Amanda Lane Cumming
I write about baseball. Lookout Landing alum. 2021 SABR Award Finalist. I read a lot of old newspapers. Can solve a Rubik’s Cube. She/Her. Aries ☀️ Aquarius 🌙 Cancer ⬆️ Tacoman
Newsletter on all things PNW baseball history: https://www.nwbaseballhistory.com
- Find someone who loves you as much as newspapers love printing whatever wildly inaccurate tales former baseball players tell them with absolutely no thought of verifying anything.
- And if you can't find that, well, I suppose it's fine to settle for someone who loves you as much as researchers love repeating these wildly inaccurate tales, even when there are PLENTIFUL contradictory primary sources.
- I will say, though, that it does make an interesting study in how mythologies develop.
- It probably won't be ready for tomorrow, but definitely by Friday I'll have a new newsletter out! Yay! And I just can't help sharing this little preview with you because it is spectacular. (Seattle Times, February 1, 1931)
- This article describes the team as the "daddy of all bush baseball in the city" and that's just perfect, no notes.
- I’m reading a “Where Are They Now” type article from 1909 and the paper wrote of player that he “is more corpulent now than in his playing days.” Just coming right out like “Look at this fatso!” I feel bad for laughing, but holy shit 🤣
- The Snohomish Blue Jay Base Ball Club, that I did some posts on earlier today, were the first women's baseball team I found in Washington Territory in the 19th century, but I've run across several mentions of girls and women's teams in Oregon in the 19th century. A few of them follow:
- First up, from the May 16, 1873 Albany Democrat. This seems nice and encouraging! Until you realize the item it followed in the newspapers was...
- ..this! Gross. Check those files for writers from Albany Democrat.
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View full threadAll this is to demonstrate, on this Girls and Women in Sports Day, that girls and women have always played baseball, even in the PNW, far from the northeast and the center of the baseball historical universe. (And also that men have rarely been able to be normal about women playing baseball.)
- All the dogs who live around my house are going crazy barking, so either their owners all suck or we're about to have an earthquake.
- It was 60 degrees today, bright at 5 PM, and the flowers are blooming in the front yard. All of this makes sense because it's obviously April and I'm just gonna go turn on the Mariners game in a bit and relax tonight.
- How can you not be romantic about baseball?
- Really sucks the Jeff Bozo couldn't be satisfied with ruining one Washington and had to move on to another one. I wish everyone could agree to band together and destroy him.
- Looking at some pictures of pre-Great Fire downtown Seattle and boy does it look flammable. Even without the benefit of hindsight it looks like a firetrap. It's actually kind of amazing it lasted so long without burning!
- Like, what do you mean this city burned down? Looks so solid and permanent. digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/digital/coll...
- Today is National Girls & Women in Sports Day so let's learn all about the first 19th century women's base ball club I was able to find in the Puget Sound region: The Snohomish City Blue Jay Base Ball Club. They didn't receive much coverage, but seem to have made an impression nonetheless.
- They were first introduced in the July 16, 1879 edition of the Post-Intelligencer. The paper noted "they cannot gracefully run or stoop to pick up a ball when hampered by a tight pullback." Which, yeah, obviously. Like male clubs at the time, they raised money for uniforms by hosting a dance.
- On August 29, 1879 the captain of the club, Fannie Lowe, received a "polite invitation" to participate in the base ball tournament at the upcoming territorial fair in Olympia. An item noted that "several young lady clubs will be present on that occasion", but no other women's club made the papers.
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View full threadAnd that was that for coverage of the Blue Jays. They existed during a gap in newspaper coverage in Snohomish, so everything we know is from Seattle. But that shows the impression they made. While women's clubs were mentioned throughout the NW, they were the first to get more than a cursory writeup.
- Not sure about favorite, but the ones that immediately came to mind: For a Pessimist, I’m Pretty Optimistic by Paramour My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark - by Fall Out Boy (tho this applies to half the FOB songs) Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle - by Nirvana
