So begins Scott Mayer’s 183-page master’s thesis about Richmond’s first 50 years of professional baseball, a topic that evolved into a book he published with Dr. Harrison Daniel, his former advisor and University of Richmond history professor emeritus, now deceased. Mayer, St. Christopher’s college counselling associate director, will teach a four-part series on the subject through the month of February as part of the school’s Chamberlayne Scholars continuing education program for parents, alumni and friends.

Researching his thesis 20 years ago, Mayer was a newlywed working in admissions at the University of Richmond. For almost four years, he devoted countless nights and weekends to combing through thousands of newspapers on microfilm. Back then, sports articles were randomly placed amongst local, national and international news making the research tedious and time-consuming, but for Mayer a labor of love.

His greatest challenge was to stay focused. The William & Mary grad was constantly distracted by coverage of historic events such as the death of Ulysses S. Grant and the sinking of the Titanic.

His passion for the sport goes back to his roots as a Cincinnati native. “When I first became aware of baseball, the Big Red Machine was in its heyday winning the World Series in 1975 and 1976,” he said. His father played Little League with Pete Rose; he played against Pete’s son.

After taking a job in the University of Richmond admissions office and embarking on a master’s in history, Mayer enrolled in a Saturday adult education class on baseball’s golden era taught by Dr. Daniel, who suggested he follow through with a thesis on the sport’s rich history in Richmond, a subject never chronicled.

The thesis, along with an additional 100-plus hours of research and Dr. Daniel’s coverage of more recent decades, segued into the book, “Baseball and Richmond: A History of the Professional Game, 1884-2000.” For four summers, Mayer led bus tours of Richmond’s 10 ballpark locations. He’s taken on some speaking gigs, most recently to the Tredegar Society at the American Civil War Museum. He was interviewed for a Richmond history podcast and for a documentary on Tuckahoe Little League and was once tapped as a guest color commentator for the Richmond Braves.

Mayer is the StC JV assistant baseball coach and plays softball for a Henrico County rec league team. He is also a Richmond Little League board member.