Sacramento has enjoyed baseball since the Gold Rush. As early as 1869, the first professional baseball team in America, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, came to Sacramento and played against a locally organized team. A few years later, the Sacramento team joined the California League to compete against those from San Francisco and Oakland, becoming a charter member of the newly formed Pacific Coast League in 1903. All the while, children and adults alike were picking up the sport in the many parks, sandlots, and schoolyards throughout the city. In the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, amateur and sponsored teams competed against each other for trophies and bragging rights. Then, in the 1950s, Little League, Babe Ruth League, and American Legion Baseball flourished.

"Mexican American Baseball in Sacramento explores the history and culture of teams and players from the Sacramento region. Since the early 20th century, baseball diamonds in California's capital and surrounding communities have nurtured athletic talent, educational skills, ethnic identity, and political self-determination for Mexican Americans. The often-neglected historical narrative of these men's and women's teams tells the story of community, migration, military service, education, gender, social justice, and perseverance. Players often became important members of their communities, and some even went on to become professional athletes--paving a path for Latinos in sports. These photographs serve as a lens to both local sports history and Mexican American history."--Amazon.com.

The story of California baseball doesn't start in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Oakland, or Anaheim. It starts in the very heart of the Central Valley, in the capital city of Sacramento. It was here that the first complete game of baseball in state history took place in 1860, the same year Abraham Lincoln was elected President and the Pony Express was established. At decade's end, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, the first professional team in baseball history, came to town in September 1869 for a historic (albeit lopsided) exhibition game against local amateur players. From thereon, Sacramento continued to pioneer the game's evolution in California long before Major League Baseball arrived in the late '50s. It was in the River City that the first Pacific Coast League game was played in 1903, a league that forever reshaped minor league baseball and still operates today. That game was also the beginning of the Sacramento Senators, who would become the much-loved local team and brought night baseball to the minors. After changing their name to the Solons, they reached their golden age when Branch Rickey's St. Louis Cardinals brought them into their game-changing farm system. It all culminated with their 1942 PCL pennant victory, a story right out of a picturesque baseball movie. After the decline and departure of the Solons by 1961, Sacramento baseball remained dormant for decades, save for two Giants-Indians exhibition games in 1964 and a short-lived second version of the Solons in the '70s. The story continues to this very day, thankfully, with the River Cats winning just as much as they create major league-ready talent almost every year since 2000. The book ends with two more vital chapters. The first profiles 50 of the most notable MLB players, managers and coaches with a connection to the River City, among them Dusty Baker, Steve Sax, Larry Bowa, Brad Lidge, the Forsch Brothers, and Josh Donaldson. The second, and final, chapter regales the magical story of local hero Ron King, who went from Solons ball boy to award-winning scout for the Dodgers and Pirates. "The Hidden History of Sacramento Baseball" is an assiduously researched, passionately written look at the entire sweep of this vital yet overlooked story. The miraculous pennant victories, the heartbreaking losses, the bottom-feeding last place seasons, the ambitious owners, the bucolic stadiums, the fascinating in-between exhibitions, the dozens of elite players and coaches from the area...it's all here.

Sacramento River Cats legendary AAA baseball radio and TV broadcaster Johnny Doskow has written an insightful book that reflects his experiences in baseball and life through haiku.

Sacramentos Southside Park neighborhood sits south of Californias state capitol and north of the Old City Cemetery. Built on a former slough, it was inhabited by generations of immigrants and working-class families. The neighborhoods many ethnic communities, including Portuguese, Italian, Mexican, and Japanese, came together in Southside Park, the neighborhoods namesake. Whether for fireworks displays on the Fourth of July, for a trip back to Gold Rush days at Roaring Camp, or simply to paddle the lake in a rented boat, Southside Park provided a place of respite and recreation in this bustling city. The neighborhood surrounding the park faced many challenges as Sacramento grewincluding freeway construction, urban renewal and redevelopment, and problems with crimebut its residents faced these challenges with a tradition of political activism, community participation, and a strong sense of civic pride that is still evident today.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * Winner of the CASEY Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year “An instant sports classic.” —New York Post * “Stellar.” —The Wall Street Journal * “A true masterwork…880 pages of sheer baseball bliss.” —BookPage (starred review) * “This is a remarkable achievement.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) A magnum opus from acclaimed baseball writer Joe Posnanski, The Baseball 100 is an audacious, singular, and masterly book that took a lifetime to write. The entire story of baseball rings through a countdown of the 100 greatest players in history, with a foreword by George Will. Longer than Moby-Dick and nearly as ambitious,? The Baseball 100 is a one-of-a-kind work by award-winning sportswriter and lifelong student of the game Joe Posnanski. In the book’s introduction, Pulitzer Prize–winning commentator George F. Will marvels, “Posnanski must already have lived more than two hundred years. How else could he have acquired such a stock of illuminating facts and entertaining stories about the rich history of this endlessly fascinating sport?” Baseball’s legends come alive in these pages, which are not merely rankings but vibrant profiles of the game’s all-time greats. Posnanski dives into the biographies of iconic Hall of Famers, unfairly forgotten All-Stars, talents of today, and more. He doesn’t rely just on records and statistics—he lovingly retraces players’ origins, illuminates their characters, and places their accomplishments in the context of baseball’s past and present. Just how good a pitcher is Clayton Kershaw in the 21st-century game compared to Greg Maddux dueling with the juiced hitters of the nineties? How do the career and influence of Hank Aaron compare to Babe Ruth’s? Which player in the top ten most deserves to be resurrected from history? No compendium of baseball’s legendary geniuses could be complete without the players of the segregated Negro Leagues, men whose extraordinary careers were largely overlooked by sportswriters at the time and unjustly lost to history. Posnanski writes about the efforts of former Negro Leaguers to restore sidelined Black athletes to their due honor and draws upon the deep troves of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and extensive interviews with the likes of Buck O’Neil to illuminate the accomplishments of players such as pitchers Satchel Paige and Smokey Joe Williams; outfielders Oscar Charleston, Monte Irvin, and Cool Papa Bell; first baseman Buck Leonard; shortstop Pop Lloyd; catcher Josh Gibson; and many, many more. The Baseball 100 treats readers to the whole rich pageant of baseball history in a single volume. Engrossing, surprising, and heartfelt, it is a magisterial tribute to the game of baseball and the stars who have played it.