Since opening in April of 1995, Denver’s Coors Field has received accolades for its architectural design and downtown location. The ball park echoes the scale and materials of adjacent brick warehouses and replicates the urban accessibility found in early 20th century ballparks like Wrigley Field and Ebbets Field. Yet, Coors Field, home of the Colorado Rockies, has acquired a much less favorable reputation as a place to play baseball. In fact, it has gained national notoriety as the ultimate home run hitter’s park—a launching pad of historic proportions. Coors Field led all major league ball parks in both total home runs and home runs per at-bat during seven of its first eight seasons (James 1995- 2001; STATS Inc. 2001; Carter et al. 2002).

Nearly all observers, from noted physicists to veteran players to casual fans, attribute the dramatic home run output at Coors Field to the effect of thin air on the flight of a baseball. In theory, the ball should travel about 10% farther in Denver (elevation 5,280 feet) than it would in a ball park at sea level, an elevation-enhancement that prompted prominent sports columnist Thomas Boswell to call Coors Field “a beautiful joke” that “turns the sport into a third-rate freak show” (Boswell 1998).

These comments are hardly atypical. Nationally syndicated radio talk show host Jim Rome routinely refers to the ball park as “Coors Canaveral.” Former Philadelphia manager Jim Fregosi calls baseball at altitude “arenaball” (Armstrong 2003). Throughout the nation, Coors Field is viewed as a curious anomaly that distorts our cherished national pastime and transforms mediocre hitters into stars.

But does the ball really fly that much farther in Denver? And, is thin air really to blame for the large number of home runs hit at Coors Field? We decided to put these assumptions to the test and came up with some surprising results: fly balls simply don’t travel as far as they should in Denver. In fact, the effect of thin air on the flight of the baseball at Coors Field is overestimated, owing to the influence of prevailing weather patterns in and around Coors Field. Altitude clearly plays a role in Coors Field’s home run rate, but it is not the only factor and it is perhaps not even the most important factor. Based on our research, a re-evaluation of the ball park’s reputation is in order.

HOW FAR DO BALLS FLY IN NATIONAL LEAGUE BALL PARKS?

According to scientists Robert Adair and Peter Brancazio, a baseball hit 400 feet at sea level should travel 440 feet in Denver—10% farther.2 Of course, not all National League ball parks are situated at sea level, so comparing Coors Field to the rest of the league requires an adjustment to reflect actual elevations around the league. Compared to the elevation-adjusted average of the other National League ball parks, the ball should fly 9.3% farther in Denver.

In order to determine if these theoretical relationships hold true on the field, we analyzed fly ball distance data for 14 National League ball parks for the years 1995-1998.3 These data provide an estimate of the distance traveled by every fly ball hit in fair territory for every game played in those ball parks over those four seasons. This is a total of nearly 8,000 fly balls per ball park and over 100,000 fly balls overall, more than enough to detect any systematic enhancement of fly ball distance due to altitude.

The fly ball distance data was obtained from STATS Inc. STATS records a wide range of information for each baseball game played in the major leagues, including the distance traveled by every ball put into play. Our analysis focuses only on fly balls, as these are the type of batted ball most affected by atmosphere and weather. In every major league ball park, STATS estimates the distance that each fly ball travels by locating the final position of the ball on a chart of the field.

This method yields estimated distance, not precise distance. However, we believe that this data is reliable because a consistent method is used at each ball park, and because the sample size is more than large enough to account for any individual errors in fly ball measurement (that is, cases of over-estimation or under-estimation will cancel each other out).

While this reduction is significant, keep in mind that the boosting effect of altitude in Denver is further minimized by the generous outfield dimensions at Coors Field, the league’s most spacious ball park. Indeed, in order to come up with a measure of just how much more likely it is for home runs to occur at Coors Field due to low air density, one must take into consideration actual field dimensions around the league. We made this adjustment by calculating average fly ball distance as a percentage of average outfield dimension for 14 National League ball parks (Table 2).4

This calculation yields a measure of how far the average fly ball travels relative to the average position of the outfield fence in each ball park. As the table shows, when field dimensions are taken into account, the effective difference between Coors Field and the other National League stadiums is not even 6%—it is just 3%. Moreover, the difference between Coors Field and the stadiums in Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Atlanta is minimal, while the average fly ball actually carries closer to the outfield wall at St. Louis’ Busch Stadium than it does at Coors Field.5 Faced with these numbers, the facile assumption that elevation enhancement of fly ball distance alone is responsible for the large number of home runs in Denver vanishes into so much thin air.

This raises two important questions. First, why do baseballs not fly 9.3% farther in Denver as the laws of physics would predict? And, second, if altitude enhancement of fly ball distance is not the only factor, what else explains the impressive home run statistics at Coors Field?

COORS FIELD METEOROLOGY: SOMETHING IN THE WIND

To answer the first question, we explored the possibility that shorter than expected fly ball distances at Coors Field could be explained by baseball factors alone. After all, no two at-bats are alike, and the distance that any batted ball travels is the result of a complicated and unique set of circumstances having to do with the particular pitcher and batter involved. It depends, for instance, on the pitcher’s skill level and orientation (left or right handed), the type and speed of pitch thrown, the batter’s orientation, the batter’s hand-eye coordination, and so forth. For these reasons, we would expect fly ball distances to vary somewhat from ball park to ball park over the course of several seasons. To determine the influence of this routine, baseball-driven variation in fly ball distance, we analyzed average fly ball distances for just those National League stadiums located at sea level, thus eliminating the elevation factor. We found a standard deviation of plus or minus 6 feet in fly ball distance for this set of ball parks over the four- year study period, which is far short of the 18.3 foot difference between average fly ball Coors Field distance and average fly ball distance at the other National League parks. According to our statistical analysis (a single tailed student’s t-test) this means that the lower than expected difference between Coors Field and the other National League ball parks does not derive from baseball variables alone (at the 90% confidence level).

Next, we turned to an explanation based in the ball park’s geographic situation, particularly its weather. We set up two meteorological stations inside Coors Field for the duration of the 1997 baseball season.6 These stations were constructed atop concession stands along the rear concourse of the ballpark. One station was located down the left field line, while the other was in straight away center field just beyond and above the bullpens (Figure 1).

