Monday, February 28, 2011

A baseball wife emerges from the dugout By Ann O'Neill, CNN

Dorothy Seymour Mills, shown outside her home in Naples, Florida, wrote three baseball histories with her late husband.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Harold and Dorothy Seymour wrote three seminal baseball history books together
She wrote much of the third book herself as he succumbed to Alzheimer's
For decades, he refused to share the credit with her or even acknowledge her role
Last summer, Oxford University Press agreed to give her credit as co-author

A baseball wife emerges from the dugout

By Ann O'Neill, CNN

February 25, 2011

Naples, Florida (CNN) -- Harold Seymour wrote baseball's first Bible, debunking some of the game's biggest myths.

He informed fans that Abner Doubleday didn't invent baseball in 1839 in Cooperstown, New York, (Footnote: There's evidence of games involving sticks, balls and bases being played in England in the 1700s.) and that Jackie Robinson wasn't the first black major league player. (That distinction more likely went to Moses Fleetwood Walker in the 1880s.)

Three books produced over a span of 30 years made Seymour the dean of baseball historians, and his journey from batboy to Ph.D. was celebrated as a success story. The study of America's national pastime at last seemed "grownup and worthwhile," observes John Thorn, a colleague who followed in his footsteps.

But after Seymour died in 1992, his wife, Dorothy, set about debunking one more myth: that he had researched and written all three books on his own... http://www.cnn.com/2011/LIVING/02/25/harold.dorothy.seymour.baseball/index.html?eref=rss_latest&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+rss/cnn_latest+(RSS:+Most+Recent)&utm_content=Twitter

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