Articles Written By Tobias Seamon
Tobias Seamon recently published the novella The Fair Grounds. More can be found here.
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The Holiday Desk
Dressed to Kill
Real-life villains to inspire costumes, including the conquistador so horrible the king of Spain made it a crime to say his name.
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Great American Games
No One Is Innocent
Think baseball today is rotten from drugs and punks? A century ago, things weren’t much better. A brief history of baseball’s dark traditions—cheating, substance abuse, obscenity, violence—and the colorful players who brought them to life.
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Great American Games
How Der Boss President Changed Baseball
In the late 1870s, baseball was at risk of dying out before it even got started, strangled by a teetotaling, law-abiding, church-going new league. Then a German saloonkeeper in St. Louis got involved.
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Ghosts of New York
The Lost Pondshiners
New York’s Hudson Valley has long been haunted—by headless horsemen, and living terrors, too. In the hills between Poughkeepsie and Albany existed a clan of artisans known for their semi-wild existence—and for being a real-life connection to the region’s supernatural past.
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The Sports Page
Six and a Half Billion People Are Absolutely Right
The N.F.L. is corrupt, baseball’s a distant dream, and March Madness is only one month long. Here’s why any true sports fan watches soccer.
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Deadwood on the Hudson
Murderer, Thief, Whoremonger, Cheat
This summer marks the quadricentennial of Henry Hudson’s joyride to Albany—a celebration steeped in blood and greed.
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Deadwood on the Hudson
An Arm and a Leg to Be Divided
Four hundred years ago, Henry Hudson took a pleasure cruise up to Albany—and so began a bloody, murderous chapter of American history.
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Op-Ed
Prodigies, Peons, and Purple People Eaters
The wide world of sports is full of fallen angels and exhausted stories. A season of discontent condensed into five brief acts, with prayers for a glorious summer.
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Deadwood on the Hudson
Treacherie and the Chiefe Men of the Countrey
To celebrate the quadricentennial of Henry Hudson’s cruise to Albany, a new series about the Dutch colonies’ origins in America—no publicity cover-ups allowed.
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Profiles
The Strange Case of Harmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert, Part Two
When he arrived in Manhattan in 1630, Harmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert had a promising future. But cannibalism, sodomy, and a pet bear (not for sale) forever changed his life, and legacy.
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Profiles
The Strange Case of Harmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert
When he arrived in Manhattan in 1630, Harmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert had a promising future. But cannibalism, sodomy, and a pet bear (not for sale) forever changed his life, and legacy.
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Personal Essays
In the Realm of the Oak Queen
A generation ago, the death of a pet prompted heartbreak, but the burial may have been a simple backyard affair. Pet funerals these days are going upscale, and one New York pet crematorium sets a shining example.