John Shovlin

In the first 150 years of professional baseball, more major leaguers came from Pennsylvania than any state but California.1 Only one — John “Brode” Shovlin — was born in the tiny coal-mining town of Drifton.2 A diminutive middle-infielder with only 18 games spread over nine years and a .209 career batting average, Shovlin went eight years between big-league appearances, quit to play semipro after climbing all the way back, and played for more than another decade out of the spotlight.

John Joseph Shovlin was born on January 14, 1891,3 in Drifton, Pennsylvania, the youngest of four children born to Irish parents. His surname was frequently misspelled as Shovelin. His father, Peter Shovlin, born in 1859, came to Pennsylvania in 1880 to work as a coal miner. There, he married Anna Haughey.4 Daughter Mary was born in January 1885, followed by another girl, Bridget, 14 months later and son Frank arrived in October 1887. John was the couple’s last child; his 30-year-old mother died the year after he was born.5

Peter Shovlin and his four children lived in a rented house in Drifton –six miles northeast of Hazleton — and none of them had learned to write according to the 1900 U.S. Federal Census. John remained in school through the fifth grade, long enough to become literate. His 12-year-old brother Frank was already employed part-time as a slate picker; John joined him in the mines within a few years. At Drifton’s No. 2 colliery on the afternoon of July 29, 1903, Peter Shovlin was “walking along the gangway on his way home when a runaway trip of cars bore down on him, breaking both legs below the knee.” Though he was rushed to the surface and hustled to the Miner’s Hospital in the company ambulance, the elder Shovlin died from his injuries a short time later.6

In 1908, a 17-year-old Shovlin played football for the Drifton Shamrocks, champions of the Hazleton region for the third straight season. Local newspapers were already referring to him by his nickname “Brode” as often as John or Johnny. Wearing matching jerseys –no small feat at the time—with striped sleeves, the Shamrocks battled opponents like the Carlisle Indians. “The game was rough, and players battled each other with only minimal protective equipment,” the local newspaper described. “For instance, no helmets or shoulder pads were worn, but most players did have knee padding and nose guards.”7

Founded in 1886, the Drifton Fearnots baseball team also brought glory to the Northside mining community, with early-20th century big leaguers Barney McFadden (from Eckley), John Burke (Hazleton) and the McGeehan brothers – Connie and Danny — (Jeddo) among dozens of future pros who starred for the club.8 The Fearnots were financed by Eckley B. Coxe and William Carlin, who was also the manager, and enjoyed a dominant heyday from 1904 to 1920. On June 23, 1908, the Drifton Ball Park opened and served as the site of many semipro games, hosting big attractions like the Cuban Giants or Traveling Indians when they came to town.9

Shovlin was the last of the Fearnots to advance to the majors, but his first big break in baseball came when he earned a spot with the Jeddo Stars at age 18. For the first half-century of Shovlin’s life, Jeddo — in Luzerne County like Drifton — was known as Japan-Jeddo, after the Japanese port of Edo. (That name fell out of favor after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941.) Suiting up for Jeddo’s top-notch semipro club kick-started Shovlin’s career — almost literally. “His friend Tommy McNamee, back in 1909, was put out of action when a mule kicked him in the mid-section when at work in the mines. Shovlin subbed for McNamee at second base with the Jeddo Stars. That marked the start of his 20-year baseball career.”10

In 1910, Shovlin debuted in professional baseball with the Class-C Erie Sailors of the Ohio-Pennsylvania League. At 5’7”, 163 lbs, Shovlin, with dark brown hair and blue-gray eyes, was slightly bigger than the club’s player-manager Matt Broderick, an infielder with two games of major league experience with the 1903 Brooklyn Superbas. The team’s leading slugger, Gene “Eude” Curtis, had appeared in a handful of games for the 1903 Pirates. Erie’s top pitcher, 5’8” right-hander Ralph McConnaughey, went 16-18 to lead the circuit in losses, but later hurled for the 1914 Indiana Hoosiers of the Federal League. Shovlin appeared in a team-high 123 games but batted only .228 as Erie went 55-69 to finish in last place.