Measurements taken included temperature, relative humidity, barometric pressure, and wind as recorded by equipment that provides three-dimensional modeling of air flow. Measurements were taken continuously during game time and averaged every 15 minutes. For each game for which weather data was collected, averages of temperature, relative humidity, barometric pressure and wind were determined. This weather data was then related to average fly ball distance data for the same game.

There have been several previous attempts to link weather and baseball (Kingsley 1980; Skeeter 1988; Kraft and Skeeter 1995). These studies did not show any significant relationship between weather variables and fly ball distance. The results of our meteorological analysis indicate that of the measured variables, wind—especially the east-west vector—is the only statistically significant weather variable that is correlated with fly ball distance in Coors Field. In fact, almost 20% of the variation in fly ball distance at Coors Field can be attributed to differences in winds along the east-west vector.7 Average fly ball distances decreased with easterly winds (approximately 290 feet with easterly winds versus over 303 feet with a western component).8 Not surprisingly, easterly winds inside Coors Field were twice as strong as westerly winds—blowing at 12 versus 6 miles per hour.

A look at the regional wind pattern shows that easterly winds do indeed predominate in the vicinity of Coors Field daily from 12:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. (the time period in which almost all Rockies games are played) throughout the baseball season (April through September). These seasonal winds result from the daily upslope and downslope flow of air along the Colorado Front Range (Toth and Johnson 1985). The heating of the east-facing foothills in the morning hours causes air to flow up the South Platte River valley in the late morning through the evening hours. This flow reaches a peak in downtown Denver at around 4:00 p.m. Thereafter, winds weaken and eventually shift direction down the valley, becoming westerly around Coors Field between 10:00 p.m. and midnight. This downslope pattern persists until the process reverses itself the following morning (Figure 2).9

Certainly, westerly winds do occur, as we found during our data collection inside Coors Field. But these westerly winds are the exception to the rule, occurring due to local thunderstorms or the passage of frontal systems. Thus, westerly winds seem to be relatively brief events followed by a return to the “normal” upslope-downslope pattern.

Our assessment is that these daily easterly winds suppress fly ball distances at Coors Field.10 Easterly winds flow up the South Platte River valley and enter the vicinity of the ball park from the northeast. Within Coors Field, northeasterly winds blow from center field toward home plate into the face of the batter and into the path of batted balls hit to all parts of the outfield (Figures 3 and 4).

The expected advantage of playing at mile-high elevation (as far as home runs are concerned) is decreased substantially under such conditions. However, when the winds are out of the west, the full advantage of altitude is realized, and then some. Thus, the effect of the wind is variable; during some games, the enhancement of altitude on fly ball distance will be realized and in other games it will be suppressed. However, it is our conclusion that over the course of a season—or several seasons—easterly winds act to minimize the effects of low air density and thus account for the shorter than expected fly ball distances at Coors Field.

THE COORS FIELD “EFFECT”

Now let’s turn to the second question: if not just thin air, then what else explains the impressive home run statistics at Coors Field? After all, during the 1995 through 2002 seasons, Coors Field witnessed a rate of .044 home runs per at-bat, while the combined average of the other National League parks was just .029 home runs per at-bat. In other words, home runs occur at Coors Field at a rate that is 52% greater than at the other ball parks—far more than would be expected even if the mile high atmospheric enhancement was realized to its fullest (James 1995-2000, STATS Inc. 2001, Carter et al. 2002). We believe that the answer to the question has to do with two factors: first, the personnel make-up of the Colorado Rockies ball club in terms of both hitters and pitchers; and, second, the general problems of pitching at altitude.

During the first several seasons played at Coors Field, the Rockies team was stacked with notable power hitters. Simply put, they were a team designed to produce large numbers of home runs. However, over the past several years, these “Blake Street Bombers” were traded or allowed to leave via free agency as team management shifted focus from home run hitters to high- average hitters with less power. This personnel shift is verified in the record of Coors Field hitting statistics. Since 1995, there is an overall downward trend in the number of home runs per at-bat—a trend that is accounted for by a reduction in the number of home runs hit by the Rockies (the trend in home runs per at-bat for the opposition at Coors Field has risen) (Figure 5).

In fact, during the 2000 season, Coors Field was surpassed in home runs per at-bat by both Busch Stadium in St. Louis and Enron Field in Houston. Thus, the large number of home runs hit at Coors Field can be attributed, in part, to the specific group of hitters assembled early on by the Rockies. Once the franchise changed the character of the team, the pre-eminence of Coors Field as the league’s ultimate home run ball park was somewhat diminished.

The Rockies have also lacked successful pitching for most of their history. Colorado pitchers have had more than their share of problems over the past eight years, both at home and on the road. Between 1995 and 2002, the team was either last or next to last in most pitching categories, leading the league in home runs allowed seven times. Had the Los Angeles or New York staffs pitched at Coors Field for 81 games per year, the ball park’s home run totals would most likely have been significantly less. Put Atlanta’s pitching staff in Denver for half of their games and this reduction is a virtual certainty. Remember that Atlanta’s Fulton County Stadium was known as the “launching pad” until the Braves put together the league’s premier group of pitchers in the early 1990s.

But perhaps the most important factor in explaining the home run numbers in Denver is the “Coors Field Effect”—the not so subtle influence of the ball park on pitchers from both the home and visiting teams. Most of these professional athletes are clearly intimidated by Coors Field. As one player recently observed, the ball park causes “an identity crisis” for pitchers, leading them to change their approach to the game, move away from their strengths, and ultimately lose confidence in their abilities.11 Even the league’s best pitchers often come unglued in Denver. Pitching is undeniably more difficult in Coors Field than in other National League ball parks because of the very limited foul ground and the cavernous outfield spaces. This field configuration gives hitters more chances, allows more balls to drop in front of outfielders, and permits more balls to find the gaps for extra-base hits. Yet, beyond this, most pitchers are beset with a range of other problems once they take the mound. Chief among these are a sudden lack of control, breaking balls that don’t break, and sinker balls that don’t sink. The result is more pitches thrown straight and over the heart of the plate, and more balls hit high, deep, and out the park. Thus, what we suggest is that more home runs are hit at Coors Field not because routine fly balls carry farther, but because a higher percentage of pitched balls are hit harder than in other ball parks.

