Clearing The Bases - Issue 051

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Hello and welcome to Issue 051 of Clearing The Bases, an email newsletter in conjunction with the My Baseball History podcast hosted by Dan Wallach.

The LATEST EPISODE of the podcast with St. Louis Cardinals historian Ed Wheatley went live on Wednesday, November 12, so if you haven’t had a chance to listen to that yet, make sure you do. Ed and I take a deep dive look at the history of the Cardinals franchise, tracing their origins all the way back to the 1880s, and making our way up through the 1968 season. We talk about the great players, the great broadcasters, and the different owners in Cardinals history, as well as getting to the root of what makes St. Louis “the best baseball town in America.”

If you haven’t listened to it yet, you can fix that as soon as you’re done reading this email by clicking HERE. One of our longtime listeners, Mary Shea, is a Cubs fan living in Milwaukee. She has been to multiple SABR conventions and has traveled all over the country in pursuit of baseball and baseball history. I love talking baseball with her, and trust her opinion implicitly. Her assessment of the Ed Wheatley episode should tell you everything you need to know, if you’re on the fence about giving it a shot:

On November 20, history was made when the Women’s Pro Baseball League (WPBL) held their inaugural player draft. One hundred and twenty players from all over the world were selected by the four charter teams who will be representing New York, Boston, Los Angeles, and San Francisco when the league begins play in May of 2026. All games for the 2026 season will be held at Robin Roberts Stadium in Springfield, Illinois, which originally opened in 1928 and has a long history of hosting baseball games of all levels, from high school and college games to the games of multiple minor leagues. This new chapter will reintroduce women’s professional baseball to the city of Springfield, which was the home of the Springfield Sallies of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League from 1949-1951.

As predicted, the number one overall pick in the WPBL draft was 27-year-old pitcher Kelsie Whitmore, who has made quite the name for herself over the past decade+ in both women’s and men’s baseball. Kelsie was a member of the United States Women’s National Baseball Team from 2014 to 2019, where she helped the US team earn the silver medal at the 2014 Women’s Baseball World Cup and the gold medal in the 2015 Pan American Games. She has played professionally in men’s leagues since 2016, when she originally joined the independent Sonoma Stompers of the Pacific Association. In 2022, she signed with the Staten Island FerryHawks of the Atlantic League and became the first woman to start an Atlantic League game. In 2024, she signed with the Oakland Ballers of the Pioneer League, becoming the first woman to play for that league, as well. Earlier this year, Kelsie played with the Savannah Bananas.

While we haven’t had Kelsie on My Baseball History, we have previously had a different high draft pick on the show. 24-year-old infielder Ashton Lansdell, who was our guest for Episode 3 of Season 4, was the seventh overall pick in the 2025 WPBL draft, being selected by the team representing Los Angeles. Ashton is also a member of the US Women’s National Baseball Team, helping to win the Gold medal at the 2019 COPABE Pan-American Games, and Silver at the 2024 Women’s Baseball World Cup. She has also played for the Savannah Bananas, for the Party Animals of Banana Ball fame, and has participated in MLB Home Run Derby X competitions all over the world. If you haven’t had the chance to listen to our conversation yet, take the opportunity to do that by clicking HERE.

The WPBL is going to be a really interesting league to keep up with and to support, and I’m going to do my best to get to Springfield at some point in 2026 to see some games. I’m sure I’ll be posting about any planned trips in the newsletter when they happen, but if you might be interested in coordinating with me so we can catch a game together, let me know. MBH may also have an episode later this season with a women’s professional baseball legend, so stay tuned for that as the WPBL season approaches. Congratulations once again to all 120 players selected in the draft. My Baseball History is wishing you nothing but health and success in the upcoming season. To see the round-by-round results of the draft, click the following links: ROUND 1 — ROUND 2 — ROUND 3 — ROUND 4 — ROUND 5 — ROUND 6

In Issue 48 of Clearing The Bases, I went over some of the traveling I’ve done this past year, highlighting a number of the baseball-related statues I’ve seen all across the country. One of the places I wanted to talk a little bit more in-depth about is a local Cleveland joint called Hotz’ Café. Hotz’ opened in 1919 and was somehow able to stay open and serve alcohol through Prohibition. When visiting teams would come to Cleveland to play the Indians at League Park, they knew that after the game, they could go to Hotz’ and get a drink, regardless of whether or not it was technically legal to do so. It may have been about a 5-mile trip, but it was worth it to know they could grab a seat at the bar and actually have a drink.

Another thing which made Hotz so attractive to players was the fact that the owner at the time accepted signed checks from them as a form of payment. The thing was, he never cashed them. He cared more about having their autographs on those checks than he did about whatever money he’d have gotten from the bank in return. The business they brought in to the bar, and the stories he’d hear and experiences he got to have, more than made up for any “lost” revenue. So not only did the players understand that they could get a drink at Hotz’ in the first place – which is something they couldn’t necessarily do anywhere else at the time – they knew they were really drinking for free, since their checks were never going to be cashed.

Hotz’ became a hotbed for major leaguers and locals alike to go grab a drink. There are stories of Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, and even Lou Gehrig drinking at the bat over the years. For a long time, their signed checks were on display at the establishment. Unfortunately, now they are held in a safe-deposit box off-site. But the actual original bar is still there, so you can hop on a stool and sit in the exact same spot where The Great Bambino, The Georgia Peach, The Iron Horse, and countless other baseball legends wet their whistles over the years. When friends come to town to visit me now, it’s one of my favorite places to take them for a quick stop. Whenever it may be that you find yourself in Cleveland next (maybe at next year’s SABR convention… wink wink), I can’t recommend it enough.

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and were able to spend it with the family or friends who mean the most to you. If you’re looking for gift ideas for the baseball fan in your life this upcoming holiday season, please remember that My Baseball History has t-shirts and buttons available (email ShoelessPodcast@gmail.com to inquire about those), that you can order legendary sports organist Nancy Faust’s CD “Nancy Faust At The Game” which was originally recorded live at Comiskey Park and Chicago Stadium in 1977 and which Nancy and I re-released on CD earlier this year (there are autographed and unsigned copies available HERE), and you can even send someone the gift of a month or a year of Clearing The Bases, this very email newsletter, by clicking the button below.

Don’t forget, it’s a huge help when you Rate and Review the podcast on whatever platform you choose to listen. 5-Star ratings help our podcast get shown on more people’s suggested podcast pages, which means more people will hear our show. It just takes a couple of seconds of your time, but it really helps us a lot. And of course, liking us on social media, interacting with our posts, and sharing things with your friends is great, too. Feel free to forward this email to anyone in your life who loves baseball, and hopefully they’ll enjoy the podcast and learn a thing or two. But no matter how you choose to support us, even if it’s just by listening, we appreciate you being here.

Until next time, I’m Dan Wallach, and this is My Baseball History.