60 years since Eddie Gaedel took a walk

Eddie Gaedel stepped to the plate as a pinch-hitter 60 years ago on Aug. 19, 1951. Detroit catcher Bob Swift kneels to catch the high pitch from Tigers' left-hander Bob (Sugar) Cain. Umpire Ed Hurley squints to locate the batter's strike zone.

By Tom Hawthorn
Special to The Detroit Free Press
August 14, 2001

Eddie Gaedel was a chubby-cheeked vaudevillian who worked burlesque houses in the Midwest. He weighed just 65 pounds and stood no taller than an asterisk.

Fifty years ago, on Aug. 19, 1951, Gaedel stepped to the plate in a game against the Tigers. He drew a base on balls and walked into baseball lore.

"I thought it was a big joke," said George Kell, a future Hall of Famer who played third base for the Tigers that day. "The fans sure got a kick out of it."

St. Louis Browns owner Bill Veeck had signed the 3-foot-7 Gaedel to a contract the day before. He sent him to the plate at Sportsman's Park wearing a child's baseball uniform with the fraction 1/8 on the back.

One of the most famous moments in baseball history -- and certainly the zaniest -- will be re-enacted this weekend at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. Mike Veeck, a baseball consultant known for his own wacky promotions, will portray his father, while his 8-year-old daughter, Rebecca, will take Gaedel's place.

The strangest incident in Tigers history never will be forgotten by Kell, who saw his share of oddities in six decades as a player and broadcaster.

"I'm glad to have been a part of it," said Kell, who will turn 79 on Aug. 23. "We Tigers laughed it off, because we figured we were going to win."

Timing was right for Browns



The sad-sack Browns trailed the New York Yankees by 36 games with a month left in the season. A doubleheader against the Tigers, struggling unsuccessfully to stay at .500, promised to be a box-office dud.

Eddie Gaedel tips his cap.

Veeck was a baseball Barnum. He signed African-American players such as Satchel Paige when other owners refused to do so. Veeck invented the exploding scoreboard. He planted ivy along the outfield wall at Wrigley Field. And, for one day in the summer of 1951, he hired a player not much taller than a bat.

Veeck decided to mark the 50th anniversary of the American League, and coincidentally that of Falstaff Brewery, his club's radio sponsor, between games of the doubleheader.

The promise of a party lured 18,369 fans to Sportsman's Park, the largest Browns home crowd in four seasons. Fans were given a free can of beer, a slice of birthday cake and a box of ice cream. They were also handed salt-and-pepper shakers in the shape of miniature beer cans, an inside joke because only a handful of people knew what Veeck's fertile imagination had brewed.

The Tigers won the first game. Then the festivities began. A juggling act was at third base, trampolinists at second base, an acrobat at first base. Paige led a quartet of Browns at home plate, Ol' Satch banging the drums while pitcher Al Widmar plucked at a stand-up bass.

"I spent 60 years in baseball. Never saw anything like it," said Widmar, who recently retired to Tulsa, Okla., after a long service with the Toronto Blue Jays.

While the crowd roared its approval, an actor of Falstaffian girth dressed in an Elizabethan costume wheeled onto the grass a three-tier, seven-foot papier-mache cake.

"Ladies and gentlemen," announcer Bernie Ebert said, "as a special birthday present to manager Zack Taylor, the management is presenting him with a brand-new Brownie."

And out popped Gaedel in his uniform, wearing curly-toed brownie slippers.

Manager Rolfe protested

He pranced a bit before taking a seat in the dugout. He quietly changed into baseball shoes as the second game began.

The Tigers were surprised to see rookie Frank Saucier in centerfield. He had just undergone an operation for bursitis in his shoulder and couldn't throw from the mound to the plate, never mind from the outfield.

The Tigers were retired and Saucier was listed to lead off the home half of the first. But Gaedel popped out of the dugout waving three toy bats. "For the Browns," Ebert announced, "number one-eighth, Eddie Gaedel, batting for Saucier."

Red Rolfe bolted from the Tigers' dugout. The manager objected that the Browns were making a farce of the game. But Taylor showed umpire Ed Hurley a valid player's contract for Gaedel, which Veeck had fortuitously mailed to the league office the day before, when the office was closed.

Hurley examined the paper and signaled for Gaedel to step to the plate.

Veeck was worried that his newest player would get it into his head to swing for glory. He told Gaedel that he had taken out a million-dollar life insurance policy on him and had placed a sniper on the roof to shoot him if he swung.

