Utah may have been a frontier in the 1870s, but it was also baseball country - especially Salt Lake City. In 1878, it boasted two first-rate teams that played and consistently beat other Intermountain West teams. One of these, the Red Stockings was a newcomer to baseball and received its support primarily from the local Latter-day Saints. Although the older established team, the Deserets, was favored, the two played for the championship in 1878. Surprisingly, the Reds won three out of five games, helped to a major degree by their new second baseman - Heber J. Grant. Heber was more certain of his worthiness as a team member than he was four years later when he was called as an apostle at the age of twenty-five.
Cannon II, Kenneth L., “Deserets, Red Stockings, and Out-of-Towners: Baseball Comes of Age in Salt Lake City, 1877-79″, Utah Historical Quarterly. Spring 1984, pp. 146-149.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.