At the press conference, Mayor Kevin McCarty said people were gathered not only to launch their campaign for MLB expansion officially, but also to celebrate \u201c175 years of love affair for baseball\u201d in Sacramento.
If you\u2019re a baseball savant, you may know the history of baseball in the city, but if you\u2019re not familiar, the Sacramento History Museum<\/a> has you covered with the latest exhibit \u2014 Play Ball! Sacramento in the National Pastime.\u00a0
Through 175 years of baseball, the city has seen numerous teams, different stadiums and major league baseball games played in Sacramento. The exhibit showcases different photos, uniforms, videos, equipment and other memorabilia on the third floor of the history museum.<\/p>\n
Shawn Turner, the museum’s photocopier and magician, said he\u2019s impressed with how deep the history is in Sacramento, which goes all the way back to the gold rush era.
\u201cIt’s hard to apply empirical numbers to how big it is, but the anecdotal evidence is just unending, just so many connections you can make here,\u201d Turner said. \u201cSo, that’s what I love, is that people can come to the exhibit and make their own connections to players they knew or heard about, and they can talk to their generation of players.\u201d
The exhibit will be running from now until the end of October when the baseball season ends. The Sacramento history museum is open 7-days-a-week from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.<\/p>\n
![\"Play\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/img_3909_720.jpg\")
Play Ball! Sacramento in the National Pastime exhibit will run until the end of October when the baseball season ends.Keyshawn Davis\/CapRadio<\/p>\n
Exhibit highlights<\/p>\n
Turner highlighted what was known as the first game that took place in Sacramento in 1860 at a place called “Ferguson Field\u201d near R Street.
One of the walls in the museum shows that MLB Legend Babe Ruth played two games in Sacramento.
\u201cA big part of Sacramento baseball was a Sacramento Winter League, and it wasn’t the only winter league, but they did play from November through February,\u201d Turner said as he pointed toward a wall with historical facts.
He continued, \u201cthis is kind of the teaser wall, just kind of introducing people and pointing to the fact that baseball was big enough that Babe Ruth showed up twice to play barnstorming [exhibition] games, and the second time he showed up with Lou Gehrig, his Yankee teammate.\u201d
Also highlighted in the museum is Sacramento\u2019s former minor baseball teams which include the Solons, Senators, and a team that used to play in Oak Park called the Gilt Edge, which was named after beer brewed by the Buffalo Brewing Company, according to Turner. The two current\u00a0 Sacramento teams River Cats and the Athletics are also mentioned.
Many of those teams played at a stadium that used to be located on 11th and Y street of Sacramento, which today is known as Riverside and Broadway.
\u201cIt started out as Buffalo Park, then Moering Field, then Cardinal Field, then Doubleday Field briefly, and then finished as Edmonds Field, and now it’s where there’s a Target store,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cThere’s a plaque in the parking lot designated, just commemorating the field.\u201d
The last game played at Edmonds Field in Sacramento was an exhibition game between the San Francisco Giants against the Cleveland Indians, now the Guardians, in 1964 where Hall-of-Famers Willie Mays and Willie McCovey hit back-o-back home runs.
\u201cStarting at shortstop for the Cleveland Indians was Woody Held, who, when he was 11, he was a bat boy for the Sacramento Solons,\u201d Turner said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The field was demolished a week later, according to Turner.<\/p>\n
![\"Target\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/img_6527.jpg\")
Target on Broadway and Riverside used to be a baseball stadiums where many minor league Sacramento teams used to play.Keyshawn Davis\/CapRadio<\/p>\n
Another feature in the exhibit is a wall commemorating all of the baseball legends from the Sacramento area including baseball agent Scott Boras from Elk Grove, current Giants pitcher Logan Webb from Rocklin, first-ever woman coach in MLB Alyssa Nakken from Woodland and many more.
Major League town?<\/p>\n
Ken Suratt is a resident from Boston who is traveling the U.S. to watch every major league baseball team. He recently traveled to Sacramento to watch the Athletics play against the New York Yankees.
Suratt loved visiting the exhibit and believes Sacramento is a good baseball city.
\u201cI just like the people who are really nice,\u201d Suratt said. \u201cI didn’t know the history until I actually started looking up here, and that just made me more of a fan of Sacramento.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Ken\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/img_6462.jpg\")
Ken Suratt visited the Sacramento History Musuem on Friday, June 5, 2026. He was impressed by Sacramento’s rich baseball history.Keyshawn Davis\/CapRadio<\/p>\n
Sacramento History Museum’s social media manager Jared Jones said he supports the city getting a MLB team. He believes the exhibit is attracting more visitors.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think this is helping to bring tourists to our city, and it’s bringing people that are more interested in what we have to offer here in Sacramento,\u201d Jones said. \u201cHaving an exhibit like our Play Ball! Sacramento in the National Pastime is so timely as well, because there’s so much baseball history in Sacramento, that if we have it and having an expansion team could only mean even bigger things for Sacramento.\u201d
If Sacramento were to be awarded an expansion team, Jones believes the team should be named after something related to the Gold Rush.
\u201cSacramento grew as the closest major city to the gold fields,\u201d he said. \u201cIt could be the Argonauts\u2026 it could be, the Miners or anything like that would be great.\u201d
Turner on the other hand would love for Sacramento to bring the Solons back, but has other names in mind. He was still upset that they didn\u2019t go with his names for the River Cats name contest in 2000 when the team moved to the city.
\u201cI have two answers \u2014 one was the Robber Barons and the other was the Americans because the team that was coming down was the Vancouver Canadians,\u201d Turner said. \u201cIf you call this team the Sacramento Americans, you’d be doing homage to both rivers, and so those are my ideas, and they came up with the River Cats, and I don’t know what a River Cat is.\u201d<\/p>\n
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