Harold Seymour, Ph.D. '56, wrote what is believed to be the first dissertation on baseball history, which turned common beliefs about baseball's origins on their head.

Consequently, he and his wife, Dorothy Jane Mills (then Dorothy Z. Seymour), wrote the groundbreaking three-volume history of baseball, "Baseball: The Early Years," "Baseball: The Golden Years" and "Baseball: The People's Game." They were recently awarded the prestigious Henry Chadwick Award of the Society for American Baseball Research for "their invaluable contributions to making baseball the game that links America's present with its past."

Although Seymour suffered from Alzheimer's disease and died in 1992, his legacy lives on. Seymour left a bequest to establish a sports history lectureship at Cornell after he and his wife died. Although Dorothy is alive and well, the lectureship is being launched this month, thanks to George Kirsch '67, who is funding the lectureship until Seymour's bequest is instituted. Kirsch, professor of history at Manhattan College, is author of "Baseball and Cricket: The Creation of American Team Sports, 1838-72," "Baseball in Blue and Gray: The National Pastime During the Civil War" and "Golf in America."

On April 21, sports historian Steven Riess, professor of history at Northeastern Illinois University, will deliver the inaugural Harold Seymour Lecture in Sports History at 4:30 p.m. in 165 McGraw Hall. The topic: "The Lead-Off Man: Harold Seymour and the Writing of Baseball History." Reiss' books include "Touching Base: Professional Baseball and American Culture in the Progressive Era," "City Games: The Evolution of American Urban Society and the Rise of Sports" and "Sport in Industrial America."

Mills also will speak briefly. She is the author of numerous children's books, a series of historical novels, an autobiography, "A Woman's Work: Writing Baseball History with Harold Seymour," and her latest book, released this year, "Chasing Baseball: Our Obsession With Its History, Numbers, People and Places."

The event is free and open to the public.

Linda Glaser is a staff writer in the College of Arts and Sciences.