In the past week (the first in the Continuum’s history), I’ve brought predictions of yesteryear about how Kiko Garcia was going to be the Orioles’ shortstop of the ’80s and how bizarre the 2044 baseball season would be. So, to balance out the books a bit, here’s a article from the July 1945 issue of Baseball Digest:
Yes, friends, not only did Fred Russell of the Nashville Banner think that one day baseball defeat the “weather angle”, he thought that it would be possible to do it with a retractable roof. While Russell’s “apparatus” (as you can read about if you head to the Google Books link) is one of canvas (similar to how the Roman Colosseum had canvas to shade some of it’s seats centuries ago), he is more or less correct in his prediction that ball stadiums would be built to hold games despite the weather. However, he was wrong in how long it would take: it wouldn’t be until 1989 that a baseball team played in a stadium with a fully functional retractable roof (Toronto), although the Expos’ tried in Olympic Stadium (the “retractable” part of it never worked).
The Baseball Continuum 