Twin Cities Historic Ballparks

[davidjcampbell]

I will be watching today's game later tonight, so in my attempt to avoid all live media, but get my baseball fix in today I came across an article in Minnesota History the quarterly MN Historical Society magazine. I searched for the article online to post but sadly it is a subscription only situation with no online articles - dead trees only. While at first I was unsuccessful, I was able to find a second and equally interesting article by the same authors titled Designing the National Pastime by Kristin M. Anderson & Christopher W. Kimball.

 

http://collections.mnhs.org/MNHistoryMagazine/articles/58/v58i07p338-352.pdf

 

The articles indicate they are working on a book, but the article linked above is from Fall 2003 and at this point I cannot tell when it will be out.

[TwinsArmChairGM_Jon]

Good stuff. Thanks for posting this.

[John Bonnes]

Yes, thank you very much for passing this along, I'm looking forward to reading this...

 

For the record, if you're looking for a LOT more about early baseball history in MN (including quite a bit about the ballparks), you might want to order (either from Amazon or your local library) Stew Thornley's Baseball in Minnesota: The Definitive History. Thornley is a local treasure - fanatical about this stuff and getting the details right, but also a good storyteller. He has done several stories for TwinsCentric when we were putting out the Twins annual.

 

In fact, come to think about it, one of them was also a stadium story. If you have any of those Twins Annuals, you can find another story in there, too.

[Sarah]

Yes, I read that article as well and thanks for posting this one! If you're not a subscriber most libraries have a copy of Minnesota History. Also this might have been posted elsewhere on this site but there is a baseball lecture on Tuesday (April 9) at the Minneapolis Central Library. Here's the link- scroll about three fourths down on this page:

 

http://www.hclib.org/pub/events/AllEventsAction.cfm?Agency=ce

 

There is also a baseball exhibit at the Minneapolis Central Library too- play ball!

[John Bonnes]

Thanks for the link Sarah. That's this Monday night folks. The presenters are:

Stew - who I talked about above

Dan Levitt - who is the editor of the Mpls SABR conventions publication this year (with a TON of history) and

Tom Swift - who wrote Chief Bender's Burden: The Silent Struggle of a Baseball Star (The HOF pitcher Bender was from Minnesota)

 

It's going to be in the downtown Mpls public library, opens a baseball exhibit, and here's the info copied from the link above:

 

Talkin' Baseball

Room Location: Pohlad Hall

Tuesday, April 10, 7–8:30 p.m.

Join local authors and baseball historians Stew Thornley, Dan Levitt and Tom Swift in a discussion of the history and quirks of baseball. Presented to kick off the Bank of America exhibit “Baseball: America's Game” in the Cargill Hall.

Sponsored by the Friends of the Hennepin County Library.

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