“Kansas Baseball,” by Michael J. Travis (The History Press, 2025, 158 pages, $24.99)
Wichita leads off “Kansas Baseball,” Michael J. Travis’ look at how American’s favorite pastime has been played in the Sunflower State.
The book begins with a discussion of League 42, the youth baseball program named for Jackie Robinson (No. 42 for the Brooklyn Dodgers) that became a national news story when its statue of Robinson was stolen from McAdams Park and destroyed last year.
“…League 42 and all it represents and honors is where the story must begin. In honor of Jackie, his nine values [integrity, courage, excellence, commitment, citizenship, justice, persistence, determination and teamwork] are central to this book.”
Travis’ research and interviews bring to life several more great stories about the sport.
He writes about Walter Johnson, a farm boy from Humboldt, Kan., who was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame’s first class alongside Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Rogers Hornsby and Christy Mathewson. Travis also pays tribute to George Sweatt, a black baseball player from the same town whose skin color mandated that he spend his career in the Negro League with the Kansas City Monarchs.
One chapter is devoted to Raymond Harry “Hap” Dumont, a Wichita native, innovator and showman who founded what became the National Baseball Congress in 1935. The NBC Tournament continues to bring the best college baseball players in the country here each summer.
Travis profiles Gene Stephenson, the legendary former Wichita State baseball coach whose team won a national championship in 1989. Stephenson recalls the challenge of starting a new athletic program and the trauma of his departure from it.
I wasn’t familiar with another person profiled by Travis — Alex Hugo, who played basketball and softball at Olathe South High School. Hugo, who went on to play softball for the University of Georgia and USA National Baseball Team, broke several barriers on the way to her role as a roving instructor for the Athletics (formerly of Oakland, soon to be based in Las Vegas).
There are stories about Mickey Mantle, who began his professional career playing Minor League Baseball in Independence, Kan.; Luther “Dummy” Taylor of Oskaloosa, a profoundly deaf man who went on to pitch for the New York (now San Francisco) Giants; Bill James, the baseball statistics guru and Lawrence resident; and Bubba Starling of Gardner, one of the state’s all-time great high school athletes who toiled in the minor leagues for eight years before a short stint with Kansas City Royals.
Travis, a New England native who came to Kansas in 1993, previously wrote “Celebrating Kansas Breweries.” His two books clearly show he’s fallen in love with his adopted state.
Ted’s favorite books of 2024
Ted Ayres, who regularly reviews books for The Active Age, reports he read 131 books in 2024, slightly down from the 157 (an all-time high) he read in 2023. Favorites included “The Day The World Came To Town,” by Jim DeFede; “The Book of Charlie,” by David Von Drehle; “April 1865,” by Jay Winik; “The Women,” by Kristin Hannah; and “Love & Whiskey,” by Fawn Weaver (reviewed here in August).
Contact Ted Ayres at tdamsa762yahoo.com.
