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You might as well blame it on air conditioners or cable television. They had as much to do with the disappearance of town baseball teams as Rod Carew or Harmon Killebrew.
From 1945 to 1965, amateur baseball became part of almost every town and village in Minnesota. Nearly 800 teams vied for league and state titles. Town baseball teams were nearly a century old, but better fields, easier travel and more money created a golden era for local ball.
Then just as suddenly as it arrived, it vanished.
Town ball wasn’t major league baseball. It wasn’t even the minors, so many baseball fans tend to forget about its impact. But Tom Tomashek and Armand Peterson set out to give Minnesota town ball a history of its own in their new book, “Town Ball: The Golden Days of Minnesota Amateur Baseball.”
“We didn’t have TV then. The guys we got to see were from our home town,” Peterson said.
Even though it was called a game, more than just a win was at stake.
“It was about the town,” Peterson said.
Small towns took pride in beating their bigger economic rivals. Cities like Winona boasted three or four teams.
Peterson and Tomashek both played on town ball teams. The retired engineer and sportswriter began tracing the heyday of the game several years ago. The history was just waiting to be taken from the yellowing pages of local newspapers.
“Had we known how much work it was going to be we probably would not have done it,” Peterson said. “But we ended up surprised by the collection of stories about the successful towns and the colorful characters.“
The book took three years to research and write, and the original draft came in at almost double the length.
“The era was a lot more special than we thought,” Peterson said. “Baseball in post war America seemed to mimic the changes of society.”
Other sports — soccer, golf and tennis — began drawing athletes, and summertime activities like boating and cookouts replaced bats and baseballs.
“Everyone started to believe the Twins killed it. They might have helped it, but the decline was long before that,” Peterson said. “In 1948, Minnesota had 2,500 television sets; in 1954, half the households in Minnesota had them.“
Towns also struggled to find ways to pay for the teams, which could cost more than $40,000 a year — nearly $250,000 in today’s dollars.
“Teams got tired of soliciting donations,” Peterson said.
The teams rarely turned a profit. Still, Peterson said, most communities remained generally supportive. “No one felt like it was a waste. The general attitude seems to be, ‘we spent ourselves out of business, but boy, we sure had fun doing it.’”
Peterson said tracking down former players was tough after nearly a half-century; some had died, others had moved away.
“But we found once we got in touch with one of them, they’d give us a couple more names,” Peterson said. “Most of the players say it was a great time. They played hard and enjoyed it, but most of them also realized it was never coming back.”
