Motley Fool Money - The Summer of Beer and Whiskey

Episode Date: June 30, 2020

Professional baseball almost didn’t make it out of the 1880s. In his book The Summer of Beer and Whiskey, writer Ed Achorn explains how a new owner of the team in St. Louis helped saved the business of baseball with creative ideas like selling beer at the games. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you're a small business owner, you already know what it takes to keep everything moving. You're juggling customers, invoices, and about 100 decisions every day. Thankfully, taxes don't have to be one more thing on that list. With Intuit TurboTax, you can get your business taxes done for you with a full service expert. TurboTax matches you with your dedicated tax expert, who knows your industry understands your business write-offs and gives you the personalized advice your business deserves. upload your documents right in the app, hand everything off, and still feel like you're in the loop the whole way through. You can even get real-time updates on your expert's progress right in the app,

which makes it so much easier to stay on track. And you can get unlimited expert help at no extra cost, even on nights and weekends during tax season. Visit turbotax.com to get matched with an expert today, only available with TurboTax full service experts. With a monthly home money extra, I'm Chris Hill. Time for a little sports history. In the 1880s, the business of baseball was in trouble because the people running the National League refused to have games on Sunday, refused to sell beer at the games, and charged 50 cents a ticket.

Back then, that was a lot of money. But one new owner changed everything. It's a story captured by a longtime journalist Ed Acorn in his book, The Summer of beer and whiskey, how brewers, bar keeps, rowdies, immigrants, and a wild pennant fight made baseball America's game. In it, he tells the story of that new owner, Chris Vondere. He was a grocery. He came over here with essentially nothing. A classic immigrant story, worked hard, built up this grocery, had a saloon outback, and then he noticed this strange American sport taking place right down the street on Grand Avenue in St. Louis.

And several American-born people had tried to make go of baseball and it failed. He decided to give it a shot. And he had a great business plan. He was going to have Sunday baseball. He was going to have beer at the ballpark. In fact, he did it primarily to make money selling beer. And he was going to charge 25 cents admission, which was half the National League's fee. And what he discovered very quickly is there was a hunger and a passion for baseball that was untapped, so to speak.

And he brought these people into the ballpark in huge numbers. Suffice to say the owners of other teams noticed Vondere's recipe for success and wisely decided to follow it. Major League Baseball doesn't start for another month, so if you're looking for something to scratch that baseball itch, find a copy of the summer of beer and whiskey. I'm Chris Hill. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.