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.

The Ballpark Digest podcast is back for 2026, and we're kicking things off with a joint interview with Eric Vickrey, author of Before They Wore Dodger Blue: Tommy Lasorda and the Greatest Draft Class in Baseball History, and Steve Dittmore, author of Jim Gilliam: The Forgotten Dodger. Eric and Steve are discussing their upcoming joint appearance/book signing at the Los Angeles Public Library (lapl.org). They'll be joined by former GM Fred Claire, whose book Extra Innings details his time with Dodgers and his more recent battle with cancer, in an appearance moderated by Tom Hoffarth. The talk is scheduled for Saturday, April 11, at the Central Library (630 W. 5th St.), 2-3:30 p.m. Books from both will be available at the author talk.

Mick Gillispie, Jesse Goldberg-Strassler and Kevin Reichard discuss the beginning of spring training and preview MLB rule changes in the Ballpark Digest Broadcaster Chat. 

None of the 2023 MLB changes are new to Mick and Jesse, who spent the past few seasons watching these changes in action in the minor leagues. Discussed are the rule changes one by one, in order of impact:

No shifts, as two fielders must be positioned on each side of second base. Mick likes the ban on shifts only because batters today lack the skills to take advantage of a shift; former greats could address the shift, but today’s players seemingly lack those skills. Taking away the shift levels the playing field. Jesse goes a step further and discusses the 2022 Florida State League “pie wedge” experiment, where a pie-slice shape was drawn into the outfield and fielders couldn’t be positioned within the shape of the pie wedge. This rewards balls hit up the middle. 

A larger base, nicknamed the pizza box base. In theory, the larger bags should lead to more action on the bases—more steals, more adventurous baserunning—but the rationale for the larger base was to improve safety. In the end, Mick didn’t notice much impact from the base tinkering; Jesse noted that the issue was less the size of the base and more the positioning.

The pitch clock has been receiving the most attention at the start of the 2023 spring training season, as it’s had the most visible impact on play. Despite a flurry of stories showing shortened game tunes as spring training starts, these are fairly meaningless tests: the real test will be game times at the end of spring training, when almost all games are televised and players are more used to the clock routines. 

The interesting factor will how teams and players take advantage of the new rules. Some pitchers used to working fast should thrive; some teams built around fielding and speed, like the Miami Marlins, should thrive. We will see more games within games with these rule changes.

Also discussed; teams tackling renovations in their spring-training facilities not this year, but next.

The discussion ends with a look at what’s shaping up to be a huge existential issue for baseball: the rapid decline of RSNs—and the budgeted payments to teams—and how MLB will be stepping in to create their own broadcast networks from scratch. One big issue, Mick points out, is that MLB is seemingly basing their efforts on the cable TV structure of 20 years ago and not in the modern age of streaming media. Other sports have adjusted their broadcast efforts to the digital age, like MLS totally dropping local broadcasts in favor of a national Apple TV deal. But MLB seems to be stuck in the past and not looking to the future at a time when consumers habits are changing, when sports wagering is becoming a huge factor, and when consumers are interested more in what individual players are doing vs. team results—for better or for worse.

Mick Gillispie of Voice of the Tennessee Smokies. Jesse Goldberg-Strassler is Voice of the Lansing Lugnuts and author of The Baseball Thesaurus. Kevin Reichard is publisher of Ballpark Digest