ManDak League
1950 - 1957
News
Home
History
All-Star Team
Biographies
Rosters
Images
Links
Acknowledgements
Author
Bill Guenthner, Hockessin, Delaware
I grew up in Eastwood Park in Minot, North Dakota in the 1950’s. Eastwood Park was near the ballpark, at that time called the Minot Municipal Ball Park. I was a big Minot Mallard fan and so were my friends. I completed High School in Minot and attended the University of North Dakota where I graduated as a Chemical Engineer in 1966. After graduation, my wife Cindy Fredrickson from Lakota, North Dakota and I moved to the East Coast where I went to work for the DuPont Company. Cindy and I raised three children.
About 1997 Minot Mallard information started showing up on the Internet on Jay-Dell Mah’s Western Canada Baseball site. I started collecting information on the ManDak Mallards and sending it to Jay so he could add it to his website. Barry Swanton, who wrote a book on the ManDak League, contacted me and we began exchanging information.
In 2004 I wrote a book on the ManDak League Mallards. Contents include much of the information on this website: history, fuzzy memories, biographies of all 147 players, statistics, rosters and pictures. The book sold well and is currently out of print.
Bill Guenthner
Minot Mallards of the ManDak League, 1950 - 1957 by Bill Guenthner
Review by Carlos Bauer*
Minot Mallards has gone through two printings, and is awaiting the
possibility of a well-deserved third. In the meantime, Bill is offering the
book on a CD, which can be printed out, and then bound, which is what I
did. The format is in MS Word, and he includes cover art for the book. What I
did was take it over to Office Depot, and they printed out and comb bound it.
This is a history of Bill Guenthner’s team in the town of his youth, and one
could call it a loving portrait of that club. But it is also much more than
that. The book delves into the history of what lead to the league, how the
league and the club came into being. Then it gives a complete season-by-season
recap, primarily from the Mallards perspective. These recaps are well-written
and interesting.
After seasonal recaps, the author takes a retrospective look—without nostalgia—
at the league and the level of competition. Then comes a section that gives
thumbnail biographies of virtually—if not every—player who appeared with the
Mallards. So many times I pick up a book on a league, and find myself asking
“Who the hell is this guy?” This is a very valuable section that took the author
considerable effort to put together. There are some minimal statistics in this
section for the players, but stats was not of great importance to the author.
The following section is a detailed season-by-season roster, showing where the
players came from, the seasons they played for the club, and other comments.
The two final sections present photos of a number of the players, caricatures of
players that appeared in the local newspaper, and the cover of a scorecard. The
final section lists in tabular form season-by-season league standings, which—
being at the end of the book— makes it easy to get to when reading the season
recaps.
How good is the book? Very good, and serves as a great introduction to the
league. The team perspective also give one a feel for the ups and downs of a
franchise that one might not find in a league history. The only critique one
could make is that it’s a little light on stats—but that has been remedied by
Barry Swanton in his book.
In final analysis, this belongs in every minor league researcher’s library. I
can’t recommend it enough.
*Publisher of Baseball Press Books & former Society for American Baseball Research Minor League Committee Chair.
Any additional information on the Minot Mallards, personal reflections, corrections and/or comments will be greatly appreciated. Send to Bill Guenthner by e-mail at bguenthner@comcast.net