It’s book-release week here at August Publications. Our newest title is The Howleyites: Toronto’s Changing City, A Stadium Rising, and The Champions of 1926.
We’re really gratified by the early response to this title, making Amazon’s Hot Seller lists in both Baseball History and Canadian History. Most baseball books are repetitive accounts of game results and pitching changes, but what makes The Howleyites different is D.M. Fox’s combination of baseball history with city, provincial, and national history. Toronto in 1926 was an international city on the rise in 1926, and the forces unleashed by this creative outburst still reverberate; the Rogers Batteryless Radio gave rise to the Rogers empire that today includes Rogers Centre and the Toronto Blue Jays.
That creative burst 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 International League and Junior World Series titles.
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. With a Foreword from esteemed baseball historian William Humber, The Howleyites tells the story of a fascinating time in Canadian history.
D.M. Fox began writing about the Toronto Blue Jays farm system in 2013, amassing a list full of contacts in the organization from CEO Mark Shapiro to Niall O’Donohoe, the PA announcer for the team’s Vancouver Canadians affiliate. His work has been featured in numerous online publications, and he’s a regular guest on Sportsnet The FAN 590 in Toronto with updates about Blue Jays prospects.
You can order this book directly from August Publications in paperback or eBook.
Paperback resellers:
Amazon | Amazon.ca | Ingram | Indigo | Queen Books | Barnes & Noble | bookstore.org
Ebook resellers:
Amazon | Amazon.ca | Ingram | Barnes & Noble Nook | Apple Books | bookstore.org | Kobo
Bookstores/libraries:
Ingram
FAST FACTS
Print ISBN: 978-1-938532-96-2
eBook ISBN: 978-1-938532-97-9
Suggested retail price: $22.99 U.S. print, $9.99 eBook (Kindle, Apple Books, B&N Nook, Kobo, Google Play)
Physical specs: 260 pages, 6×9