D.M. Fox talks the 1926 Toronto Maple Leafs and the rise of baseball in the Queen City

With Toronto on the rise a century ago, residents expected world-class offerings. Enter the 1926 Toronto Maple Leafs—led by the colorful “Howling Dan” Howley—and the construction of a sparkling state-of-the-art ballpark, Maple Leaf Stadium. D.M. Fox tells the story of a pivotal time in Toronto history.

In this August Publications/Ballpark Digest podcast, Jesse Goldberg-Strassler and Kevin Reichard sit down to discuss the newest August Publications title, The Howleyites: Toronto's Changing City, A Stadium Rising, and the Champions of 1926, with author D.M. Fox.

Toronto was an international city on the rise in 1926, as Canada was starting to flex its muscles on the world stage diplomatically and economically. The country was making advances in medicine, literature, academia, the arts, and technology, and nowhere was this more evident than in Toronto. By virtue of its central location, the city was becoming a major manufacturing, financial, and transportation hub.

Prosperity also created demand for leisure offerings, and baseball was one of the top entertainment draws of the era. Toronto’s baseball scene featured a scenic but hard-to-access stadium on Hanlan’s Point, and when entrepreneur Lol Solman sought to upgrade the baseball experience both on and off the field, he called upon a familiar face to put together the 1926 Toronto Maple Leafs.

The result was a shiny new state-of-the-art facility, Maple Leaf Stadium, and an upgraded Maple Leafs roster, ready to challenge Jack Dunn’s Baltimore Orioles for the International League title. And the new-look Leafs were led on the field by “Howling Dan” Howley, a baseball lifer with a fiery reputation: “full of the old paprika and hot tamale stuff that puts life in the game,” according to one scribe, experience formed by serving as Ty Cobb’s right-hand man and chaperone to a young and wild Babe Ruth. With a roster of experienced hands and young talent like Carl Hubbell, The Howleyites fulfilled the high expectations of Torontonians with International League and Junior World Series titles.

In this podcast episode, D.M. Fox discusses the baseball events of 1926 in the broader context of the rise of Toronto. The rise of the Maple Leafs in 1926 gave Toronto major league cred, presaging the creation of the Toronto Blue Jays 50 years later. Chronicling the rise of Toronto on the world stage and the emergence of the Maple Leafs in the baseball world, Fox tells the story of a fascinating time in Canadian history.