of exhibits; legal documents pertaining to the Rose affair; and newspaper clippings tracking the case from March to September, 1989. Location: HESB Special Coll (Sports).
A small collection of books, scrapbooks, photographs, and personal effects belonging to Hall of Fame second baseman Johnny Evers (1883-1947). Much of the material relates to the exhibition series played in Europe in 1924 by the New York Giants and Chicago White Sox, a series in which Evers participated as White Sox manager. Gift of John J. Evers, Jr. Location: HESB Special Coll (Sports).
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