These pitching problems in Denver have also been attributed to low air density. Theoretically, thin air reduces ball-to-air friction, cutting down on ball movement between the mound and home plate and thus decreasing the overall control of the pitcher and the effectiveness of the pitches thrown. In addition, the low relative humidity at altitude promotes evaporation from the baseball itself, making the ball lighter, drier, and more slick in Denver than in other parks around the league. Because of this, pitchers at Coors Field have a very difficult time getting a proper grip on the ball, which, in all likelihood, further reduces their control as well as the movement on their pitches.12 During the 2002 season, in an effort to counteract the presumed effects of thin air on pitching, the Colorado Rockies began using a “humidor” to store baseballs at Coors Field; this device maintains the balls in a controlled environment of 90 degrees and 40% humidity. According to the Rockies organization, the intent of the humidor is to ensure that the baseballs do not shrink to a weight less than the 5.0 to 5.25 ounce range specified by the league. The Rockies ball club also believes that these baseballs—having not yet lost water content to evaporation when they enter play—are easier to grip, and thus will ‘level the playing field’ for pitchers in Denver. But this might be just wishful thinking: a comparison of the statistics for the 2002 season versus the previous seven seasons indicates that the humidor had little if any effect upon games played at Coors Field.13

Ultimately, these altitude-related issues may prove to be important contributors to the poor pitching in Denver, but, for now, difficulties on the mound would seem to be more the result of the fragile psychology of pitchers faced with the imagined specter of baseballs floating out of Coors Field like weather balloons. Based upon the analysis presented above, we believe that the answer to why so many home runs are hit at Coors Field lies as much on the field as it does in the air.

COORS FIELD: KEEPER OF THE FLAME?

In 1998, the Colorado Rockies hosted the Major League All-Star Game. It was a very high-scoring affair won by the American League team. Upon departing Coors Field, the national sports media complained vociferously about the style of baseball played at the ball park. Baseball reporters and commentators focused on the large number of “cheap” home runs, and on the ways in which the ball park’s spaciousness allowed too many runners to circle the base paths.

Chief among these critics was Boswell of the Washington Post. He stated: “When baseball is played a mile in the air, all the game’s distances are suddenly off. Instead of being a thing of beauty, baseball suddenly becomes not only distorted, but actually defaced and displeasing. The activity conducted in Coors Field is simply not baseball any more. And, worse, it’s not some kind of new, novel, fun variant on baseball, either. What the All- Star Game put on display for tens of millions to see was a 20th century commerce-driven practical joke played on a 19th century American heirloom” (Boswell 1998: 6D). Thus, for Boswell—and for the many others that share these views—baseball played in Denver is “a confused, capricious mess” because it violates the game’s perfect dimensions.

There is no denying that the game played at Coors Field is a high-scoring, offensive brand of baseball. As we have shown, this is not the simple and direct result of Denver’s rare atmosphere, allowing routine fly balls to become home runs, but has as much or more to do with the personnel of the home team, the size of the outfield, limited foul territory, and assorted pitching problems. Yet, to dismiss Coors Field as an affront to baseball tradition is ludicrous and more than a little hypocritical. After all, what is Fenway Park’s beloved “Green Monster” if not a complete aberration of baseball’s perfect dimensions? Why is a short fly ball that ricochets off Fenway’s left field wall for a double thought to be charming while a bloop single in front of an outfielder at Coors Field is considered to be “an abomination”? To take this further, what was perfect about routine fly balls dropping for home runs over a short, waist-high right field wall at Yankee Stadium in its original configuration? And, could Willie Mays have made the most famous catch in baseball history anywhere but in the horribly distorted center field of the Polo Grounds?

In our view, the self-appointed guardians of baseball tradition like Boswell miss the point entirely. The very heart and soul of the game’s tradition lies not in some homogenous set of outfield dimensions, but in the individuality and distinctiveness of major league ball parks. This point was made forcefully when much of the game’s appeal was destroyed by the proliferation of multi- purpose stadiums in the 1960s and 1970s. Most of these “cookie- cutter” venues had perfect dimensions but had absolutely no character or soul, and are now being replaced by ball parks explicitly designed to recall the variation and peculiarity of turn- of-the-century fields.

Sure, baseball played at the Denver ball park is a little different by virtue of its location. But, in this sense, Coors Field is anything but an aberration; it represents a continuation of a long-standing and cherished tradition of quirk-filled ball parks, which gives baseball a unique charm in every city where the game is played.

Sources

Adair, Robert K. The Physics of Baseball. New York: Harper Perennial, 1990.

Adair, Robert K. The Physics of Baseball (2nd Ed.). New York: Harper Perennial, 1994. Armstrong, Jim. “Still Solving the Big Mystery.” The Denver Post, March 30, 2003: 3J. Boswell, Thomas. “Coors Field is a Mistake That Mustn’t be Repeated.” The Denver Post, July 10, 1998: 1D, 6D.

Brancazio, Peter J. SportScience: Physical Laws and Optimum Performance. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984.

Carter, Craig, Tony Nistler, and David Sloan. Baseball Guide, 2003 Edition. 2002, St. Louis: The Sporting News.

Chambers, Frederick, Brian Page, and Clyde Zaidins. “Atmosphere, Weather, and Baseball: How Much Farther do Baseballs Really Fly at Denver’s Coors Field?” 2003. The Professional Geographer.

James, Bill. Major League Baseball Handbook. 1996-2001 Editions. Skokie, IL: STATS, Inc., 1995.

Kingsley, R.H. “Lots of Home Runs in Atlanta?” Baseball Research Journal 9. (Society for American Baseball Research, 1980): 66-71.

Kraft, Mark D. and Brent R. Skeeter. “The Effect of Meteorological Conditions on Fly Ball Distance in North American Major League Baseball Games” (1995). The Geographical Bulletin 37 (1): 40-48.

Moss, Irv. “Braves Contend Coors Baseballs are Slicker.” The Denver Post, May 9, 1999: 18C.

Renck, Troy. “Neagle Staying True to Form.” The Denver Post, March 5, 2003: 14D. Skeeter, Brent R. “The Climatologically Optimal Major League Baseball Season in North America” (1988). The Geographical Bulletin 30 (2): 97-102.

STATS, Inc. Major League Baseball Handbook 2002. Skokie, IL: STATS, Inc., 2001.

Toth, James J. and Richard H. Johnson. “Summer surface flow characteristics over northeastern Colorado (1985).” Monthly Weather Review 113 (9): 1458-1469.

