File:Seattle Base Ball Association stock certificate, March 21, 1891 (MOHAI 11924).jpg

The stock certificate pictured here was issued in 1891 for 20 shares in the Seattle Base Ball Association by company secretary, Will H. Parry (b. 1864), and company president, William Albert Hardy (1858-1942). Mr. Hardy was a local sporting goods store owner, and Mr. Parry was Seattle's City Comptroller from 1894-1900. Mr. Parry had previously worked in the newspaper industry, where he likely met the purchasers of this stock, Samuel Leroy Crawford (1855-1916) and Charles Tallmadge Conover (1862-1961), two former-newspaper-reporters-turned-business-partners who formed the real estate investment firm of Crawford & Conover. The significance of the role that the Seattle Base Ball Association played is unclear, as professional baseball in Seattle didn't really get started until 1898 when Daniel Edward Dugdale (1864-1934), an Irish immigrant and ex-pro-player, came to town and organized the first professional team, the Klondikers (later Rainmakers, Clamdiggers, and Chinooks) and the new Pacific Northwest League. In 1903 Seattle became a charter member of the Pacific Coast League, and its team hobbled through the decades with several names (Indians, Giants), and owners, until 1937 when millionaire brewer Emil Sick (1894-1964) bought and renamed the team the "Rainiers after his beer, and built the city a new ballpark, Sick's Seattle Stadium, on the site of the old Dugdale Park.

Caption information source: The Seattle Daily Times, February 8, 1907, p. 18. Caption information source: "Dugdale, Daniel E. (1864-1934), Baseball Pioneer," by Daniel Eskenazi and Walt Crowley, HistoryLink.org Essay 3431.

• Subjects (LCTGM): Baseball--Washington (State)--Seattle