Newman: The surprise history of baseball in Montana
From Chérie Newman at Montana Public Radio on July 20, 2015, with mention of SABR member Jeremy Watterson:
When you hear the word “baseball,” Montana is not the first place that comes to mind. But there are stories here. And now, thanks to Skylar Browning and Jeremy Watterson, those stories have been exhumed from historical archives and published in a book titled Montana Baseball History.
Watterson’s research turned up ball games played in the early- to mid-1800s.
“Lewis and Clark played a version of baseball that they called ‘Prison Base’ in The Journals with the Nez Perce on their return trip east. And the first box score in a Montana newspaper was out of Virginia City in 1866. One fellow researcher told me that as these mining camps and timber towns popped up there was a saloon, a church, and a ball team—and maybe not in that order.”
Read the full article here: http://mtpr.org/post/surprising-history-baseball-montana
Originally published: July 22, 2015. Last Updated: July 22, 2015.