Baseball HOF Curator Shieber Speaks at Schemel Forum

The senior curator at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum unpacked an unusual “whodunit” mystery Oct. 20 at The University of Scranton.

Tom Shieber, who has worked since 1998 at the hallowed grounds of Cooperstown, New York, presented, “Around the World With A.G. Spalding: The Mystery of an 1888-89 Tourist’s Diary.” Shieber’s lecture, held in Brennan Hall’s Rose Room, was part of The University of Scranton’s Schemel Forum World Affairs Luncheon Seminars series.

Shieber presented on a worldwide tour financed and organized by Spalding, a former baseball player and sporting goods executive, who sought to bring the sport worldwide attention.

As the tour circumnavigated the globe with games played in Egypt, photo opportunities held at the Colosseum in Rome, Italy, and a dinner with celebrities including Mark Twain, one of the passengers on the trip kept a diary documenting the historic events.

Using a timeline, context clues, process of elimination and handwriting samples, Shieber ultimately concluded that the diary was kept by Chicago White Stockings outfielder Jimmy Ryan. Years after Shieber solved the puzzle, he recalled, another twist and added layer of verification came when a nearly identical diary went up for auction. While the diary examined by Shieber was edited and had numerous things crossed out and rewritten, the second diary read like a finished copy with pristine writing. The second diary was signed by Ryan.

The next Schemel Forum luncheon will be held at 11:30 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 30. Cost is $30 per person and includes a buffet lunch. The speaker will be Josef Wenger, Ph.D., on “New Discoveries of the Penn Museum Excavations at Abydos, Egypt.”

The Schemel Forum is sponsored by Munley Law.