[This week, I start my 21st year at Fitchburg State! So as usual, I’ve offered some previews of the semester ahead, this time focusing on individual moments I’m looking forward to in each class. Leading up to this weekend update on my plans for season 2 of my podcast!]
At this
time last September, I was about to drop the
Second Inning of my podcast The Celestials’ Last Game: Baseball,
Bigotry, and the Battle for America. As I highlighted throughout last year’s
Thanksgiving
blog series, working on that podcast was one of my favorite scholarly
projects across my career, and I’ve been thinking ever since about whether and
how I might
create a second season. I’m now definitely planning to do so (likely in my upcoming
Spring semester sabbatical), and have decided to focus on a particularly unique
and important baseball history—the stadium
built at the World War II Japanese incarceration camp at Manzanar, and the
games that have been played there, both in the 1940s and at the rebuilt
stadium last year. To say that these incarceration camps have become more
relevant in 2025 than I ever imagined possible is to understate the case, and
that makes this baseball stadium and its histories equally timely, both as a
reminder of the worst of what we’re capable of and as an inspiring glimpse into
how the best of America endures even at these lowest points. I’m excited to
dive into those histories and stories, and will keep you all posted as Season 2
approaches!
Next
series starts Monday,
Ben
PS. What
do y’all have coming up?
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