People's Hall of Fame: Inside the Baseball Reliquary

THE PEOPLE’S HALL OF FAME:
INSIDE THE BASEBALL RELIQUARY
November 23, 2002 ~ Los Angeles, California

             On November 23, 2002, in the Jean Delacour Auditorium of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, the Baseball Reliquary presented a retrospective of its innovative exhibitions and public programs. Entitled The People’s Hall of Fame: Inside the Baseball Reliquary, the program was presented as part of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum’s touring exhibition, Baseball as America, on view at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County from September 22-December 31, 2002.
            The Baseball Reliquary’s Executive Director, Terry Cannon, began the multi-media program by providing narration for a selection of 80 slides documenting artworks and artifacts in the organization’s collections. “Our slide presentation,” Cannon noted, “will endeavor to show that the Reliquary’s collections chart an eclectic terrain and its acquisitions policy is oriented less toward the more traditional bats, balls, and gloves that comprise more conservative baseball museums and more toward objects which invoke a sense of wonderment in, and inspire the imagination of, the viewer.”
            The slide presentation was followed by a selection of video clips from the Shrine of the Eternals 2001 Induction Day, including a performance of “Van Lingle Mungo” by pianist and composer Dave Frishberg and an excerpt from Jim Bouton’s acceptance speech. (Incidentally, Bouton is credited for originating the term “The People’s Hall of Fame,” which is now popularly used in reference to the Shrine of the Eternals.) Also shown were excerpts from a baseball poetry reading sponsored by the Baseball Reliquary in August 2002 and recently released as a CD on the Hen House Studios label. Poets featured were Joel Lipman, Eloise Klein Healy, and Gerald Locklin.
            The program concluded on a most humorous note as actor and comedian Tom Tully led an ensemble of some of Los Angeles’ top improv performers, who recreated famous ballplayers from the game’s hallowed history. The panel of comedians was assembled on stage in the form of a sports radio talk show. Tom Tully served as the host, asking questions of Negro League player and executive Rube Foster (Gary Anthony Williams); a Cleveland-based adman searching for gimmicks to improve the game (Jack Riley); Babe Ruth (Mike McManus); and legendary Brooklyn Dodgers skipper Wilbert Robinson, aka “Uncle Robbie” (Paul Willson). Tully also took questions from callers, including several comedians seated in the audience. Mose Solomon, aka “The Rabbi of Swat” (Andy Goldberg), phoned in to inquire why there weren’t any Jewish ballplayers on the panel, and two rowdy fans from Philadelphia’s Shibe Park (Joe Liss and Archie Hahn) harassed the distinguished panelists. The nearly 30-minute performance was a masterful example of comic improvisation and brought the program to a joyous conclusion. The People’s Hall of Fame: Inside the Baseball Reliquary was attended by nearly 100 people and showcased the wide scope of the Reliquary’s interests, from the serious and scholarly to the satirical and irreverent.

**~ Photos ~**

The Baseball Reliquary’s Executive Director, Terry Cannon, provides narration for the slide presentation. Seen here is a box of one dozen baseballs bearing the forged signature of Mother Teresa, seized as part of an FBI sting operation which uncovered hundreds of phony signatures ranging from Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio to Albert Einstein and the Marx Brothers. The FBI donated these baseballs to the Reliquary with the provision that they be exhibited at least once annually to help support their effort to see that counterfeiters and purveyors of fraudulent memorabilia are brought to justice.		This slide depicts a curiosity demonstrating the weird and wacky confluence of popular culture, business entrepreneurship, and baseball hero worship -- a 1950s era unopened black-market pack of prophylactics whose colorful graphic image bears an extraordinary likeness to “The Splendid Splinter,” Ted Williams.


While the audience views this slide of Pam Postema’s Shrine of the Eternals induction plaque, Cannon opines that one of the glaring omissions in the Baseball as America display on women in baseball, subtitled “Ideals and Injustices,” is the lack of any mention of the former umpire. Postema worked as an umpire in the minor leagues for 13 years, including six at the Triple-A level, by far the longest tenure of any woman in an on-field capacity in major professional sports.		The panel of comedians on stage consisted of, from left to right, Gary Anthony Williams as Rube Foster, Jack Riley as a baseball advertising executive, Tom Tully as the talk show host, Mike McManus as Babe Ruth, and Paul Willson as Wilbert Robinson.


Mike McManus (left) as Babe Ruth and Paul Willson (right) as Wilbert Robinson.		The ensemble of performers as seen backstage. Top row, left to right: Gary Anthony Williams, Mike McManus, Joe Liss, Andy Goldberg, and Archie Hahn. Bottom row, left to right: Jack Riley, Tom Tully, and Paul Willson.
~ Photos Courtesy of Larry Goren ~