Chilkat Valley News - Serving Haines and Klukwan, Alaska since 1966

A team of black soldiers from Fort Seward played against a White Pass railroad crew in one of the earliest documented baseball games in Lynn Canal.

Author Larry Johansen of Haines recounted that story and others during two presentations at the Haines Sheldon Museum last week. The talks included a cameo appearance by the historic professional player Tommy Welch Sr., as portrayed by Joe Parnell.

Johansen's recent book, "The Golden Days of Baseball," recounts the baseball craze in Alaska and the Yukon Territory more than a century ago. Although baseball in Southeast dates at least to a Juneau vs. Douglas game in 1892, the sport was spurred on by men who came north during and after the Gold Rush era.

Alaska's long summer daylight, gambling, and crews of men who worked in mines and on military ships helped feed the craze, Johansen said. It wasn't long before Native villages fielded their own teams. Metlakatla boasted one of the most competitive ones, he said. A photo of the team and a team from Kake is included in Johansen's book.

Dawson City had four of its own teams. Juneau, Whitehorse, Fairbanks and Nome also had teams. Games were a staple of Independence Day celebrations. In steep, forested Ketchikan, games were played on the tidal flats at low tide. Juneau's field was a silty moraine.

Johansen said the popularity of the sport made pick-up games common, particularly if a Navy ship was in port. "They'd play on the spur of the moment. They'd play any time."

The interruption of sport by World War I and other factors cooled Alaska's baseball craze, though minor league teams still play in Interior and Southcentral Alaska.

Johansen, who grew up in Ketchikan and became a fan of the San Francisco Giants before Seattle had its own team, said he wrote and published 300 copies of the book because "I felt the story needed to be told." The book includes photos of historic players, ballfields and press clippings.