Professional baseball teams in Toledo, Ohio, were first known as the Mud Hens?for the local marsh birds?more than a century ago. About a dozen other team names have been used over the course of 106 seasons dating back to the first in 1883. The city has been represented in minor leagues of various levels, the Negro leagues, and the major leagues as well. For most of the last 100 years, Toledo teams have played at the highest minor league classification. Many associated with Toledo baseball have gone on to successful major league careers as players, managers, and umpires. Fifteen have been enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame and others hold numerous major league records. Baseball in Toledo traces the long and rich Toledo baseball history through pictures drawn from several major collections, along with detailed captions. Included is a summary of every Toledo season, and an all-time Toledo roster that lists all the players ever to wear a Toledo uniform. Author John R. Husman is a 20-year member of the Society for American Baseball Research and is the Toledo Mud Hens Team Historian.

   Michigan and Trumbull was the address for professional baseball in Detroit for 104 seasons. From 1896 when Bennett Park opened, until the last game at Tiger Stadium in 1999, Michigan and Trumbull was the most famous street corner in Michigan. This book takes you on a visual tour of baseball in the Motor City from the beginning of the Tigers franchise to the historic final game played at Tiger Stadium. Here you will find Tiger legends Cobb, Gehringer, Greenberg, Kaline, Lolich, Trammell, and others, many captured in never before published photographs. Irwin J. Cohen worked in Tiger Stadium as a writer and photographer and was employed in the front office when the team won the World Series in 1984. He viewed the historic ballpark from every seat as well as from many vantage points not accessible to the public. Mr. Cohen is a member of the Society for American Baseball Research and has written several other books, including Arcadia?s Jewish Detroit.

   In the spring of 1865, the first spring after the end of the Civil War, three baseball clubs were founded in downtown Columbus. This local enthusiasm for the game reflected the national trend during the post-war era, when baseball, or ?base ball? as it was called, was spreading rapidly throughout the United States. Baseball in Columbus begins with these earliest baseball pioneers and tells the story of the national pastime in the capital city right up to the present-day Columbus Clippers of the International League. Columbus first made the ?big leagues? in 1883 with the Columbus Buckeyes of the American Association, and local fans have embraced the city?s teams and players ever since. Several of baseball?s greats once wore a Columbus uniform during their minor league careers, including Enos Slaughter, Joe Garagiola, Harvey Haddix, Willie Stargell, Derek Jeter, and Bernie Williams. Author James R. Tootle, Ph.D., is a member of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) and its 19th Century Committee. He is active in the Vintage Base Ball Association, Thurber House, and the Ohio Historical Society. A lifetime Columbus resident and longtime assistant dean at The Ohio State University.

   Victory Field, built in 1996 as home to the Indianapolis Indians, is considered by many today as the best minor league ballpark in the nation. But baseball has deeper roots in the Circle City, as fans of the Tribe will discover in the pages of Baseball in Indianapolis, which tells the story of the American pastime in the state capitol from the post-Civil War era up to the present day. Legends like Rube Marquard, Oscar Charleston and Roger Maris are all a part of Indianapolis? baseball heritage. So too are present-day stars like Randy Johnson, Larry Walker and Aaron Boone. Even Hank Aaron had a stint with the barnstorming Indianapolis Clowns in 1952, en route to his record-breaking career. Author W.C. Madden captures the history of baseball in the Circle City? including semi-pro and amateur clubs, youth baseball and a vintage ?base ball? scene that is a throw back to a by-gone era?with more than 130 images dating back to the 1880s. Madden, an Indianapolis native, chairs the regional chapter of the Society for American Baseball Research. This is his seventh book about the game he still plays and loves?baseball.

   Bridgeport, Connecticut, owns a rich and diverse baseball history. People from varied backgrounds stepped up to the plate in Bridgeport?s early years?sons of Irish immigrants, laborers and merchants, Asian and Latino players, and some of the first African Americans to play professional ball. Local baseball truly blossomed with ?Orator? Jim O?Rourke, who returned from the big leagues and organized the Connecticut State Baseball League in 1895. Numerous Bridgeport teams evolved, including the Victors, Mechanics, Bolts, Americans, and Bears. Bridgeport Baseball traces the game from the post?Civil War era to today. Baseball beneath the roaring smokestacks of industrial Bridgeport included visits by barnstorming Major League and Negro League teams, future Hall of Famers, and a train wreck that almost killed the St. Louis Cardinals. The smokestacks are silent now, yet the legacy of Bridgeport baseball continues to evolve with the city?s first professional club in nearly half a century?the Bridgeport Bluefish. The team, owners, staff, fans, and stadium have all contributed to restoring the living history that is Bridgeport Baseball. Michael J. Bielawa is the community relations librarian with the Bridgeport Public Library. He is a local baseball historian and member of the Society for American Baseball Research. He also writes and lectures on the history of baseball in Connecticut.

Cover from The Philadelphia Athletics by William C. Kashatus

   In October 1954, the Philadelphia Athletics relocated to Kansas City, putting an end to more than a half-century of American League baseball in the City of Brotherly Love. However, of all the professional sports teams ever to play in the city, Connie Mack?s Athletics remain the most successful?and frustrating. Their five World Series titles and nine pennants were balanced with seventeen last-place finishes. Mack?s 3,776 victories as a manager were only exceeded by the 4,025 defeats he suffered?still a record for most losses by a single manager. In The Philadelphia Athletics, author William C. Kashatus tells the story of Connie Mack?s talented and comedic team. Eighteen Philadelphia Athletics are enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame, including players as famous as Ty Cobb, Mickey Cochrane, Eddie Collins, Jimmie Foxx, and Lefty Grove and as colorful as Rube Waddell, Chief Bender, and Al Simmons. From the early days of the American League, when the Athletics were ridiculed as the ?White Elephants,? through the glory years and their final decade in Philadelphia, The Philadelphia Athletics tells the poignant story of a manager and team who were among the greatest of all time. William C. Kashatus works for the Chester County Historical Society in West Chester, Pennsylvania, where he curated the exhibition ?Baseball?s White Elephants: Connie Mack and the Philadelphia Athletics.? A regular contributor to the Philadelphia Daily News, he is also the author of several baseball books, including One-Armed Wonder: Pete Gray, Wartime Baseball and the American Dream; Mike Schmidt; Connie Mack?s ?29 Triumph; and Diamonds in the Coalfields.

   If there was ever a place in America where a city and its baseball team were as close as family, it was Brooklyn. The legacy of this relationship comes down to us in stories of childhoods spent at Ebbets Field and in the stories of Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey, whose courage changed the face of America. Baseball in Brooklyn goes back to the beginning of the sport, when a young city embraced a new game and, like missionaries, carried it to the nation. This book tells the story of that beginning and concludes with the heart-wrenching move of the franchise to the West Coast after the 1957 season. Brooklyn Dodgers carries us from the birth of baseball in the streets of Brooklyn through the decades in Flatbush when Ebbets Field was the center of the Brooklyn community. That was a time when the players lived in the neighborhoods not far from the ballpark, side by side with their followers. Duke Snider, Pee Wee Reese, Jackie Robinson, Gil Hodges, and Johnny Podres all make appearances in this exciting selection of photographs. A large part of Brooklyn Dodgers is dedicated to those teams of the 1950s and their irrepressible fans. Mark Rucker, an author and editor, is president of the picture agency Transcendental Graphics. He was a pictorial researcher for the Ken Burns film Baseball and is a member of the Society for American Baseball Research. He has produced many sports histories, including biographies of Babe Ruth and Ted Williams.

Images of Baseball Series by Arcadia Publishing