Tigers starter Bob (Sugar) Cain, a fine left-hander, called catcher Bob Swift to the mound for a conference.

"I didn't know whether to throw the ball underhanded or overhanded to Gaedel," Cain later told writer Danny Peary. "I just wanted to be careful not to hit him. Dizzy Trout told me later that if he'd been the pitcher, he'd have thrown the ball right between his eyes."

Gaedel, batting right-handed, stood deep in the batter's box, taking a wide stance and crouching so low that his strike zone appeared no more than a few inches deep.

Swift wanted to rest flat on his belly for the pitch, but that was too much for umpire Hurley, who ordered Swift to his knees.

At third base, Kell came halfway down the line in case of a bunt.

"I played in real close," Kell said from his hometown of Swifton, Ark. "I would have tried to throw him out. I was not going to make a farce out of it."

Cain's first pitch was a perfect fastball about four feet above the plate. A strike to every major-leaguer but one. Ball one.

The second pitch was just as good. Ball two.

Cain was laughing now. He lobbed one in. Ball three.

Later, he would say he would've given his right arm to throw just one strike. He lobbed another one toward the plate. Ball four.

Gaedel's bat never left his shoulder.

"They were trying to throw strikes," Kell recalled. "Of course, there wasn't any way he could throw strikes to a fellow that small."

Gaedel trotted down to first base, tipping his cap to the fans along the way.

"He did a good job," Widmar said of his temporary teammate. "He didn't swing."

Jim Delsing was sent out as a pinch-runner. Gaedel slapped his replacement hard on the rump, and milked applause as he crossed the infield grass to the dugout behind third base. He opened his arms wide and bowed. The sad-eyed Gaedel was a professional showman, and this was the largest audience he'd ever see.

"For a minute," Gaedel said after the game, "I felt like Babe Ruth."

Despite Veeck's legerdemain, Delsing got only as far as third base and the Tigers won, 6-2.

Delsing, a journeyman outfielder who posted a solid .255 batting average over 10 major league seasons, has spent the past half-century as the answer to a trivia question.

"It doesn't upset me," he said from his home in Chesterfield, Mo., a St. Louis suburb. "Some of the things you accomplished on the ball field are forgotten, but you wouldn't be calling me about my fielding average."

Delsing will be in Cooperstown this weekend for the re-enactment. He will play himself.

No hard feelings

The butt of the prank was Saucier, who became the only player ever to be pinch-hit for by a little person. "This is the only part of the gag I ever felt bad about," Veeck noted in his 1962 memoir, Veeck —As in Wreck.

Saucier, who is 75 and owns a financial services business in Amarillo, Texas, says he has long been incorrectly portrayed as being miffed. He ended his career with only 14 at-bats, but he carries no grudge.

"Three thoughts went through my mind that day," he said. "One, this is more like a carnival or a circus than a professional baseball game. Two, this is the greatest bit of showmanship I've ever seen. Three, this is the easiest money I'll ever make."

American League president Will Harridge, infuriated by a stunt he thought held the game up to ridicule, banned Gaedel from baseball two days later. Harridge also tried to expunge Gaedel's name from the record book, but Veeck successfully argued that if Gaedel was a phantom, so was the walk issued by Cain, the benching of Saucier and the pinch-running by Delsing.

The president's ruling ended Gaedel's playing days, making his career as short as he was.

Gaedel died at age 36 of a heart attack after being mugged in his hometown of Chicago in 1961. Cain attended his funeral.

Cain died four years ago, while batterymate Swift, a fellow Kansan, died in 1966.

Gaedel was paid $100 for his plate appearance. He also earned a small slice of baseball immortality in the record book. He recorded a perfect 1.000 on-base percentage. You could look it up.


Hard to believe 10 years has passed since I wrote about the 50th anniversary of my favourite moment in baseball history. Some of the principals in the drama were already gone and we have lost several more in the decade since. Al Widmar died in 2005; Jim Delsing died in 2006; and, George Kell died in 2009. Frank Saucier, the butt of the stunt, still lives in Amarillo, Texas. He turned 85 in May.

A rare postcard of Eddie Gaedel was placed for auction earlier this year. He was billed as "Little Eddie the Mercury Man." Five years later, he walked into baseball lore.

Versions of this article also appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle and the National Post of Toronto.

Fergie Jenkins completes his longest road trip

By Tom Hawthorn
Special to The Globe and Mail
March 1, 2011

VICTORIA

Ferguson Jenkins gripped a baseball in his left hand before signing his name in tight script. He added the notation, “HOF 91.”

