Volkmer Presents at Baseball Hall of Fame
English and creative writing professor was a featured speaker at the Jerry Malloy Negro League Conference hosted by Society for American Baseball Research (SABR).
The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is one of sports’ most revered sanctuaries. And while it honors many great players of the past, it also pays tribute to those who have written about the game.
Count Jon Volkmer among those who have captured America’s pastime on the page.
The Ursinus professor of English and creative writing, whose recent novel centers around a baseball game, recently gave a talk at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. Volkmer was a featured speaker at the Jerry Malloy Negro League Conference hosted by Society for American Baseball Research (SABR). His talk, “Hornets vs Gandies—Pickup Game of the Century?” grew out of the research and interviews for his historical novel, Brave in Season.
Volkmer’s research took him on a deep dive into the history of African American barnstorming teams in the 1940s and 1950s. He focused on the Sioux City Ghosts, a team that traveled throughout Nebraska and the country playing local teams. Of particular interest was that the game was fast-pitch softball, not baseball. In his talk, Volkmer related details of his interview with the late Clarence “Ace” Hill, star of the Ghosts, and member of the Nebraska Softball Hall of Fame, and how Hill became the model for his novel’s protagonist, Jerome Wallace.
The talk at the Baseball Hall of Fame highlighted a busy awards season for the Ursinus professor. He was a featured reader in the “Celebration of Local Artists” series hosted by the Joslyn Castle in Omaha, Neb., and the book has been nominated for the One Nebraska Book Program.
The Society of Midlands Authors, at their annual awards banquet, named Brave in Season an honoree in the category of adult fiction. The American Legacy Book Awards named it best sports fiction for 2024. Brave in Season: A Novel of Race, Railroads and Baseball is available from Sunbury Press, Amazon, and selected bookstores. The audio version, produced by Beacon Audiobooks and read by Sean Cordry, is available from Audible, Amazon, and other audiobook platforms.