July 3, 1890: Idaho Is Admitted As the 43rd State

July 3, 1890: Idaho is admitted to the Union as the 43rd State.

Idaho is in the Rocky Mountains, although some people consider it part of the Northwest. It had been acquired as part of the Oregon Treaty of 1846, with the Idaho Territory being separated in 1863. It has become known for its production of potatoes.

Politically, Idaho has been Western conservative, with a libertarian bent: Pro-gun, pro-landowner. In the 1964 Presidential election, along with Nebraska (47.4 percent) and his home State of Arizona (50.4 percent), Idaho (49.1 percent) was 1 of only 3 States outside the South that gave Barry Goldwater more than 45.1 percent of the vote; and it hasn't voted for the Democratic nominee for President since that time with Lyndon Johnson.

Their highest-ranking politician has been Dirk Kempthorne: Mayor of the capital city of Boise from 1986 to 1993, then U.S. Senator until 1999, then Governor until May 26, 2006, when he resigned to accept George W. Bush's appointment as Secretary of the Interior, holding that post to the end of the Administration in 2009.

With 235,000 people, the capital city of Boise is easily the most populous city in the State. So there are no major league teams there. Due to distance, the most popular teams are the Seattle Seahawks (about 500 miles northwest of Boise) and the Denver Broncos (over 800 miles southeast).

The highest-ranking professional sports teams are the Boise Hawks and the Idaho Falls Chukars of the Pioneer League, an independent baseball league roughly equivalent to Class A (three steps below the major leagues); and a pair of minor-league hockey teams, the Boise-based Idaho Steelheads of the ECHL and the Idaho Falls Spud Kings of the USPHL.

The only college playing in the NCAA's Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS, formerly named Division I-A) is Boise State University, where their Albertsons Stadium has the famous blue artificial field known as "the Smurf Turf." In the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS, formerly named Division I-AA), the University of Idaho play in Moscow, close to a State Line, so that the nearest school is actually Washington State University; and Idaho State University, in Pocatello. The State has several ski resorts.

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July 3, 1890 was a Thursday. It was the year of the Players' League revolt in baseball, 1 of only 4 seasons -- 1884, 1914 and 1915 being the others -- that what we now call Major League Baseball had 3 leagues.

In the National League:

* The New York Giants lost to the Pittsburgh Pirates, 4-0 at Recreation Park in Pittsburgh.

* The Brooklyn Bridegrooms lost to the Cincinnati Reds, 9-6 at League Park in Cincinnati. In 1899, the Bridegrooms -- so named because several players got married in the 1887-88 off-season -- became the Superbas. In 1911, they became the Dodgers.

* The Boston Beaneaters beat the Cleveland Spiders, 8-0 at National League Park in Cleveland. This ballpark was replaced by a new League Park in 1891, which was replaced by another League Park in 1910, which became home of the team that became the Cleveland Indians until 1946. The Spiders folded after the 1899 season. The Beaneaters became the Braves in 1912.

* The Chicago Colts beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 8-5 at West Side Park in Chicago. The Colts became the Cubs in 1903.

There were no games that day in the American Association. In the Players' League, none of whose teams survived its folding after the season, there were 3 games:

* The PL's version of the New York Giants beat the Cleveland Infants, 5-0 at Brotherhood Park in Cleveland. I can find no record of why the Cleveland team was called the Infants. Maybe they wanted to emphasize that their league was new and unconnected to what they saw as the corruption in established baseball. Or maybe they once reacted poorly to a loss, and were called "crybabies," and "Infants" came from that. There was not much imagination in the PL teams' names, the "Infants" aside.

* The Brooklyn Ward's Wonders beat the Buffalo Bisons, 9-3 at Olympic Park in Buffalo. The Brooklyn team was named after their star shortstop, the PL's founder, John Montgomery Ward. Although the Buffalo Bisons name would be applied to later teams in multiple sports, this team died with the PL.

* And the Chicago Pirates, beat the PL's version of the Philadelphia Athletics, 8-6 at South Side Park in Chicago. This is not the same South Side Park that would later be the 1st home of the American League's Chicago White Sox and the Negro Leagues' Chicago American Giants.