Red Stockings and Out-Of-Towners

by Layton, Stanford J.

• ISBN13: 9781560851653
• ISBN10: 1560851651
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-04-01
• Publisher: Signature Books

Summary

Long before professional basketball came to Utah in 1970, the state boasted an impressive record in other sports including its share of superstars: Jack Dempsey, world heavyweight boxing champion, 1919-26; Iver Lawson, international cycling champion, 1904; Alf Engen whose world ski-jumping records in the 1930s-40s prompted Sports Illustrated to remember him as "the Michael Jordan of his sport"; Ab Jenkins who set the world land-speed endurance record in 1940; and tennis player David Freed who won the U.S. Senior Singles tournament in 1954. In team sports, the nearly forgotten Salt Lake Seagulls of 1946-47 competed against the best pro football teams in the West, while two baseball teams, the Salt Lake Deserets and their inner-city rival, the Red Stockings, played successfully in 1878-79 against the Cheyenne Reds, the Chicago White Stockings, the Denver Browns, the Nebraska Omahas, and the Rochester Hop Bitters. Added to these, such pastimes as horse racing at the state fairgrounds, a winter ascent of Mt. Timpanogos in 1916, and angling at Fish lake National Forest show the diversity and evolution of athletics in Utah. Like replaying the 1998 title game between the Utah Jazz and the Chicago Bulls, these assembled tales of perseverance, skill, exuberance, and heartbreak from long ago are equally thrilling. Book jacket.

Table of Contents

Editor's Introduction	vii
The Best in the West? Corinne: Utah's First Baseball Champions	1	(32)
Larry R. Gerlach
Deserets, Red Stockings, and Out-of-Towners: Baseball Comes of Age in Salt Lake City, 1877-79	33	(24)
Kenneth L. Cannon II
Coming Home: Community Baseball in Cache Valley	57	(19)
Jessie L. Embry
Adam Seth Darowski
The Salt Lake Seagulls Professional Football Team	76	(18)
Melvin L. Bashore
A Visit to the Champ's House	94	(5)
John Farnsworth Lund
The Rise of Tex Rickard as a Fight Promoter	99	(11)
Virginia Rishel
Tennis in Utah: The First Fifty Years, 1885-1935	110	(19)
Afton Bradford Bradshaw
Bicycle Racing and the Salt Palace: Two Letters	129	(11)
Olive W. Burt
Utah's Gamble with Pari-mutuel Betting in the Early Twentieth Century	140	(21)
Bruce N. Westergren
``These Bloomin' Salt Beds'': Racing on the Bonneville Salt Flats	161	(18)
Jessie Embry
Ron Shook
It's All Downhill from Here: The Rise and Fall of Becker Hill, 1929--1933	179	(20)
Lee Sather
Winter Fun in Northern Utah Valley: A Pleasant Grove Example	199	(14)
Beth R. Olsen
A Winter Acquaintance with Timpanogos	213	(9)
Dean R. Brimhall
Joe the Fish Lake Guide	222	(9)
Lea Nielson Lane
Index	231	(16)
Contributors	247