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, transportation, 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, just a stone's throw from Rogers Centre-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 an International League and Junior World Series title.
How Howley and Lol Solman put together the Maple Leafs is told by D.M. Fox in The Howleyites: Toronto's Changing City, A Stadium Rising, and The Champions of 1926. 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.
Industry Reviews
"We all know about Toronto's passion for baseball and the Blue Jays, but The Howleyites: Toronto's Changing City, A Stadium Rising, and The Champions of 1926 takes us back in time, through the deep history baseball has here. D.M. Fox does an outstanding job illustrating how both the love of baseball and the city itself grew alongside one another 100 years ago. We learn how teams were put together, how stadiums were built, and ultimately how a championship was won. It's a great trip back in time to when baseball was just putting its roots down in Toronto, and it's a great read for the current baseball fan."-Dan Shulman, Voice of the Toronto Blue Jays, Sportsnet
"D.M. Fox has done a masterful job of re-creating the Toronto of the mid-1920s, a city bursting with civic pride that was reflected in its new lakefront state-of-the-art ballpark, and the championship team that played in it."-Jamie Campbell, host of Blue Jays Central, Sportsnet
"Doug's passion for the game of baseball is never more palpable than when he's telling the stories that paved the way for the game we know today. The Howleyites offers a fun, entertaining look back on a part of Toronto's past-the baseball, and the city-that even a hardcore fan may not be familiar with. As the Blue Jays celebrate their 50th season, this is an excellent way to appreciate a rich baseball history that paved the way for baseball in Toronto in 2026."
"The day before Maple Leafs Stadium opened in 1926, the Globe urged Toronto baseball fans to 'Get right in behind Dan Howley and the Leafs, and we'll show the world what kind of ball town Toronto is.' This book taught me so much about what kind of ball town Toronto was, but also made me better appreciate the kind of ball town it's become a full century later. The Howleyites captures the rich baseball history of Toronto that long predates the Blue Jays and the growth of the city right alongside it. This is a must-read for baseball fans."-Keegan Matheson, Blue Jays reporter for MLB.com and author of The Franchise: A Curated History of the Toronto Blue Jays