In the second part of his 1997 PBS video, Lewis & Clark, American documentarian extraordinaire Ken Burns had his narrator declare that on June 8, 1806, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark and other members of the Corps of Discovery played a game of bat and ball with the Nez Percé indigenous peoples in what is now Idaho. The soundtrack ran as follows: “The men ran foot races with the Indians and taught them a new stick and ball game called base.”1

Ah, Kenny, would that it were so! We baseball historians, who are always on the lookout for examples of pre-Abner Doubleday Myth, pre-1839 baseball and baseball-type games, could have celebrated mightily that these games so associated with the East went West so rapidly.2 What a pity! There were already the famous “nine young men from Kentucky” along on the journey— a ready-made nine, if ever there was one! Would their boss back in Washington, Thomas Jefferson, have approved? He had written in 1785, “Games played with the ball and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind.”3 What position would Sackagawea have played? Center scout? Oh, to be able to remark as well that the game crossed a racial divide and indigenous people took to the game so early.

But, alas, even the the quickest consultation of the primary sources reveal that Lewis and Clark et al. did not play a baseball- type game. They played a game called “prisoner’s base,” a long- time children’s game that much more resembled hide-and-seek than baseball. Both Lewis and Clark in their respective journals are clear about what recreation they enjoyed that day. Here is the actual excerpt from Meriwether Lewis:

Sunday, June 8th, 1806

Drewyer returned this morning from the chase without having killed anythingseveral foot rarces [sic] were run this evening between the indians and our men. the indians are very active; one of them proved as fleet as [our best runner] Drewer and R. Fields, our swiftest runners. When the racing was over the men divided themselves into parties and played prison base, by way of exercise which we wish the men to take previously to entering the mountain; in short those who are not hunters have had so little to do that they are getting rather lazy and slothfull . . . . after dark we had the violin played and danced for the amusement of ourselves and the indians.4

William Clark’s entry was somewhat less detailed, but it clearly paralleled Lewis’s:

Drewyer returned this morning from the chase without killing any thing … in the evening. Several foot races were run by the men of our party and the Indians; after which our party divided and played at prisoners base until night. after dark the fiddle was played and the party amused themselves in dancing.5

Sergeant John Ordway, in his journal entry for the same day, noted the same activities: “Our party exercised themselves running and playing games called base.”6 The next day the assembly continued their frolicking. As Lewis noted about his group on June 9th: “[T]hey have every thing in readiness for a move, and notwithstanding the want of provision have been amusing themselves very merrily today in running footraces pitching quites [quoits], prison basse &c.”7 Clark echoed him in his own journal entry: “… amuse themselves by pitching quates [quoits], Prisoners bast running races &c.”8

None of the other Corps of Discovery journals cover this day or time period or discuss the recreational events of these days. Unless Ken Burns and his research staff have uncovered some source hitherto unknown to historians, the “sad” truth is that the groups played prisoner’s base.

Accounts of medieval and early modern sport occasionally refer to or describe prisoner’s base. Although there is a bit of fuzziness in some of the descriptions, it is clear that the game mixed early elements of hide-and-seek and Capture the Flag. None of the accounts mentioned balls, bats, sticks, or baseball-type bases. One description should suffice, this one from historian Sally Wilkins:

In Europe, base, or prisoner’s base, was a game played by both girls and boys. Players divided into teams and defined the playing area—a street, field, or courtyard. Each team had a tree, pillar, or rock designated as their “base” and another as their “prison.” The teams lined up, linking hands, each chain with one player touching the base. One by one the players at the ends of the chain let go and chased each other. If one caught the other, the captive was brought to the prison, and soon chains of players were strung from each prison. Now the runners leaving their bases would try not only to capture new prisoners but also to liberate their teammates by touching the chain of prisoners. Once freed, prisoners ran back to their own bases, where they were safe until they set off again.9

Elijah Harry Criswell pointed out in his 1936 dissertation on Lewis and Clark’s linguistic influences that Clark used a newer version of the term (“prisoner’s base”) and Lewis stuck with the older term (“prison base”).10 But clearly prison base, or prisoner’s base, was not a baseball-type game. The lesson here for baseball historians is that whenever we encounter an early reference to base, such as George Ewing’s celebrated diary entry at Valley Forge in 1778, we have to be cautious assuming, without corroborating evidence, whether or not the game was baseball or prisoner’s base.

NOTES

1. Lewis & Clark, A Film by Ken Burns (New York: Florentine Films, 1997), part II.
2. See my research in Thomas L. Altherr, “’A Place Level Enough to Play Ball’: Baseball and Baseball-Type Games in the Colonial Era, Revolutionary War, and Early American Republic,” NINE, v. 8, n. 2 (Spring 2000), 15-49.
3. Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, August 19, 1785, in Julian Boyd, ed., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 23 vols. (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1953), v. 8, 407.
4. Meriwether Lewis, June 8, 1806, reprinted in Gary E. Moulton, ed., The Journals of the Lewis & Clark Expedition March 23-June 9, 1806 (Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1991), 346-347.
5. William Clark, June 8, 1806, reprinted in Moulton, , The Journals of the Lewis & Clark Expedition March 23-June 9, 1806, 347.
6. John Ordway, June 8, 1806, reprinted in Gary E. Moulton, ed., The Journals of the Lewis & Clark Expedition: The Journals of John Ordway, May 14, 1804- September 23, 1806, and Charles Floyd. May 14-August 18, 1804 (Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1995), 320; although Ordway simply referred to the games as base, there’s not enough evidence here to contradict Lewis and Clark’s more specific description of the game as prisoner’s base.
7. Meriwether Lewis, June 9, 1806, reprinted in Moulton, ed., The Journals of the Lewis & Clark Expedition March 23-June 9, 1806, 349.
8. William Clark, June 9, 1806, reprinted in Moulton, ed., The Journals of the Lewis & Clark Expedition March 23-June 9, 1806, 349.
9. Sally Wilkins, Sports and Games of Medieval Cultures (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2002), 122-123.
10. Elijah Harry Criswell, Lewis and Clark: Linguistic Pioneers, The University of Missouri Studies, v. 15, n. 2 (Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri, 1940), 68.

