Historian spins ‘mostly true’ tales of county’s baseball past

Published 9:00 pm Friday, February 18, 2005

EVERETT – For Snohomish County baseball lovers, there’s something on deck that will be heaps more fun than spending the weekend digging last year’s mud out of your cleats.

Just in time for spring training, local baseball historian Dave Larson will give a story and slide presentation, “Diamond Days: Baseball History in Snohomish County,” at 2 p.m. Sunday in the Everett Public Library auditorium, 2702 Hoyt Ave.

The event is sponsored by the Museum of Snohomish County History.

“He has kind of a really cool dish on what it was like from early mill-town days when every city had its own team,” said David Chrisman of the museum.

“His perspective on it is … like he’s been transported through time to our time to tell those stories.”

Larson is a former opera singer, logging company accountant, Tulalip planning commissioner and is guest historian for the Everett AquaSox.

Now retired and living in Anacortes, he is writing a book on Snohomish County baseball history.

From a generation when baseball was the national pastime, the avid fan will share more than 100 years of “mostly true” Snohomish County baseball legends.

Larson has newspaper accounts of baseball games played in the county since 1877.

For instance, Larson notes that Earl Averill – one of the two Baseball Hall of Fame members from Washington state – is from Snohomish County.

Larson is also a member of the Society for American Baseball Research, where he joins 7,000 other volunteers who study America’s love affair with baseball.

“He really has a gift for gab, so his presentation is going to be just wonderful,” Chrisman said.

Reporter Jennifer Warnick: 425-339-3429 or jwarnick@heraldnet.com.