Minnesota Gophers Baseball: The 1922 Team #TBT

The 1922 team has interested me for awhile now. They have these incredibly dank uniforms (look at those hats!), and the program came back from having been dead for 6 years. I've written previously why the Gophers dropped baseball in 1916.

In 1922 Minnesota hired Fred Luehring as it's first full time Athletic Director. Luehring campaigned to bring back Big Ten baseball, his argument was that students were enrolling to other schools instead of Minnesota because it lacked the sport. That seems insane, if true no one would currently be going to Wisconsin (boom, got em). What makes more sense is that Luehring thought he could make money off of bringing back baseball.

Strangely the Gophers were able to get right back into the Big Ten, taking Indiana's place as they were touring in Japan that season. Unfortunately the team sucked big time and ended up in last place. That didn't stop it from being interesting team. If you want to read the full story including the whole team almost being crushed by a tornado I strongly recommend this Daily article from May 23, 1997.