In San Jose, California, a bronze mural stands as a memorial to the Japanese and Japanese-Americans relocated from their homes on the West Coast during World War II. The memorial, documenting the relocation and subsequent internment in concentration camps contains images of events and elements of importance to those who endured the experience. On the panel entitled “Hysteria of War” is the depiction of Japanese playing baseball.

The inclusion of baseball in the memorial is a testament to the importance that Japanese placed on the sport in their communities, and reflects the role that baseball played in recreating as normal a social/cultural environment as possible behind barbed wire with guards patrolling the perimeter of the camps. Japanese immigrants to America always embraced baseball. What distinguishes them from other ethnic groups arriving in the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was that they had made baseball their own prior to their arrival in the United States. In 1872, an American educator introduced the game to Japan and by the turn of the century, baseball had become Japan’s most popular sport with teams vying in national championship competitions. The popularity of baseball in Japan has been attributed to its compatibility with Japanese cultural values of harmony and self-restraint.1

The period of Japanese immigration to the United States coincided with the development and booming popularity of baseball in Japan. Japanese arrival in the United States began around 1890 and continued until 1924, when the Johnson-Reed Act effectively curtailed Asian immigration. During these years approximately 260,000 Japanese came to United States, first establishing themselves on the Hawaiian Islands and later migrating to the West Coast of the United States mainland. Until 1910 the vast majority of the immigrants were males engaged in agricultural employment, and in their masculine communities they quickly instated the baseball leagues that were so popular in Japan.2 In the process, they achieved what most ethnic groups seek to accomplish: replicating in their new homeland, the cultural elements they most value from their country of origin. Ironically, bringing baseball to the United States as something they had come to embrace was a Japanese, not an American, pastime.

By 1899 Japanese immigrants in Hawaii formed the Excelsiors baseball club. The pattern replicated itself on the West Coast with the arrival of the Issei. The Fuji Club became the first mainland baseball club founded in San Francisco in 1903. With continued immigration, baseball teams proliferated in the immigrant communities, and at the conclusion of the first decade of the 1910s cities with significant Japanese populations such as Los Angeles, Seattle, San Jose, and Honolulu had Japanese baseball leagues.3 As communities formed in the Rocky Mountain region, the Issei began baseball programs there as well. In Colorado, Japanese baseball had a firm hold by the 1920s in the communities of Denver and Las Animas, where sizable Issei communities had developed.

Historians focusing on the role of baseball in immigrant communities adhere to the thesis that baseball was an entree into mainstream society, a means to achieve respect and recognition from the dominant white society. This model was developed in large part through studies of European immigrant groups and fits well for urban groups such as the Italians and Jews. When research into Japanese-American baseball began, the Americanization, mainstreaming thesis was adopted. In They Came to Play: A Photographic History of Colorado Baseball, Mark Foster and Duane A. Smith maintained that “Japanese Americans in Colorado adopted the national pastime with enthusiasm” and that “baseball offered them a door to mainstream society.”4 When assessing the specific functions fulfilled by Japanese-American baseball the major variation on the central thesis comes from Gary Otake, who argued that in the face of racial discrimination and race-based legislation, baseball united the Issei and Nisei community and “brought Japanese people into the mainstream, but ironically also built bridges back to Japan.”5

Applying the interpretation that baseball provided Japanese an avenue to mainstream society, however, is not the only way to interpret the meaning of baseball to Japanese immigrants, and it may not provide the best understanding of how the sport functioned within the Japanese community. One initial fact that leads to questioning about the viability of the thesis is that during baseball’s peak period of popularity among Japanese immigrants, 1920-1941, there was essentially no opportunity for the Japanese to utilize baseball to gain access to the dominant white society. The Japanese on the West Coast and in the Rocky Mountain region faced discrimination, both legal and social, and as a result participated only in segregated leagues competing against other Japanese teams. These teams and leagues flourished, providing a focal point of community pride and cohesion. Significantly, baseball attained its greatest following among the Issei and the older Nisei, the generations least inclined toward an assimilationist perspective. The experiences of the Japanese indicate that baseball may have been more a component of Japanese cultural preservation than assimilation. Having brought baseball from Japan, the immigrants established the sport they thought of as the Japanese team sport.

During World War II, with the implementation of Executive Order 9066, the federal government removed all Japanese, citizen and alien alike, from the coastal regions of California, Washington, and Oregon. With little time to make arrangements, property and businesses were hastily sold for less than market value, and in the rapid departure for the assembly centers the Japanese left behind many belongings.6 The cultural shocks continued upon arrival at the internment camps. Camps such as Amache, Colorado, Heart Mountain, Wyoming, and Gila River, Arizona, were located in isolated areas with climate and geography alien to what the Japanese had experienced on the West Coast. The government provided crude barracks for the internees with each family allocated a living space of approximately twenty by twenty-five feet.7

Under these circumstances the Japanese sought to re-establish their social/cultural order as quickly and to greatest degree possible. To the Japanese this meant schools, churches, and baseball. At the Gila River Internment Camp at Butte, Arizona, Kenichi Zenimura, an experienced baseball park designer from Fresno, with the help of volunteers built a ball field. The endeavor in the inhospitable Arizona desert required digging an irrigation ditch and laying a water line of nearly three hundred feet. The field served as home to thirty-two teams.8 At Amache Internment Camp, Colorado, before the first winter ended plans for baseball and softball leagues had been made and were announced in the Granada Pioneer, the camp newspaper.9 By the end of March, 1943, competition had already begun.

The standard interpretation offered is that under these extraordinary conditions the Japanese sought to attain a level of “normalcy” and baseball became a critical element in that endeavor. It is of primary importance, however, to determine whether “normalcy” meant seeking access to mainstream society and gaining approval from white America or did it mean preservation of Japanese culture. When faced with catastrophic events and uncertainties, people tend to hold onto the reassurance of traditional elements more dearly. Because of the United States government’s official recognition, the Japanese American Citizen’s League (JACL), noted for its adamant assimilationist stance, exerted tremendous influence in the internment camps. This would seemingly provide support for the mainstreaming/ normalcy thesis, however, the JACL’s influence was primarily political, not social.10 The meaning of baseball to the communities could not be dictated by one favored organization.