Back at Erie in 1911, the 20-year-old Shovlin was a much stronger hitter, averaging .288 in 49 games under new skipper Billy Gilbert, the New York Giants’ second-baseman in the 1905 World Series. Shovlin was sold to the Pittsburgh Pirates for $2,50011 and made his major league debut on June 21, 1911, a Wednesday afternoon in Chicago. Pittsburgh’s lineup featured four future Hall of Fame members that day: Honus Wagner, Bill McKechnie, Max Carey and player-manager Fred Clarke. But they trailed the first-place Cubs, 11-1, when Shovlin entered the game in the eighth inning. Pinch-hitting for pitcher Ensign Cottrell, Shovlin struck out against the Cubs’ Harry McIntire. Five days later at Forbes Field, Shovlin pinch-ran for Babe Adams with Pittsburgh trailing, 3-0, in the bottom of the third. He came around to score on a hit by Bobby Byrne, but the Bucs lost in 10 innings. Before he got into another game, the Pirates sold him to the Waterbury Champs in the Class-B Connecticut State League for $1,000, with the option to recall him on August 20.12 Shovlin hit just .187 in 42 games for a poor Waterbury club, however, and nearly eight years passed before his next big league action.

Shovlin spent 1912 in the Class-D Ohio State League with the Newark Skeeters. In 135 games, Shovlin batted .294, and his 29 doubles ranked second on the team. When he returned to the same circuit in 1913, the Skeeters no longer existed, so he suited up for the Chillicothe Babes, playing second base in 134 games, hitting .291 and showing power for the first time as a pro. With 30 doubles, five triples and 19 home runs, Shovlin’s total of 54 extra-base hits ranked third in the eight-team league. The Babes’ 83-49 record edged the Charleston Senators (84-50) for the Ohio State League pennant, though it didn’t become official until a league meeting in Huntington, West Virginia, on October 22.13

In 1914, Shovlin returned to Chillicothe and batted .285 in 106 games with 13 more round-trippers. When Shovlin whiffed twice in an August 6 defeat at Charleston, he “looked daggers at the spectators” who razzed him. Nine Babes struck out against curve-balling southpaw Ross Shipe that day, but the fans particularly targeted Shovlin because “he shows more anger, and so it’s more fun,”14 explained the game story. Shovlin had already been sold to the contending Columbus Senators in the Double-A American Association.15 After his promotion less than two weeks later, Shovlin hit .228 with two more homers in 17 games for the Senators.

Back with Columbus in 1915, Shovlin was the youngest regular starter on a last-place team featuring more than a dozen past and future big leaguers. He stroked a club-leading 12 triples, but struggled to a .245 average overall. One newspaper account that summer referred to him as “he of the curly locks and prima donna disposition.”16

Shovlin spent 1916 with two teams in the Class-B Central League. When he got off to a slow start at the plate, the Grand Rapids Black Sox released him in May17, but he caught on with the Springfield Reapers, who lost in the finals. Nevertheless, the year seemed to be a step backwards for the 25-year-old.

He returned to Columbus in 1917, where the new skipper was former Cubs’ shortstop Joe Tinker. At least 20 of Shovlin’s teammates that season had — or would have—major league experience, including 40-year-old pitcher Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown. Playing shortstop and third base, he hit .269 in 139 games and finished second on the club with 26 doubles. Shovlin ranked second on the Senators in two-baggers again in 1918 when the season ended abruptly in late July because of World War I. “The association will quit for the season during the week owing to the work or fight order of the government,” explained one newspaper.18

“A telegram arrived at Shovlin’s home telling him to report to Manager George] Stallings of the Boston Braves,”19 after Columbus’s season ended prematurely, but the infielder never left Ohio. “Shovelin (sic) was picked up by a shop team and has been going at a mad clip for the steel workers since joining them,” reported Hazleton’s Standard-Speaker.20 When he made it back to Pennsylvania, he joined former Tigers and Giants catcher Brad Kocher in the lineup for a semipro club in Hazleton.21

Shovlin’s draft registration card recorded “ball player and a miner” as his occupations and listed his two sisters as dependents. Indeed, the 1920 Census lists him as the head of household for a rental property that he shared with them. The younger sister, Bridget, worked as a winder at a silk mill. By 1919, his brother Frank was managing Drifton’s team in the amateur Twilight League.22

With the war over, Shovlin returned to Columbus for a fifth and final season in 1919. He played 136 games at second base and led the team with a .294 batting average. His 25 doubles, 13 triples and two home runs gave him more extra-base hits than all his teammates except Jim Kelly, a .329 hitter in 35 games with the Boston Braves the previous year.

