Birmingham planning Negro Leagues Baseball Museum?

[Prison Bitch]

Watching Real Sports on HBO last night and the story was around former players who have a reunion in Birmingham every year. (Why not KC, I have no idea.) Anyway Bryant Gumbel says Birmingham now plans to build a new multimillion dollar Negro Leagues Museum. WTF?



Negro Leagues Baseball Museum President Bob Kendrick cautioned that running a black baseball museum is challenging. He expressed concern two museums would dilute the history and offered a reminder that the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum is trademarked by the Kansas City museum.

"I simply don't know what Birmingham's intent is," Kendrick said. "Certainly in Kansas City, we don't think there's a need for a second Negro Leagues museum. That's like building another National Baseball Hall of Fame Museum. Why? Now, if Birmingham wants to tell its rich black baseball history, that's something we would like to partner with them on."

Faush said there's room for more than one similar museum.

"That's just like asking why do we have our own art museum? Why do we have our own science museum?" Faush said. "While Kansas City might have a fine museum, it should not deter us from giving the best that we have. With the Birmingham Museum of Art, Civil Rights Institute, McWane Science Center and every other museum that's specific to our heritage, this should be no different."

Faush said the baseball museum must become a draw independent of the adjoining stadium with more focus on interactive technology than stagnant displays. The city has not yet acquired or formed a plan for presentation.


One of the difficult things for Kansas City and Birmingham is there's talk of doing something like this in Washington D.C. or Baltimore."

The Kansas City museum lost $303,536 in 2010, compared to a $1.25 million profit just two years earlier, according to Yahoo! Sports. The museum's savings declined to barely 40 percent of what it was in 2008.

http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2...gues_base.html