The idea that baseball provided cultural preservation rather than assimilation can be illustrated by the rivalries that developed within and between the camps. The possibilities of attaining admission into mainstream society, while minimal before the war, were further diminished with internment. The teams within the camps competed fiercely with each for camp honors at several age and skill levels. Within the Rocky Mountain region, the top teams from Amache, Heart Mountain, and Gila River competed with each other before crowds of between four to six thousand fans. Through organized baseball the Japanese maintained a sense of pride, community, and self-respect in the face of the fears and racism that had uprooted them from their homes and separated them from participation in the mainstream.

Additional support for the cultural-preservation view is provided by the popularity of baseball not only among the more acculturated urban Japanese, but among the more traditional rural Japanese. Amache had two profoundly different cultural factions and the camp was marked by rural-urban tensions. One segment of the population had come from the Los Angeles area and to Amache via the Santa Anita Assembly Center. These Japanese had adopted many of the ways and mannerisms of white urban Los Angeles. Long exposed to and participating in Japanese baseball leagues in the Los Angeles area, the “Santa Anitans” seemingly supports the standard thesis. The other faction at Amache was rural agriculturists from central California. These Japanese lived in a more traditionalist culture with strong intergenerational ties.11 Among this group, baseball proved equally popular. It had been a well-established feature in the agricultural communities, and once at Amache teams like the Livingston Dodgers resumed competition.12

Baseball like other social/cultural activities exists not only as a feature of “American culture” but it has occupied an important place within many American subcultures. It is the specific ethnic context that gives the sport meaning within immigrant and racial groups. In the case of the Japanese a unique meaning and functioning emerged born of Japan’s early introduction to the sport and the extreme racism faced by Asians in the West. During World War II, when confronted by uprootedness and “otherness” the internees turned to the Japanese cultural elements they valued the most to unite and preserve what it meant to be Japanese. Baseball was central to this process.

NOTES

1. Charles Vascellaro, “Nisei: The Early Japanese-American Ballplayers,” <thediamondangle.com/archive/aug01/nisei.htm>, and Gary T. Otake, “A Century of Japanese American Baseball,” <www.nikkeiheritage.org/research/bbhist.htm>.
2. Vascalleros, 2-3, and Otake, 2-3.
3. Ibid.
4. Duane Smith and Mark S. Foster, They Came to Play: A Photographic History of Colorado Baseball (Boulder, Colorado: University Press of Colorado, 1997), 52, 38. Also adhering to this perspective was Page Smith in his Democracy on Trial: The Japanese American Evacuation and Relocation in World War II (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995): 80, 350.
5. Gary Otake, cited in Vascellaro, 3.
6. Executive Order 9066 was ostensibly a response to national security concerns. Approximately 120,000 Japanese, two-thirds of whom were American citizens, were removed from the West
7. Roger Daniels, Concentration Camps USA: Japanese Americans and World War II (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1971), 42-73.
8. <niseibaseball.com/htl1%2Barbed%20Wire/Zemura%20Field.htm>.
9. Granada Pioneer, 1, nos. 13-50, Winter 1943.
10. For insight into the JACL, see Bill Hosokowa, JACL: In Quest of Justice: History of the Japanese American Citizen’s League (New York: William Morrow, 1987). For a critical assessment of the role the JACL played in internment camp politics, see Emiko Omori’s multiple-award-winning film, Rabbit in the Moon (Hohokus, New Jersey: New Day Films, 1999).
11. Valerie Matsumoto, Farming the Home Place: A Japanese American Community in California, 1919-1982 (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1983). Matsumoto does not discuss baseball, but her analysis in conjunction with other resources provides a useful theoretical framework for examination of the game.
12. For a photograph of the Livingston Dodgers, see Vascellaro, 4.

In the so-called deadball era, the Western League supplied fans with some exciting pennant races. In 1902, Denver finished one and a half games behind pennant-winner Kansas City—but found themselves in fourth place in a six-team league! Both Colorado teams figured in the 1904 Western League race, with Denver half a game behind second-place finisher Colorado Springs and two games behind Omaha.1

THE “ANGEL” OF THE LEAGUE

Pueblo, Colorado had two entries in the Western League during the deadball era. The Colorado Springs franchise relocated to Pueblo in 1905 and played there for five years, with indifferent success on the field, before moving along. In 1911, however, Pueblo had a second chance.

In 1911, the Western League adopted a 168-game schedule. Playing ball from April 21st through October 8th, the league generally enjoyed pleasant weather and good attendance. The trouble with fitting a 168-game season into a 171-day time span, however, is that it is impossible to play such a schedule profitably without scheduling Sunday games.

That was a problem in Wichita, Kansas, which forbade Sunday ball. The club owner and manager was Frank Isbell, the former Chicago White Sox first baseman and one of the 1906 “Hitless Wonders.” Isbell had spent too much money and effort fighting the anti-Sunday-ball forces in Wichita, and he was tired and broke. Boosters of Pueblo, Colorado, eager to get back into the league, approached Isbell with a juicy offer. On May 22, 1911, the Wichita ball club moved to Pueblo, Colorado.

When they moved, the team’s record was 15-9 and they were on top of the league. They played well in Pueblo, and the town was, at first, feverish over its new team, even on the Sabbath. The young Red Faber was on the mound for 29 of Pueblo’s games, posting a 12-8 record. Pitcher W.E. Ellis went 22-11 (with four agonizing ties) and earned a look from the White Sox, who took him in the September draft that year. Pueblo had little pitching depth beyond this, however, and relied on their powerful hitting attack. They could not maintain their early pace, and finished the 1911 season in third place.

Still, even facing the loss of Ellis and shortstop Joe Berger in the draft, Pueblo fans could dream of a pennant in 1912. Those dreams ended when Isbell sold his franchise to a stock company of 300 businessmen in Wichita for $25,000.2 Isbell and Sioux City business manager Tom Fairweather then purchased the Des Moines club from Isbell’s old boss, Charles Comiskey, who had bought the failing club to keep it alive near the end of the 1911 season.3

Pueblo boosters threatened an injunction to prevent the move to Wichita. Isbell, it was claimed, had signed an agreement to keep the club in Pueblo for five years; for this he had been paid a $5,000 bonus. The Pueblo fans and press barbecued Isbell, and even the national press took notice.