Twenty seasons have passed since he was named to the Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, N.Y., the only Canadian so far to have entered the pantheon of baseball immortals.

At 68, he has known his share of honours, having won a Cy Young Award as a pitcher and an Order of Canada for his athletic prowess and community works. Now he has one more — he is depicted on a Canadian postage stamp.

Mr. Jenkins completed a month-long, cross-Canada tour on Saturday, an odyssey that was surely the longest road trip of his career. He made 41 appearances in 23 cities in nine provinces. The audiences ranged from 867 at a junior hockey game in Summerside, P.E.I., to 600 at an event in his hometown of Chatham, Ont., to the 40 who attended a brief talk and autograph session at the Gordon Head Recreational Centre in suburban Victoria.

He signed baseballs and sold paraphernalia to benefit his eponymous charitable foundation. The son of a Barbadian immigrant father and a mother whose family came to this land along the Underground Railroad as escaped slaves, Canada’s greatest ballplayer has been placed on a postage stamp to mark Black History Month.

Ferguson Jenkins in Victoria.

His reception in Victoria was considerably warmer than that afforded the pitcher early in his career as a professional.

His introduction to segregation — to Jim Crow laws — came during his first spring training in Florida in 1962.

“We didn’t eat in the restaurants, couldn’t stay in the same hotels,” he said.

At Miami Beach, black players were barred from enjoying the sands for which the town got its name. The restriction did not bother him.

“I didn’t need a tan,” he quipped, “so why go to the beach?”

He was aged 20 when assigned to the Arkansas Travelers, a minor-league team based in Little Rock. Only six years earlier, an angry mob of violent whites confronted nine black students seeking to attend Central High School.

Those same elements did not welcome black athletes. On Opening Day in 1963, white supremacists picketed the ballpark with signs reading, “Don’t Negro-ize baseball.” Other signs included foul epithets.

“At the airport,” Mr. Jenkins remembered, “there were a couple of banners that said, ‘We don’t want black players.’ ”

Only those banners did not use the word black.

“It was a shock at the beginning. But I’d read about it in the paper, so I was used to it. We knew it was going to happen. They told four of us in spring training that we were going to Little Rock and could we handle the pressure.”

He was joined in integrating Arkansas baseball by the slugging Dick Allen, of Wampum, Penn., and fellow pitchers Marcelino Lopez, a Cuban, and Richard Quiroz, a Panamanian.

“The pressure was not on the field,” he said. “It was off the field.”

The “idiots” responsible for the banners became less obvious once the team began winning. “They embraced us after awhile,” he said.

(The Travelers also included another British Columbian on the roster in Gerry Reimer, whose son, Kevin, would spend six seasons in the majors.)

Mr. Jenkins survived the test and graduated to spend 19 seasons in the major leagues, most notably with the Chicago Cubs. He won 20 games or more in seven seasons, earning a reputation for pinpoint control.

In Victoria, Mr. Jenkins was introduced by Doug Hudlin, 88, a longtime umpire who was the first non-American invited to work a Little League World Series game at Williamsport, Penn.

Mr. Hudlin, a descendent of the Alexander family, pioneer settlers on the Saanich peninsula, remembers when black residents of Victoria could not freely attend events in the city. Dance halls were barred to blacks, as were some hotels.

His father worked as a shoeshine man in the basement of the Empress Hotel. He was not permitted to pass through the lobby.

Like others, Mr. Hudlin found on the baseball diamond a place where the only colour that mattered was the one on his uniform.

“Everything was baseball,” he said, “once you were on the field.”

Covering the minors propels a dreamer to the Hall of Fame

The premiere issue of All-America Baseball News was a ragged affair with sloppy layout. But the information was good and the publication, later renamed Baseball America, found an audience.

By Tom Hawthorn
Special to The Globe and Mail
January 26, 2011

VICTORIA

Allan Simpson had a dream. He was going to quit his accountant’s job to start a newspaper about baseball.

Not about the star sluggers, or the most popular teams.

A newspaper about unknown players. Amateurs. Prospects. College kids.

Friends and potential financiers issued a unanimous verdict: You’re going to strike out.

“I ran the idea by everyone and they all thought I was completely nuts,” he recalled on Tuesday. “Except my wife.”

He took the gamble, moving his young family, with two toddlers, from Vernon to White Rock, where he had bought a home with a garage, which would be his office.

