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| Honus Wagner |
As I promised heading into the 2019 MLB, Major League Baseball, Season I have some exciting sports news and analysis as well as some historical research about the MLB and NHL.
Although in university I studied science and computers which I took to get a decent paying job my main area of interest is Historical Research and Writing, a not so high paying job for most people.
A lot of the research I am publishing on this page is reference material that could be used for books etc. in the future but for now I am too busy to compile this information into published books because it is too much work.
In the meantime I am posting my research notes on the internet, hopefully someday this will be book or a website or something. So I am doing tons of research into topics I am interested in like sports and stuff and although I would like to write books about the History of the NHL and MLB there's just not enough time to get it all done, maybe someday I will make a sports website about these topics, for now I am just posting it as "articles" on the internet.
Maybe someday I will write a book about the history of baseball or hockey but for now it's just blog posts or maybe later I will make a website out of it.
Right now I am researching Baseball and Hockey and the material I am seeing seems to be "undocumented" by the National Hockey League and Major League Baseball about the history of their sports.
This is information that I found in historical records that is mostly "missing" from current sports books and documentaries etc.
Of course you have to keep in mind that this material is well over 100 years old and dates back to the 1880's and it looks like no one ever kept track of these topics, like the undocumented history of Honus Wagner, or at least I have never heard of it or seen it.
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| Honus Wagner Coaching The Pittsburgh Pirates |
Somewhere along the lines people stopped keeping track of this information and seems "lost" in the history books of sports or they never kept track of it anyway and what is there has many holes in it and is full of missing information, that can be put back together for the history of sports that would appear at the Smithsonian Museum or something like that, along with Babe Ruth's baseball bat.
Now this is long and complicated, so I will have to say it like three ways for you to understand the information. I will tell you what it is then tell you why I am saying that, after I tell you three times you should totally understand it.
What is leading me into doing this research? Well obviously, it's the NHL Hockey Expansion currently taking place in Seattle.
Every time there is an expansion the owners go around revealing too much personal information and this gets all over the internet like last time when the Las Vegas Golden Knights entered the NHL.
This is a MLB baseball post and NHL Hockey post at the same time.
The main topic here is I have been researching the history of baseball legend Honus Wagner which is mostly undocumented I have found out, now if any of this is wrong it's because not all the pieces are connected. I will correct it later, so I will show you my conclusions and then show why I am saying that.
For example, did you know that Babe Ruth's last home run was hit on May 25,1935 against the Pittsburgh Pirates?
That is a fact, what people don't know is that the Coach of the Pittsburgh Pirates on that day was baseball legend Honus Wagner.
Babe Ruth hit his final home run in front on Honus Wagner before he retired when Wagner was coach of the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1933-1951.
Not only that, Babe Ruth was playing back in Boston that year in his final MLB season for The Boston Braves, today that is the Atlanta Braves.
That is not something you hear about in sports. In Babe Ruth's final baseball season he returned to Boston to play for what became the Atlanta Braves and hit his last home run against Honus Wagner when he was coach of the Pittsburgh Pirates, not a well documented story in baseball history.
That story is part of the legend of Honus Wagner, and is mostly undocumented in baseball history. In fact the history of Honus Wagner seems to be lost or not written down at all. This was well over 100 years ago and also took place during the great depression and people didn't seem to write this stuff down at the time.
In fact, Honus Wagner's batting average still stands up today at .329 better than most current MLB active players.
This is the main thing I am talking about here, the famous Honus Wagner baseball card is not his rookie card, which is super important!
That's because the Honus Wagner baseball card is considered to be probably the "first" real baseball card and was handed out in tobacco or cigarette packages and valued at over 2 Million Dollars. The Honus Wagner baseball card is from when he was a shortstop for the Pittsburgh Pirates, later he was a coach of the Pittsburgh Pirates and played against Babe Ruth for three season's as a coach for the Pittsburgh Pirates when Babe Ruth was on the New York Yankees and Boston (Atlanta) Braves.
When you look at Babe Ruth's final years as a player on the famous New York Yankees team, his competition was the Pittsburgh Pirates under Honus Wagner when he was their coach. Not a well documented story in the history of Major League Baseball, at least I never heard it.
So when you say Honus Wagner baseball card valued at over 2 Million Dollars today that is not his rookie card, that is his Pittsburgh Pirates baseball card when he was a player. Later he was coach of the Pittsburgh Pirates and faced a retiring Babe Ruth when he was in his final three years in baseball and Babe Ruth himself hit his last home run against Honus Wagner and the Pittsburgh Pirates when Wagner was their coach.
Hopefully someday I will have time to write a book about all this or make some kind of sports website to help document this forgotten history of Major League Sports and stuff like Honus Wagner.