“[Pueblo] has been the ‘angel’ of the league,” wrote The Sporting News correspondent “Mile High” in the January 25, 1912 issue. “Twice it has stepped to the front and taken over a club which was not securing support elsewhere. It has loyally patron- ized base ball, whether its team be in first place or last, and a ‘turn down’ now would be poor return for such loyalty.”4

Isbell produced the documents he had signed, however, which showed that he had not signed a five-year deal, and in fact he had reserved the right to remove the franchise after the 1911 season. The $5,000 bonus was for the first year in Pueblo only; the agree- ment included bonuses for each successive year, which Isbell agreed to forfeit if he moved the team. Isbell claimed that he had been open to offers from Pueblo interests for the Western League franchise, but received none that were on par with the Wichita offer. The Sporting News wrote, on February 1st, that “[Isbell’s] books show that even with the sale of two players to the Chicago White Sox his stay at Pueblo would have netted a financial loss had it not been for the $5,000 bonus.” League President Norris “Tip” O’Neill agreed, and the league approved the transfer of the franchise to Wichita.5

Isbell took Red Faber with him to Des Moines, and made plans with Fairweather to open the season. The Jobbers returned to Wichita to find that town suddenly willing to let them play a schedule full of Sunday home games.6 Perhaps to the glee of the citizens of Pueblo, the Jobbers finished the 1912 season in seventh place.

Pueblo fans tried to work up enthusiasm for their entry in the new Rocky Mountain League. The league, alas, did not live to complete the season. Isbell had to stay out of Colorado during the summer of 1912 to avoid service of papers in a lawsuit for $20,000, but that threat subsided.

When the Western League approached Pueblo later in the year to take on the ailing Topeka franchise, the league received a sound rebuff. The “angel” of the Western League did not return to the fold until 1930.

“IT’S ANYBODY’S FLAG”

Few people expected the 1912 Western League pennant race to be close when the season began. By July, though, all eyes were on the Class A league and the fierce contest raging across the Great Plains. The previous year, under fiery manager Jack Hendricks, Denver had romped to the Western League pennant with a record of 111-54, an astonishing eighteen games over the St. Joseph (Missouri) Drummers. The 1911 Grizzlies featured outfielder Harry Cassidy, who batted .333, and pitcher Buck O’Brien, the league’s best pitcher with a 26-7 record and 261 strikeouts. Most observers felt Denver would hoist the 1912 flag as well, assuming Denver remained in the league. During the winter league meetings, rumors flew that Denver might find its franchise moved to another city.

The Western League, under President Norris L. O’Neill, was a progressive league in many respects. The eight-team circuit played a 168-game schedule and used two umpires for games. In 1912, they considered the startling idea of putting numbers on players’ uniforms.7 Perhaps most surprising, O’Neill proposed a revenue-sharing system. In this system, the league would have pooled a percentage of gate receipts to assist struggling teams. The Lincoln, Des Moines, Wichita, and Topeka clubs had each suffered financial difficulties in recent seasons. O’Neill wanted to make sure clubs in financial straits could at least complete their league schedule.

Denver owner James McGill opposed the scheme, because he felt Denver was already bearing too much of the league’s financial burden. Denver was the most isolated city in the league. It was so far away from the other seven cities that under league rules Denver had to pay visiting teams 15 cents per paid admission, two and a half cents more than the other seven teams paid their visitors, to cover the added travel expense for those teams.8 McGill pointed out that Denver was the most populous city in the league (225,000), and generally had the best attendance, so the visitors’ share would have been substantial even at the league standard.

O’Neill, from the league office in Chicago, dropped hints. “It is an actual fact,” said McGill, “that we could make more money by putting in a club on the river, at say Burlington, Iowa, than we can under the present conditions by coming to Denver.”9 Other writers reported that the league would drop Denver in favor of a Chicago franchise that would play at Comiskey Park while the White Sox were on the road. Nothing came of these rumors, but McGill and other Western League owners became more wary of Chicago baseball interests.

Manager Hendricks, in Hot Springs, Arkansas, with his pitchers and catchers in late March, was more concerned about the team he could put on the field. He had lost two of his best pitchers, O’Brien and Casey Hagerman, to the Boston Red Sox. Hendricks asked Red Sox manager Jake Stahl, who was also in Hot Springs, to farm some of his prospects to Denver during the season. (St. Joseph and Des Moines both made similar arrangements with the Chicago White Sox.) Stahl loaned him Hubert “Dutch” Leonard, a promising pitcher who, Stahl felt, needed more seasoning.

Hendricks had other hopes for pitching. David “Barney” Schreiber, who had gotten into three games with the Cincinnati Reds in 1911, had not joined Denver until mid-season but posted a 15-7 record. Hendricks looked forward to a full season from Schreiber. Ed “Big Moose” Kinsella had shown potential. Denver fans hoped for a comeback from longtime Grizzly pitcher Henry Olmstead, who missed the bulk of 1911 due to his wife’s illness and death. Olmstead, with Cassidy, had been with the club since the beginning of the 1907 season, and was a fan favorite.

Denver started well, but St. Joseph kept pace. The Drummers, sometimes called the Hollanders after owner-manager Jack Holland, featured several future major leaguers, including outfielders Edward “Dutch” Zwilling and Ray “Rabbit” Powell and first baseman William “Babe” Borton. The St. Joseph players had the batting and base running skills to go with the nicknames. Fans and press alike were amused to note that ten of the seventeen St. Joseph players were married, which was apparently unusual for Class A ball.10

Denver’s pitching faltered early. Leonard was unhappy with Denver, and it showed in his work. Schreiber and Kinsella started slowly. Olmstead had control problems; in a May 14th game, he hit three Sioux City players in a row, all of whom scored.

The hitters picked up the slack for a while. During one seven- game stretch in Denver in May, 14 home runs were hit, 12 of them by Denver players. “As a tobacco company gives five pounds of smoking for every home run knocked on Western League parks,” noted The Sporting News, “this means that the tobacco company has been stuck for 70 pounds of tobacco in a week at Denver.”11 Hendricks knew he couldn’t count on that forever.

St. Joseph swept Denver in a series in late May, and took over first place. Then Omaha, Sioux City and Des Moines slipped past the Grizzlies. Hendricks, in fifth place on June 2nd, decided that he had seen enough. Hendricks sold or released six players, including Olmstead.12 He spent $750 to get catcher George Block from St. Paul, and another $300 to get a former Grizzly outfielder, Grover Gilmore, back from Buffalo.13 Charlie French arrived from Montreal and took over second base. Later in the month Hendricks suspended the “sulking” Leonard and purchased Casey Hagerman back from Boston.14 Even Harry Cassidy, who had not missed a game in five years, was rumored to be on his way out. The club got the message.