At the end of August, St. Louis Browns’ business manager Bob Quinn announced that Shovlin would join his American League club. “Shovlin comes to the Browns as a result of a trade in which outfielder Tod Sloan was sent to Columbus in part payment for Shovlin,” reported the St. Louis Globe Democrat. “A considerable amount of cash was also given for the Columbus second baseman, who can also play the left side of the infield.”23 The Browns also sent minor league pitcher Tom Lukenovich to Columbus, “as part payment for Johnny Shovlin.”24

Before Shovlin left Columbus, he hit his only two homers of the season in the first game of a September 7 doubleheader against the Milwaukee Brewers. The second came with a man aboard in the bottom of the ninth for a 7-6 win.25 The next day, however, “Shovlin was knocked unconscious in practice when he was hit by a thrown ball.”26

Joining the Browns on September 16 in Washington, DC, he started nine of the remaining 10 games at second base for skipper “Sunset” Jimmy Burke’s second-division club. In his debut at Griffith Stadium, he batted second against the league’s ERA and strikeout leader, Walter Johnson, who won his 20th game for the Senators that day. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s game story reported that Shovlin “worked Walter for a pass his first time, refusing to bite at the curves; and on two other occasions hit the ball on the nose, but directly into the hands of the outfielder.”27 He finished 0-for-3, but handled all six of his chances in the field. “Shovlin appears to have plenty of nerve as, on one occasion when he thought he had put out Clyde] Milan at second, stealing, he rushed up to [umpire George] Hildebrand and protested like a veteran.28

Two days later, in the first game of a doubleheader, Shovlin notched his first major league hit off Senators’ righty Al Schacht, who was making his debut. He also turned his first double play, and stroked his second hit off rookie southpaw Harry Courtney in game 2.

At Shibe Park in Philadelphia the next day, Shovlin committed his first error, but also scored his first run for St. Louis after singling again. Then he finally played in a winning game, going 1-for-5 to help Lefty Leifield earn his 124th and final big league win by shutting out the Athletics in the opener of a twin bill. Shovlin walked twice and scored in the nightcap, but the Browns lost again and headed to Chicago.

He did not play in the series opener at Comiskey Park, but the next day he stroked a tie-breaking, two-run single in the eighth to beat 23-game-winner Lefty Williams, 3-1

St. Louis’s 1919 season ended at League Park in Cleveland, where Shovlin hit safely and participated in double plays in both contests. His single and two runs scored in the final game helped the Browns beat Hall of Fame righty Stan Coveleski and climb into fifth place.

Spring training for the 1920 Browns was in Taylor, Texas, where it was too windy for baseball on March 1, so Burke sent his team on a cross-country hike the afternoon before their first exhibition game. The 18-mile journey, led by catcher Hank Severeid, was only completed by a half-dozen players. Shovlin made it through a soggy cornfield, but when he tried to leap across a creek full of crawfish a few miles in, he slipped and plunged into the murky water. “He was a pitiful sight when they pulled him out, wet through and through, and his garments covered with sticky Texas gumbo mud.”29 He gamely continued for a few more miles until he and eight of his teammates elected to follow the train tracks back to town.

When the games started, Shovlin wasn’t a flashy performer, but “His work in the field reminds one of Eddie Collins,” noted The St. Louis Star and Times. “Like Collins, he is quiet as the Sphinx when cavorting on the field, but he is fast as lightning and pounces like a cat on anything hit his way.”30 After Opening Day, however, Shovlin didn’t get much playing time. When he made his season debut on April 22, it was also his first career appearance at the Browns’ home, Sportsman’s Park. St. Louis was trailing Coveleski, 11-2, in the bottom of the seventh when Shovlin pinch-hit with the bases loaded and got the Browns’ third run home by grounding into a double play. Ten days passed before he pinch-hit again.