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| Honus Wagner on the Louisville Colonels |
This is the more important facts in the undocumented history of Honus Wagner. Before the famous 2 Million Dollar Baseball Card Honus Wagner's rookie team was The Louisville Colonels, also known as the Kentucky Colonels.
The original team of Honus Wagner when he was a rookie player was the Louisville Kentucky Colonels also known as the Louisville Eclipse which folded in 1899.
That is the time period before Honus Wagner played for the Pittsburgh Pirates and home of the famous Honus Wagner 2 Million Dollar Baseball Card.
This is super important, it is not well documented what happened to the Louisville Colonels franchise. In fact, the Louisville Slugger baseball bat company may have owned the Louisville Colonels and the famous bat the Louisville Slugger may be the original baseball bat of Honus Wagner when he played for the Colonels.
So the Louisville Slugger Baseball Bat may actually be the brand name bat of Honus Wagner and seen in his photos when he played in Kentucky and helping make the bat company famous. I am not sure if that is documented in other sources but's that's what I have found doing original research.
What happened to the Louisville Colonels baseball franchise?
This is the big surprise that I found out in my research, today the franchise is the Washington Nationals which used to be the Montreal Expos.
So the original franchise of Honus Wagner today is the current Washington Nationals, if you track their history back they are the Louisville Colonels and home of Honus Wagner.
That would make today the Washington Nationals in Washington D.C the current franchise owner of Honus Wagner's rookie team.
That means today that the team that Honus Wagner first started on was the Washington Nationals franchise in D.C, later he went to the Pittsburgh Pirates where the famous 2 Million Dollar baseball card comes from. After that Honus Wagner was the coach of the Pittsburgh Pirate and played against Babe Ruth in his final playing years as a coach of the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Now this gets a little complicated.
The research shows that Honus Wagner's original franchise where he was a rookie folded and was sold to Montreal and became the Minor League AAA Baseball team the Montreal Royals.
This is what gets forgotten, the move of the Louisville Colonels in the Major Leagues to Montreal is not well documented but only "referenced" for example Louisville and Montreal are I think the only places never to get a major league baseball team back after they left so far, that is because it's the same team.
Honus Wagner's team the Louisville Colonels, moved to the minor leagues and became the Montreal Royals.
The Montreal Royals were the minor league team of the Brooklyn Dodgers (currently the LA Dodgers) and is the team where Jackie Robinson first started before he was in the MLB league.
Like this, Honus Wagner's team The Louisville Colonels folded and became the Montreal Royals, that is the Minor League Team of the Brooklyn Dodgers and where Jackie Robinson first started.
The Montreal Royals became The Montreal Expos in the 1969 MLB Expansion and later became the Washington Nationals in 2005.
Today the Washington Nationals actual franchise was originally the Louisville Colonels home of rookie Honus Wagner, then the Montreal Royals as a minor league team and home to Jackie Robinson and was the Minor League Team of The Brooklyn Dodgers and expanded into the MLB as the Montreal Expos.
That history seems to be undocumented or "lost" in the history of Major League Baseball over the last 135 years but that is what the historical research points to. If that is all accurate then today the Washington Nationals in Washington DC are the start of Honus Wagner and Jackie Robinson when they were the Louisville Colonels and later the AAA team of the Brooklyn Dodgers the Montreal Royals.
That is what it looks like in the Historical Records.
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| Seattle Metropolitans |
Where do you say Hockey fits into this story?
Well it's the Seattle expansion team in the NHL coming in 2021.
Here is the connection...the original Seattle Hockey Team was The Seattle Metropolitans and in fact they were the first professional ice hockey team in the United States to win the Stanley Cup in 1917 before the NHL was launched in the PCHA League and also won five division championships.
The actual name of the Seattle hockey franchise is the Seattle Metropolitans and they already won the Stanley Cup in 1917.
So the actual name of the new NHL expansion team in Seattle should be the Metropolitans.
However there is a problem with that.
The Seattle Metropolitans folded and became a Minor League Hockey team called the Seattle Totems.
Now this is not well documented or unpublished so you have to put the story together and it's complicated but it's what it looks like.
Then it looks like there was a split in ownership and looks like the Seattle Totems minor league "hockey club" were sold and became the Kansas City Scouts in 1974,
The Kansas City Scouts, my new favorite team, became the Colorado Rockies Hockey team and today is the New Jersey Devils.
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| Kansas City Scouts |
So it looks like the Seattle Metropolitans /Totems sold their hockey club to Kansas City and today is the New Jersey Devils.
That appears to be where the New Jersey Devils franchise today first got their Hockey club.
