The Marriage of Beer & Baseball

Young Constitutionalist ^ | 7-14-05 | Bob Skilnik

[toddlintown]

In 1870s, Chris Von der Ache, a saloonkeeper in St, Louis, noted that every time the St. Louis Brown Stockings pulled into town, sales of beer in his saloon skyrocketed. It didn't take a genius to realize that there was something brewing between sports enthusiasts, in this case, baseball fans, and beer drinking. In 1880, he tried to get permission to sell his lager beer directly to fans in Sportsman's Park, where the Browns played, but was rebuffed by the team's owners.

A year later, he purchased a controlling interest in the team and began selling beer directly to baseball fans at Sportsman's. It was the beginning of an American duo that still reigns bigger today than ice cream and apple pie, ham and eggs or the double charms of Morganna, the "Kissing Bandit." It began the courtship of baseball and beer.

Brewer Jacob Ruppert took the next step in bringing this duo together when he and Tillinghast L´Hommedieu Huston purchased the New York Yankees for $460,000. On January 3, 1920, just thirteen days before National Prohibition fell over the land, the Yankees purchased the contract of Babe Ruth from the Boston Red Sox for $125,000 and a loan of $350,000 against the mortgage on Fenway Park. The engagement between baseball and beer had begun.

[conservativebabe]

We've been watching the 90's PBS series "Baseball" by Ken Burns. Renting them from Netflix. It is excellent. I highly reccommend it to those who want to learn some bb history.