Years later, he would look back in amazement at his own judgment.

Allan Simpson

“Here I was, a guy with no publishing background, limited financial resources, few active contacts in baseball,” he once wrote, “trying to launch a national baseball publication out of the garage of my house. In Canada, no less.”

He knew Americans would balk at a baseball periodical from Canada, so a post office box was rented across the border in Bellingham, Wash.

He had a killer name for the publication, too — All-America Baseball News.

It was, he acknowledges, “a little deceitful.”

He built his own angled layout table and bought a primitive typesetting machine that in 1980 was already obsolete.

The office was primitive.

“Unheated,” he recalls. “Had my skis in there. Beer bottles. Winter tires. The works.”

At night, he skimmed out-of-town newspapers looking for nuggets of baseball wisdom. He wore a jacket, though found it difficult to turn pages with gloves on.

Mr. Simpson was an avid and longtime reader of The Sporting News. Known as the "Bible of Baseball,” the newspaper decided in the 1970s to forego coverage of baseball’s minor leagues in favour of articles on professional football and hockey. He’d fill the niche with a tabloid newspaper.

Through direct mail solicitations and a handful of small advertisements in the rival publication, he found a modest audience who shared his obsession with all things baseball. About 1,500 fellow diehards bought his pitch, almost all of them Americans, forked over $16.50 US for a 22-issue charter subscription.

He had no idea what he was getting into.

Mr. Simpson had been born in Kelowna, the grandson of Stanley Merriam Simpson, a sawmill owner whose box company made the crates in which the Okanagan’s rich bounty of fruit was shipped around the world. Young Allan attended a private school where the preferred sports were soccer, badminton and cricket. He did not play baseball until age 15.

He had a summer job as a sportswriter with the Kelowna Courier and covered university sports briefly for the Vancouver Sun until the daily went on strike. He eventually headed north to become the assistant general manager of the Alaska Goldpanners amateur baseball team. When the local newspaper discovered his background, he also became summertime sports editor of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.

On his honeymoon, he stopped in Montreal to talk his way into becoming the first general manager of a fledgling farm team in Alberta. The one star on the Lethbridge Expos was a skinny, 20-year-old outfielder from Miami named Andre Dawson. Mr. Simpson earned just $700 a month. He returned to school and became an accountant. Until he had his dream.

The first issue was overdue. He thought he could typeset all 32 pages of articles himself. Strike one.

A friend had to be called in. A day before the pages were to be sent to the printers, long galleys of typeset articles hung from the rafters of the garage like flypaper. He thought he could paste down all the articles in one night. Strike two.

He knew little about design. For the masthead he chose a font that would be more appropriate for Irish Spring soap. Pages were incomplete and riddled with errors, but the presses were ready to roll, so he rushed across the border to the Bellingham Herald. They slapped in some final corrections in a different typeface.

“A classic it was not,” the editor/publisher/typesetter said.

He was so tired after two sleepless nights of production that he didn’t dare drive the 40-kilometres home to bed. He slept in his car at a rest stop on Interstate 5.

The next day he took the premiere edition to Seattle to be mailed.

With horror, he realized he had less than two weeks to produce the second issue.

The publication, later to be renamed Baseball America, nearly died that year, but a strike by major league players fueled an appetite for news from baseball’s lesser circuits. Circulation grew.

Mr. Simpson sold a majority interest in the newspaper two years later, moving with it to Durham, N.C. In time, it became a must-read trade publication. He left the newspaper five years ago to become a vice-president with Perfect Game USA, a prominent baseball scouting service.

Next month will mark the 30th anniversary of the paper’s debut.

On Monday, the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame at St. Marys, Ont., announced their latest inductees — Tom (The Terminator) Henke, a relief pitcher for the Toronto Blue Jays: George (Dandy) Wood, an 19th-century player from Prince Edward Island; and, Mr. Simpson, 62, a dreamer.

The Seals depart, leaving a void in Victoria

The Victoria Seals entertained fans for two seasons before abandoning the city. BELOW: Seamore the Seal was loved by children and adults alike. Photographs by Deddeda Stemler.

By Tom Hawthorn
Special to The Globe and Mail
November 15, 2010

VICTORIA

Fans at Royal Athletic Park greeted every plate appearance of popular catcher Josh Arhart with a piratical cry of Arrrrrrr-hart!

Up by a few runs, or down by many (the latter unfortunately the more common scenario), the hearty salute to the slugging matey never failed to bring a chuckle.

