Editing Kansas (section)

=====History=====
The history of professional sports in Kansas probably dates from the establishment of the [[minor league baseball]] Topeka Capitals and [[Leavenworth Soldiers]] in 1886 in the [[Western League (1885–1899)|Western League]].<ref name="Evans">{{cite journal |last = Evans |first = Harold |title = Baseball in Kansas, 1867–1940 |journal = Kansas Historical Quarterly |year = 1940 |url = http://www.kancoll.org/khq/1940/40_2_evans.htm |access-date = February 18, 2008 |url-status = live |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080316152651/http://www.kancoll.org/khq/1940/40_2_evans.htm |archive-date = March 16, 2008}}</ref><ref name="Madden">{{cite book |last1 = Madden |first1 = W.C. |last2 = Stewart |first2 = Patrick |title = The Western League: A Baseball History, 1885 through 1999 |year = 2002 |publisher = McFarland |isbn = 978-0-7864-1003-3 }}</ref> The African-American [[Bud Fowler]] played on the Topeka team that season, one year before the "[[Baseball color line|color line]]" descended on professional baseball.<ref name=Madden />

In 1887, the Western League was dominated by a reorganized Topeka team called the [[Topeka Golden Giants (1887)|Golden Giants]]: a high-priced collection of major leaguer players, including [[Bug Holliday]], [[Jim Conway (baseball)|Jim Conway]], [[Dan Stearns]], [[Perry Werden]] and [[Jimmy Macullar]], which won the league by 15.5 games.<ref name=Madden /> On April 10, 1887, the Golden Giants also won an exhibition game from the defending [[1886 World Series|World Series]] champions, the [[St. Louis Browns (NL)|St. Louis Browns]] (the present-day Cardinals), by a score of 12–9. However, Topeka was unable to support the team, and it disbanded after one year.

The first night game in the history of professional baseball was played in Independence on April 28, 1930, when the Muscogee (Oklahoma) Indians beat the Independence Producers 13–3 in a minor league game sanctioned by the Western League of the Western Baseball Association with 1,500 fans attending the game. The permanent lighting system was first used for an exhibition game on April 17, 1930, between the Independence Producers and House of David semi-professional baseball team of Benton Harbor, Michigan with the Independence team winning 9–1 before a crowd of 1,700 spectators.<ref>Bowman, Larry G. "I Think It Is Pretty Ritzy Myself: Kansas Minor League Teams and Night Baseball". ''Kansas History'', Winter 1995/1996, pp 248–257. Kansas Historical Society. Retrieved May 25, 2013.</ref>