On May 6 he played the final inning in Detroit at shortstop. Three days later he stroked a run-scoring single and scored in the Browns’ three-run ninth. The next day in Cleveland, with St. Louis down seven runs to Jim Bagby, a 31-game winner in 1920, he replaced Wally Gerber in the seventh and went hitless in two at bats, but tagged out Tris Speaker on a stolen base attempt to end the bottom of the eighth. He played the last couple innings of another defeat in Philadelphia the next day.

On May 12 at Shibe Park, Shovlin entered a tie game in the eighth inning and pulled a single off Athletics’ righty Lyle Bigbee to lead off the 10th. After moving to second on a bunt, he took third on a wild pitch and scored what proved to be the game-winning run on a sacrifice fly by Jimmy Austin. Shovlin handled a grounder for the next-to-last out in the bottom of the frame, then never played in the majors again. “Johnny Shovlin, formerly of the Browns, was snared to Steelton by (Roxey) Roach,” reported The News-Herald of Franklin (PA) later that summer.31

Roach, a former major league shortstop, was a player-manager for Steelton in the Bethlehem Steel League, He and Shovlin had been teammates at Columbus in 1919, Johnny agreed to jump his Browns contract and reunite with his double-play partner for more money and playing time. That put him on the major leagues’ ineligible list, where he would remain through 1925.32

In 1921 he was with Oil City, where he was fined and suspended in June for objecting to being called out on a headfirst slide into first base by slapping the umpire in the face. By August he was back home playing for the Freeland Tigers.

Prior to the 1922 season, Shovlin weighed “five contracts from team managers in various states”33before joining the Massillon Agathons in Ohio. After a five-hit performance including two doubles and a triple, one newspaper proclaimed, “Brode Shovlin, of Drifton, is burning up the Michigan League” and declared “this is his biggest season”.34 He batted .367, which “caused several big league scouts to turn in fine reports on him.”35

On September 6, 1922, Shovlin, 31, married the former Sarah Marie McNally in Franklin, Ohio. Marie, 25, had attended high school, could read and write, and worked as a salesperson for a dry goods store in Columbus. She also came from an Irish family. Their son Patrick was born in Massillon a couple years later, but the couple settled in Freeland, just north of Drifton, where daughter Jean and son John, Jr. arrived in the first half of the 1930s. Pat Shovlin grew up to star in both baseball and basketball at Penn before enlisting in the Navy, earning battle stars as an assistant gunnery and boat officer on the Marshall Islands Campaign, Marianas Assault and Okinawa-Iwo Jima campaign.36

Shovlin returned to Massillon in 1923 after keeping the club in suspense as he weighed other offers. “Textor had to compete with many other teams which were hot on the trail of the former American Leaguer, and which offered him financial inducements much greater than Textor could,” one account explained.37

One week after the Yankees won the 1923 World Series, Babe Ruth’s All-Stars visited Hazleton. “It was made a holiday, the mines and the public schools of all the towns in the region closing for the afternoon.”38 With every seat at the Cranberry ballpark filled, the Bambino went hitless, but Shovlin “gobbled up some terrific liners” and stole the show by whacking two homers off New York Giants’ righty Jack Scott in Hazleton’s 4-0 victory.39

Despite published reports that Shovlin would join the Mahanoy City Blue Birds, he stuck with Massillon in 1924 and 1925, then played for Racine in the Anthracite League before returning home to finish the season with the Freeland Tigers. In an exhibition game of Hazleton All-Stars against the Phillies, he made a spectacular one-handed stop that drew loud applause and “was even commented on by the Phillies themselves.”40

Back with Freeland in 1927, Shovlin remained the Tri-City League’s most dangerous hitter. He also captained the Hazleton-based Ashmore Shops team in the Lehigh Valley League, where his total of 11 home runs playing only twice a week opened eyes as the team went to the championship series against Beaver Meadow.41 The Ashmore Shops club was based at the roundhouse where Shovlin worked for the Lehigh Valley Railroad, a/k/a the Route of the Black Diamond.