In two summers at the park, through blustery afternoons and seasonably cool evenings, a small but dedicated corps of rooters cheered on the sometimes madcap adventures of the Victoria Seals baseball team.

Customers at the sad old park witnessed some odd events. In the final game of the season, Charlie Strandlund, the only Victoria-born athlete on the squad, played all nine positions — pitcher, catcher, four infield and three outfield. Eri Yoshida, an 18-year-old schoolgirl from Japan known as the Knuckleball Princess, pitched a game for a visiting team, striking out Victoria’s leadoff batter to the roars of the largest crowd in franchise history.

That same crowd endured unconscionably long beer lines. The ball park crew were unable to serve thirsty patrons whose queue stretched longer than the 90 feet that separates the bases.

At the end of each home game, one of the Seals players remained on the field to tidy up, repairing the pitching mound and removing the bases.

During one tense game, a Seals batter prepared to face a pitch before jumping dramatically away from the plate. The catcher spun around and the umpire retreated — a sprinkler had begun spraying the home-plate area.

It took several minutes before the geyser could be turned off. Then, the players tried to fill in a puddle on the field.

Welcome to the minor leagues, son. You learn to hit the curve ball and get an introduction to groundskeeping.

After two seasons, the club made a dramatic announcement last week.

Darren and Russ Parker, the father-son combination who owned and operated the Seals, announced the franchise had ceased operations.

The Seals had been clubbed.

No more Josh Arhart?

Aargh.

The Parkers blamed bureaucrats for not granting concessions in the lease for the city-owned park.

They blamed the independent league in which they played for being too far-flung, making necessary expensive airplane flights to Hawaii and such exotic continental locales as Yuma, Ariz., and St. George, Utah.

They blamed unionized workers for ... well, for having persnickety rules and for being too well paid.

Some of the complaints were disingenuous, as circumstances at Royal Athletic Park — a ground whose name is far more grand than the reality — are as they were when the Parkers came to town. They knew what they were getting into.

John Meldrum is a fan who followed the team by box office as well as by box score. An assistant professor at the University of Victoria, he has expertise in sport management and marketing.

“My thought is there’s probably no one to blame,” he said. “Could they get a better deal from the city? Probably. Should they push for the best deal they can for their business? Yeah. But the city has to say, ‘When you look at the business model of that league, how long are you going to be here?’

“How much concession are you going to give as a city to something that’s impermanent?”

The independent Golden Baseball League, a six-year-old circuit, has yet to announce the demise of the Seals on its website.

But wait. Upon further review, Ballpark Digest magazine is reporting three struggling independent leagues are in talks to merge. The economy has hammered minor-league baseball, but one drawback of an amalgamation will be even farther travel.

Meanwhile, the demise of the Seals puts out of work one of the finest mascots in the land. Seamore the Seal delighted children, amused adults, and otherwise brought a Looney Tunes mentality to the art of cheerleading.

Alex Pomerant, who worked more than 80 home games inside the overheated costume, taking breaks on hot days inside a walk-in beer cooler, will now complete his studies in law.

He wrote a gracious letter to his employer.

“I thanked them for letting me live out the dream I never knew I had,” he said.

In a tough economy, you have to wonder about Seamore’s future. Here’s a possible jobs listing:

Anthropomorphic pinniped, good with children, able to boogie to Village People’s YMCA despite oversized flippers, seeks part-time work with sports team, or perhaps sealant company. Will work for peanuts and Cracker Jack, but prefer fish.

Young announcer gives it his all at the ball game

Mike Walker has spent the past four years in the broadcast booth calling minor pro sports games in Victoria. He is just 22. Globe and Mail photograph by Deddeda Stemler.

By Tom Hawthorn
Special to The Globe and Mail
July 26, 2010

VICTORIA

Mike Walker sits in a booth behind home plate, a headset covering his ears, hands tapping on a laptop like a prog rock keyboardist.

He watches a baseball game, records each play in a scorebook, glances at the computer screen. He Tweets between innings. All the while he maintains a steady patter for an unseen audience following along on the Internet.

“You have to be a little bit crazy,” he said, “to talk to yourself for four hours.”

This has been his life for the past four years, his office high above the action at the hockey arena and the baseball diamond. He turned 22 just last month. He looks like Ferris Bueller but there are no days off.

He has a fancy title as director of broadcasting and media relations for the Victoria Seals. He acknowledges he’d probably make more money this summer by mowing lawns.

