Baseball Experts to Host Panel Chat on America’s Pastime

A group of baseball experts will join together for a panel discussion on campus next week.

The panel will include Rob Biertempfel, a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review baseball writer and Penn State alumnus; Brian McClintock, the senior director of communications for the Little League World Series; and Rob Cooper, head coach of Penn State baseball.

John Affleck, the Knight Chair in Journalism and Society and director of the Curley Center for Sports Journalism, will moderate the chat.

“The first week of February seemed to me like the perfect time to look ahead to the spring and baseball,” Affleck said. “We’ll look at some of the current issues for the game at all levels, with a particular eye on the media piece, and we’ll have some fun looking ahead to the 2016 season and the big stories we see ahead. It should be a fun night.” 

The panel discussion will delve into a number of hot topics in the world of baseball, including a Pennsylvania team reaching the Little League World Series finals, the Penn State baseball team’s trip to Cuba with a historic victory, and technological advancements like instant replay entering America’s pastime.

The session, titled ‘Hot Stove Night’ as a nod to the nickname for offseason free agency madness in Major League Baseball, will be held in Foster Auditorium in Paterno Library next Tuesday, Feb. 2, at 6 p.m.