Editor’s Note: The National Pastime 2024
This article was written by Michael Haupert
This article was published in The National Pastime: Baseball in the Land of 10,000 Lakes (2024)
In late March of each year as the MLB season opens, I wonder why the league schedules games during the first two weeks in northern climes such as Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit and Minneapolis. After reading the articles in this volume of The National Pastime, I now know that the interest in baseball north of the 43rd parallel is so passionate that a mere snowstorm won’t keep the faithful away from a game.
Passion. That is the word that best ties this selection of articles together. In this year’s issue of The National Pastime we are treated to baseball in the northland in its great variety of forms. From barnstorming black teams and major leaguers, from town ball and women’s professional baseball to the heights of the minor leagues, we experience that passion through history, statistical analysis, biography, retrospection, poetry and prose. The 24 contributions are from authors ranging from rookies to seasoned veterans. Familiar names grace this issue, as do the names of authors you are sure to hear more from in the future. Baseball is alive and well in the northland. It has a rich and deep history, and SABR authors have stepped up to illuminate it.
Minnesota has a thriving town ball tradition that is now entering its second century. We are all familiar with Jacques Barzun’s dictate that “whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball.” (God’s Country and Mine, Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, (1954): 159). But there is more to that quotation, which is chronicled in this issue through the history of town ball in Minnesota, and the dedication that keeps it going.
We are introduced to personalities that played in, or at least trace their roots back to, the great north (and its nearby environs, including my home state of Iowa). You will learn more about Hal Trosky, whose brilliant career was cut short by migraine headaches; Spencer Harris, named one of the top minor league players of all time in SABR’s Minor League Stars, Volume II; Hall of Famer turned manager Dave Bancroft; and heroes of a more recent vintage, including Ron Perranoski, Jim Perry, and Joe Mauer.
Between these covers you will read about remarkable feats, such as Twins players who hit/pitched their way to a cycle. You will relive thrilling memories, including the first World Series championship of the franchise now known as the Twins: a century ago Walter Johnson helped secure Washington’s only title, nearly four decades before the team relocated to Minnesota, where they have now added two more. And you can speculate about outcomes that almost were: the Minneapolis Giants and the Minnesota Indians.
As a nearby Wisconsin resident, I am a member of the Minneapolis-based Halsey Hall Chapter of SABR, but I never knew Minnesota had so many fascinating baseball tales to share. I invite you to join with me and revel in the tradition, history, and glory that is Minnesota baseball. The crack of the bat, the smell of the grass, and even the occasional snowflake all make baseball in the northland a wonder to behold.
— Michael J. Haupert
August 2024
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