As soon as he wakes, he begins preparing a statistical package to be shared with reporters at the ball park. He arrives at Royal Athletic Park hours before the first pitch. Batting practice is a lazy afternoon routine for players but a hectic time for Mr. Walker, who videotapes interviews for clips to be shown on the scoreboard that evening.

For four months of the summer, the Seals players — itinerant strangers from Paris, Tenn., and Norway, Maine; from Pleasant Hill, Calif., and the Dominican Republic — are extended family.

He is always on the hunt for tidbits to share with his audience.

Friday was a bit frantic.

He was preparing to broadcast five games over a 48-hour period to be followed by a press conference on Monday to introduce the Knuckleball Princess. Eri Yoshida, an 18-year-old pitcher from Japan and a rare woman to play professional baseball against men, will start on Tuesday for the Chico (Calif.) Outlaws.

A pair of weekend doubleheaders against the Yuma (Ariz.) Scorpions also marked the occasion of the Seals launching Mr. Walker’s one-man live video streaming over the Internet.

“I feel like Vin Scully,” he said laughing, referring to the legendary 82-year-old voice of the Los Angeles Dodgers, who famously works alone.

Mr. Walker is a consummate pro despite his youth. Before the first pitch, he offers the temperature in Celsius and Fahrenheit (“for our American viewers”), offers a theme for the upcoming game, rattles off a parade of statistics.

As a boy, he watched sports events on television with the sound turned off so that he could provide his own commentary. When his mother, an accountant, won a contest to spend a working day with a sports writer from the local daily, Mr. Walker took the opportunity to meet the people who run the Salmon Kings minor pro hockey team. He became their broadcaster at age 18, making him possibly the youngest to do so. He soon after won the league’s media relations award of excellence.

His youth sometimes create an unexpected generation gap with his peers. Once, over lunch, Vancouver Canucks broadcaster John Shorthouse asked his inspiration for becoming a sportscaster, undoubtedly expecting to hear the name Jim Robson. Mr. Walker instead responded, “You, John.” The great Robson had retired when Mr. Walker was still in elementary school.

He had already spent two seasons behind the microphone before entering a two-year broadcasting program at the British Columbia Institute of Technology. His schoolwork led to a stint as a media liaison officer at Canada Hockey Place during the Olympics. He not only witnessed Sidney Crosby’s goal, but he is one of the few to have heard Chris Cuthbert’s “golden goal” call in person.

Mr. Walker’s own ambition is to some day call games in the National Hockey League.

His pregame work on Friday paid off with a pair of juicy details.

He noted that the parents of pitcher Aaron Easton, who came on in relief in the opening game, were in attendance, having traveled cross-continent to Vancouver Island from Maine.

When the pitcher was pulled for a pinch-hitter, Mr. Walker told his audience that Josh Arhart had an unhappy surprise on his return from a road trip from St. George, Utah. Turns out his luggage, including his uniform and catcher’s equipment, had been sent to Tokyo. He had to borrow another player’s jersey.

The Seals won the first game with a “fairly competent, fairly routine” 4-2 victory, before crushing the Scorpions 13-2 in the nightcap.

After the final pitch, he wrote and distributed a press release. His last Facebook entry and Tweet were filed after midnight.

He had been live on air for nearly five hours.

He had just 47 viewers, but he gave it his all.

Mike Walker interviews a Victoria Seals player prior to a game at Royal Athletic Park. Globe and Mail photograph by Deddeda Stemler.

ON THE SHELF

Oxford University Press has announced it will alter the author’s credit for three landmark books of baseball history.

Dorothy Seymour Mills will now be recognized as co-author of a trio of baseball histories originally attributed to her husband, Harold Seymour. Mr. Seymour, a one time bat boy for the Brooklyn Dodgers, wrote what is believed to be the first doctoral dissertation devoted to baseball history.
After his death in 1992, Ms. Mills let it be known that she had done the bulk of the research and much of the writing and editing found in “Baseball: The Early Years” (1960), “Baseball: The Golden Age” (1971), and “Baseball: The People’s Game” (1990).

Ms. Mills later married Roy Mills, a retired Royal Canadian Air Force veteran from Vancouver Island whom she met on a cruise. The couple settled in Sidney, north of Victoria, for five years in the 1990s. They now live in Naples, Fla., where Ms. Mills recently released her 22nd book, “Chasing Baseball: Our Obsession with Its History, Numbers, People and Places.,” published by McFarland.

Better make that her 25th book.