That means the Seattle Metropolitans as a hockey club, but not in name, was sold to the New Jersey Devils.
It looks Seattle's hockey team owners kept the name Metropolitans and used the money to start what today is the New York Mets Baseball team.
Meaning they sold the Seattle Hockey team and made the New York Mets all at the same time in the 1960's.
That's what it looks like in the records.
So the Seattle Metropolitans today are the New York Metropolitans aka the New York Mets baseball team. The Hockey club became the Kansas City Scouts which is today the New Jersey Devils.
The name may have ended up as the New York Mets and the actual Hockey club as the New Jersey Devils.
At the same time when the Kansas City Scouts moved to Colorado and became the Rockies in the NHL, that is when the Quebec Nordiques launched as an expansion team.
This is also the same time that the Montreal Royals became the Montreal Expos.
Back in Kansas City, when the Scouts NHL Team was moving to Colorado.....Kansas City got an MLB expansion team at the same time as the Expos.
Kansas City named the team the Royals, the same as the Montreal Royals as in Jackie Robinson.
That's the Kansas City Royals.
The Kansas City Royals MLB team looks like it is named after the Montreal Royals minor league baseball team.
The Montreal Royals became the Montreal Expos, then the Kansas City Royals named their team after the Montreal Royals in the same expansion.
So when the Kansas City Scouts NHL team left Kansas City they got the Kansas City Royals Baseball team named after the Montreal Royals when they became the Montreal Expos.
What I am referring to is how their can be two NHL team franchises at the same time like the Avalanche and the Golden Knights but it is the same team.
The Golden Knights kept the Nordiques "club" but Colorado kept the Avalanche Name.
The Kansas City Scouts got the Seattle Metropolitans "club" but the Metropolitans name went to the New York Mets.
Now there is more to it than that.
The Las Vegas Golden Knights are not only Quebec Nordiques but they are also the California Golden Seals.
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| California Golden Seals |
So the Golden Knights and the Golden Seals are the same team.
How, well after the Golden Seals (also me new favorite team) folded the Quebec Nordiques almost moved to San Francisco.
So the Quebec Nordiques were almost San Francisco in their expansion, the connection is that is the San Francisco Golden Seals.
The San Francisco Golden Seals closed, then the Quebec Nordiques almost moved to San Francisco.
When the Nordiques left Colorado they became the Golden Knights.
So it's like The California Golden Seals became the Quebec Nordiques and then became the Avalanche today they are the Las Vegas Golden Knights.
Colorado kept the name Avalanche for their new franchise in name only.
Now my new favorite teams are the California Golden Seals and the Kansas City Scouts, which is why I have decided that I like the Las Vegas Golden Knights.
Where does all this come from...well every time the NHL expands the owners start talking too much and it ends up all over the internet.
What I am getting from that is that "groups of investors" buy a team together, later when they split up one investor gets the name and the other gets the club and picks a new name.
That's why there are two Nordiques, one group got the club and the other got the name Avalanche...probably. The rest of the information is undocumented or lost in sports history.
Like this...
NHL:
The Seattle Metropolitans NHL team sold the club and used the money / name to launch the New York Mets MLB team it looks like on the internet.
The Seattle Metropolitans hockey club became the Kansas City Scouts (sold from the minor league level), then became the Colorado Rockies (also a baseball team name), then the New Jersey Devils.
The California Golden Seals became the Quebec Nordiques, then the Colorado Avalanche and now they are the Las Vegas Golden Knights probably.
MLB:
The Louisville Colonels, Honus Wagner, became the minor league team the Montreal Royals, the minor league team of the Brooklyn / LA Dodgers and featured Jackie Robinson.
They became the Montreal Expos and today are The Washington Nationals the owner of Honus Wagner's rookie team franchise today.
However that may be undocumented and the Washington Nationals might not even realize it. Also the Washington Nationals team name is actually the third Washington Nationals team, the first two folded around the same time as the Louisville Colonels.
So when the Nationals put their team back they may have in fact bought the Louisville Colonels.
So if you want to honor Honus Wagner today visit the Washington Nationals or Pittsburgh Pirates.
Of course all this is speculation, rumors during the NHL expansions and historical inferring to retrace the lost history of Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League but that is what it all looks like.
Today Kansas City is also looking for a new NHL team.
Possible new expansion teams:
NHL Expansion:
Seattle Metropolitans
California Seals
Kansas City Scouts
Quebec Nordiques
MLB Expansion:
Will Louisville make a comeback?
Louisville Colonels - the original team of Honus Wagner
Montreal Expos - the original team of Jackie Robinson
That's because the team can sell the old names to launch the new franchises.
That is a lot of information, but is super awesome for a historical sports website I might make some day or book if I ever get to it.
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