The rest of the league gave little ground. Wichita rode pitcher W.E. Ellis’s 13-game winning streak. Sioux City picked up outfielder Josh Clarke (the brother of Pittsburgh’s Fred) in mid-season, and watched him bat .323 the rest of the way. Omaha’s Marc Hall, building a 25-9 record, led the Rourkes’ pitching staff. St. Joseph’s Borton led the league in batting average, hitting .400 for a while and finishing at .364, while Zwilling provided power (including a three-homer game versus Sioux City on Sunday, June 30th). The front-page of the July 18th Sporting News carried the headline “IT’S ANYBODY’S FLAG” and proclaimed the Western League race “one of the best races in the country.”15 The top five teams, St. Joseph, Omaha, Sioux City, Denver, and Wichita, were separated by only five games.

Two weeks later, Ellis’s magic was gone and the rest of the Wichita club could not pick up the slack.16 Des Moines replaced Wichita in the cluster near the top, though, and it was still a five-team race as August began.

Western League officials were elated. At a meeting of minor-league presidents that summer, Norris O’Neill was the only one to report his league’s attendance was up.17 “A mixture of bad weather and politics served to cut down the attendance all over the country,” The Sporting News reported, “and the Western League has probably suffered less than any other from both causes.18 Of course, the close race kept the turnstiles spinning, too.

In late July and early August, Denver reeled off a 13-game win streak of its own. Kinsella and Schreiber pitched like machines. Leonard, over his sulk, struck out 17 batters in an August 5th two-hitter.19 Even Denver outfielder Lester Channell’s broken ankle didn’t slow them down. Grover Gilmore stepped in. The streak put Denver back in first.

Pundits gave Denver the edge down the stretch, noting that the balance of schedule had Denver playing mostly at home.20 They also took new notice of Jack Hendricks, after the manager’s mid-season shakeup began to pay off. “Toss him in any league, with any material,” wrote one correspondent, “and up he comes from the ruck in speedy time. They are ‘dippy’ about him in Denver and pay him a lot of money to sojourn—otherwise he might be winning battles in big league company.”21

Injuries hampered Des Moines, and Sioux City faded. Omaha moved into second place. St. Joseph lost Babe Borton and pitcher George “Chief” Johnson to the White Sox in September, but moved Zwilling to first base and kept close behind.

Denver clinched the pennant on Friday, September 27th, with two days left in the season, when St. Joseph defeated Omaha. The Drummers then swept Omaha in a doubleheader on the last day of the season to snatch second place from the Rourkes.

The league season was over, but Denver had one more challenge. The American Association champion Minneapolis Millers came to Denver for a best-of-seven series on October 5th. The Grizzlies surprised the heavily-favored Millers four games to one, largely behind the workhorse pitching of Barney Schreiber and Dutch Leonard. Minneapolis ballplayers had the financial edge, though. Denver hosted the whole series, and club management had struck a deal with the players to split the proceeds. They also split the expenses, and after the bills were paid Denver players found their share for the five-game series amounted to only $131.55 per player. The visiting Millers, who didn’t have to share expenses, took home about $300 apiece.22

Harry Cassidy, who scored the game-winning run in the final Millers game, suffered less than his teammates. When he completed his sixth straight season without missing a game, Denver fans took up a collection to give him an automobile.23

The close race gave other Western League teams hope for 1913. Denver lost four stars, including Leonard, to major league clubs, and observers thought a dark horse could win the race. It wasn’t close. Hendricks rebuilt the team and Denver won the 1913 flag by ten games over Des Moines.

After the 1913 season, James McGill purchased the Indianapolis American Association ball club, and then he moved Hendricks to Indianapolis to manage the Indians.24 Otto Floto, the Denver Post sports editor, bet American Association president George Tebeau that Hendricks would win a pennant within three years in that league. “I never saw a manager like this guy,” said Floto, “but he must get out of Denver. He has ruined the Western League.”25

Floto lost his bet, but only by one year; Indianapolis won the American Association pennant in 1917.26 The following season, Hendricks found himself in “big league company” at last, managing the St. Louis Cardinals.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to Rex Hamann, Dan O’Brien, Marc Okkonen, and Dick Thompson for their assistance.

NOTES

1. Lloyd Johnson and Miles Wolff, , The Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball. Baseball America, Inc. (Durham, North Carolina, 1993): 104,107.
2. The Sporting News, January 18, 1912: 1.
3. Christian, Ralph, “Never on Sunday: The Controversy over Sunday Baseball in Des Moines, Iowa, 1887-1912,” presentation at SABR 31, Milwaukee, July 12, 2001.
4. The Sporting News, January 25, 1912: 4.
5. The Sporting News, February 1, 1912: 3, 4.
6. The Sporting News, February 22, 1912: 1.
7. The Sporting News, February 1, 1912: 1.
8. The Sporting News, February 29, 1912: 5.
9. The Sporting Life, March 9, 1912: 13.
10. The Sporting News, May 5, 1912.
11. The Sporting News, May 30, 1912.
12. Olmstead signed with the pennant-winning Oakland club of the Pacific Coast League, appearing in 10 games and winning two (Richter, Francis , ed. The Reach 1913 Base Ball Guide. A.J. Reach Company (Philadelphia, Penn., 1913): 263.) The year 1913 appears to have been his last season in professional baseball.
13. The Sporting News, August 22, 1912.
14. The Sporting News, June 27, 1912: 1.
15. The Sporting News, July 18, 1912: 1.
16. The Sporting News, August 1, 1912.
17. The Sporting News, July 25, 1912.
18. The Sporting News, October 3, 1912.
19. The Sporting News, October 3, 1912.
20. The Sporting News, August 8, 1912.
21. The Sporting News, August 15, 1912.
22. The Sporting News, October 24, 1912: 6.
23. The Sporting News, September 26, 1912.
24. David Reddick and Kim M. Rogers, The Magic of Indians’ Baseball: 1887-1997 (Indianapolis, Indiana: Indianapolis Indians Baseball Club, 1988): 23.
25. The Sporting News, October 23, 1913: 4.
26. <indyindians.com/archives/year_by_year.html>