It has been way too long since I’ve posted. As with anything, there are plenty of excuses: work, COVID restrictions preventing access to archives, graduate school, editing a book. Fortunately for my other blog (IowaTownBall), more Iowa (and Battle Creek, MI) newspapers are online than the Minnesota side so I’ve been able to keep working on those projects while some of Minnesota projects languish on the back burner. Hopefully the Delta variant will soon pass and I can get back to the microfilm to figure out things no one else likely cares about like why was a a team based in Mankato called the Foresters and where did they play their games, why did Waseca have a black team mascot in 1939 called “Shine” Brown, and were any official Negro League games played at Mankato’s Tanley Field because there is a promotional flyer for a game played by the Kansas City Monarchs in Mankato on display in Birminghan’s Negro Southern League Museum.
Until the time when I have more time to write and more access to archives on a schedule that meets my needs, there may be more cross posting between my two blogs. When I originally started this blog, it wasn’t intended to be limited to Southern Minnesota in part because the border really had little to do with actual baseball played in Southern Minnesota because the border was really only mattered for eligibility for the Minnesota state baseball tournament. Southern Minny League teams frequently played against Iowa teams and in later years the League had teams in Mason City, Estherville and Bancroft. Savvy Minnesota managers often looked south for new recruits and most prized among them were the Menkes of Bancroft. This post from my Iowa Town Ball blog shows the many Menkes playing for Mankato but also connections that Mankato’s Squire Riddles and John Menke had to northern Iowa as well.
southernminnybaseball 