All things baseball
After leading a moment of silence in memory of the Red Sox’s disappointing season, Jill Lepore broke the quiet by picking a fight over the legacy of Hall of Fame infielder Honus Wagner. “History is the art of making an argument by telling a story about dead people,” said Lepore, the David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS). “Here is my argument: [Wagner] was the greatest shortstop of all time. Anything social scientists say has to be proven with evidence.” Combining hearsay, archival materials, baseball cards, and statistics, Lepore demonstrated how researching the Pittsburgh Pirates infielder’s career is similar to a historian’s pursuit of truth. Lepore led off a murderers’ row lineup of six Harvard professors for “GenEd at Bat: A Discussion of America’s Favorite Pastime with the Faculty of Gen Ed” at Science Center A on Tuesday. Combining hearsay, archival materials, baseball cards, and...