Fans of National Public Radio’s quirky Saturday morning sports show, “Only a Game,” caught some familiar names and voices a couple of weeks ago when the Iroquois Indian Museum’s exhibit “Baseball’s League of Nations: A Tribute to Native American Baseball Players” was featured in a 7:25 segment that also included an interview with Yankees hotshot pitcher Joba Chamberlain.
Erynne Ansel-McCabe, the museum’s director, knew the piece was coming—NPR reporter David Sommerstein turned out for the exhibit’s April 5 opening and stayed till the last light was turned off—but she didn’t really believe it was airing till she heard it herself.
“I was holding my breath,” Ms. Ansel-McCabe said. “I was afraid something would go wrong, that they wouldn’t have room for it, that they would decide they weren’t interested after all. Something…”
Then, of course, there was the question of how “Only A Game,” which defines sports loosely and has covered everything from roller derbies to Super Bowl haiku would handle the sensitive story.
“I was having heart palpitations, but as soon as I heard Step’s voice [museum curator Stephanie Shultes] I relaxed and started breathing again. They focused on contemporary Indian people and did a wonderful job telling the story.”
Ms. Ansel-McCabe is the first to admit that she’s not really a baseball fan; she listens to “Only a Game,” broadcast on WAMC, in part so she can talk intelligently with people who are.
But after the museum began work on “Baseball’s League of Nations” in January of 2007, she started calling and emailing the show’s producers.
And calling and emailing them.
And calling and emailing them.
It wasn’t until the Thursday before the exhibit’s opening that she heard from Mr. Sommerstein.
Like the exhibit itself, the piece recognizes Indian contributions to the sport of baseball, starting with Akwsasne Mohwks playing on boarding school teams and working its way up to Chamberlain, a Winnebago who’s been invited to a November gala at the museum “after they win the World Series,” Ms. Ansel-McCabe said with a laugh.”
Fans who missed the show can listen it on the “Only a Game” website; the museum has also added a link to it at its own website,
www.iroquoismuseum.org.
Response to the piece has been tremendous, Ms. Ansel-McCabe said, with emails and calls coming from as far away as California.
As a plus, anyone who does an internet search for something like “Native American baseball” finds the Iroquois Indian Museum near the top of the list.
“You can’t buy that,” Ms. Ansel-McCabe said.
The exhibit will remain in Howes Cave through the end of the year.
From there, it will move to the Stamford Museum & Nature Center in Stamford, Connecticut.

• • •

While the Iroquois Indian Museum was hitting the big time, so was Howe Caverns—and General Manager Bob Holt is still trying to figure out who the late Vito Miglione is.
In another NPR show broadcast on WAMC, “Car Talk” Boston mechanics Tom and Ray Magliozzi solve listeners’ car problems while keeping everyone thoroughly entertained.
In a show broadcast April 2 and again the 14th, the brothers reminisced at length about a trip they’d taken to Howe Caverns with their pal, Vito Miglione.
Mr. Holt didn’t hear the show, but said they did get a “strange” call telling them they’d been mentioned.
“Someone kept talking about a Vito…” he said.
“They were saying nice things, right?” he asked with a laugh, groaning when he learned the brothers joked about Vito hiding out to steal “rocks” from the Caverns.
Though the Caverns are internationally known, they don’t make it to the big time as much as you’d think.
“Once is a while someone will say something,” Mr. Holt said. “The CBS show “How I Met Your Mother” mentioned people visiting us and we had it on our website, but that’s been it for a while. I’ll have to check this out.”