Uncovering California's Forgotten Baseball Empire

In the closing years of the nineteenth century, Sacramento was a city of gaslight and grit—its streets lined with gambling halls, saloons, and the restless energy of a place still inventing itself. At the center of it stood Ed Kripp: gambler, promoter, and architect of one of California’s earliest baseball dynasties.

The Gilt Edge of Ambition follows Kripp’s rise as he led his club to an unprecedented run of pennants and built Buffalo Park; navigating a world where deals were struck in back rooms and fortunes turned overnight. Baseball, in this moment, was not yet a settled institution—it was spectacle, business, and risk, all at once.

As the twentieth century approached and the glow of gas lamps gave way to a more ordered age, the game—and the city—began to change. Informal power gave way to structure, and the chaotic world that had made Kripp possible slowly receded.

Lisa Jonsson is a California native and the great-great-granddaughter of Ed Kripp. Her interest in his life began with family stories passed down by her grandmother and deepened through years of archival research. Drawing on more than 600 primary-source citations, she brings together family memory, place, and the historical record to tell his story.

She is a member of the Society for American Baseball Research and contributes to its Nineteenth Century Notes, and is the author of Ed Kripp's biography for their BioProject.