The Game of Baseball – #FunFactFriday

With HMA at Talking Stick Field for our annual day at the ballpark and today marking the first Friday of the month, there is no better time to share some fun facts on our national pastime–baseball! If you are attending an upcoming baseball game, here are some interesting facts you can use to impress your friends and the crowd.

• Founded in 1869, the Cincinnati Red Stockings were the first professional baseball team. The team is now known as the Cincinnati Reds.
• Arizona’s Chase Field, formerly known as Bank One Ballpark, was the first MLB stadium to have a pool. The stadium is also the second highest in the MLB behind Coors Field, home to the Colorado Rockies.
• The National Baseball Hall of Fame was founded in Cooperstown, N.Y., in 1963 and the Hall’s motto is “Preserving History, Honoring Excellence, Connecting Generations.”
• In 1990, the then 40-year-old Ken Griffey Sr. and his son, 20-year-old Ken Griffey Jr., became the first father and son to play as teammates in an MLB game.
• William Howard Taft was the first U.S. president to throw the ceremonial first pitch.
• The 1992 film A League of Their Own is the highest-grossing baseball-themed movie of all time.
• More than 26 million hot dogs and sausages are consumed during a typical baseball season.
• The most expensive baseball card in history was sold during an auction in 2022. The Mickey Mantle card from 1952 sold for $12.6 million, nearly doubling the previous record of a Honus Wagner card that sold for $6.6 million.
• HMA’s Scott Hanson threw out the first pitch at Scottsdale Stadium for the Oakland Athletics and San Francisco Giants Cactus League game last April.

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