Early Black Baseball in Minnesota: The St. Paul Gophers, Minneapolis Keystones and Other Barnstorming Teams of the Deadball Era

Though they played in the years before Rube Foster formed the first Negro League, the St. Paul Gophers and their bitter crosstown rivals, the Minneapolis Keystones, had the talent, bench depth, and determination to rival many of those later, better known teams. (The Gophers, in fact, beat Chicago’s celebrated Leland Giants in 1909, laying claim to blackball’s western championship.) Focusing on these two clubs, author Peterson lays out the early history of African American baseball in the Upper Midwest. Included are new statistics and more than 50 rarely seen photographs.

Visual artist and teacher Todd Peterson lives in Kansas City, Missouri. His work has been published in Baseball Research Journal and Black Ball.