“Where Have You Gone, Joe DiMaggio?”: Baseball and the Italian American Experience

October is not only Italian American Heritage Month; it’s also when Major League Baseball’s playoffs and the World Series occur. In this program, Walter Harrison, president emeritus of the University of Hartford and a noted baseball historian, will discuss the history of Italian Americans and Major League Baseball.  Like most immigrants to America in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Italians and their descendants were drawn to baseball as a defining element of their American character.  We will begin with the first Italian American in MLB, continue through the most popular Italian American ball player, Joe DiMaggio, and end with the present-day success of Team Italy in the World Baseball Classic.