The St. Louis Browns reinstated Shovlin in April 1928 and sent him to Binghamton in the Class-B New York-Pennsylvania League. He batted a so-so .254, missing time after breaking a rib on a Fourth of July hit-by-pitch. After the season, he fell severely ill and lost 30 pounds from complications stemming from a hip infection caused by years of sliding on the base paths.42

Shovlin came back with a team-leading .334 average and 27 doubles in 1929 when the Triplets won the championship. He stroked 10 consecutive hits in late-May43, his half-dozen homers tied for tops on the club, and the league’s sportswriters named him the circuit’s top shortstop.44 On July 27 in Hazleton, an estimated 800 fans from Freeland filled the “Big Granny” — the 45-yard long cement grandstand with full backrests and a shingled roof—at Buhler (pronounced BEE-ler) Stadium45 for Brode Shovlin day when Binghamton was in town. For the next few years, it became an annual event. The St. Ann’s Band of Freeland and sports promoter Wilty Dougherty were among those on hand to honor one of the coal region’s finest players with a gift.46

Despite a late season broken thumb, Shovlin hit .328 in 116 games in 1930. Two of his dozen homers came on July 15, including a game-ending shot to center to beat Elmira.

In 1931, Shovlin moved back to second base. When the 40-year-old Shovlin’s average dipped to .245 in August, he was handed his release.47 He finished the season and –for all intents and purposes—his professional career with the Wilkes-Barre Barons. After managing 11 seasons in the NYPL, Barons’ manager Mike McNally picked Shovlin as the shortstop on his all-time team.48

Shovlin hardly retired, however. With the Freeland Yellow Jackets in the semipro Tri-County League in 1933, he was named to the all-region team. In August 1934, Shovlin returned to Massillon for an old-timers’ game, looking “slightly heavier than when he played here and gray around the temples” according to the local paper. Asked if he’d been playing ball that summer, Shovlin replied, “Three games. Two for beer, one for money.”49 A week later, when Shovlin went to a New York-Pennsylvania League contest, the Hazleton Mountaineers summoned him from the stands to replace their injured second baseman for a few games. On his second day with the team, Shovlin fouled off five pitches before lining a two-run, ninth-inning single to beat Williamsport.50

By 1936, Shovlin returned to the Jeddo Stars as a player-manager51, and played in the North Side Twilight League for the Freeland Pirates, the same club he helped defeat in the league championship a year later with an inside-the-park homer in the final inning to lead his Gene Boyle’s Café club to victory.52 In the summer of 1938, when a fan asked, “Is Brode Shovlin still playing ball?” the answer was, “Who’s getting them out at first base for the league-leading Boyle’s team?” The 47-year-old, peppery Pennsylvanian “still pokes the ball over the field and handles himself up to par” reported a Hazleton newspaper.53 Shovlin could also sing. When the Drifton Fearnots celebrated their 50th anniversary, for example, his renditions of “Mike” and “I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen” were reportedly well received.54

Shovlin spent his post-professional baseball years working in Drifton for the Jeddo-Highland Coal Company, a family-run business that’s still operated by heirs of its founders in the 21st century. In 1956, the same year that he retired, the 65-year-old Shovlin was presented a coveted honorary membership in the Freeland Sons of Erin, an Irish organization that he’d been active in for 21 years. At the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade, for example, Shovlin traditionally served as a marshal’s aide.55

When Shovlin was honored by the Hazleton YMCA with induction into the Greater Hazleton Hall of Fame in 1966, he remarked that he was a serious Phillies fan and observed that baseball had become a faster game than when he played.56

Shovlin and his wife Marie had been married for 51 years when she passed away in 1974. On February 16, 1976, Shovlin himself died at the age of 85 in Bethesda, Maryland. After a Mass of Christian Burial at the St. Ann’s Roman Catholic Church in Freeland, he was buried in the parish cemetery. At the time of his death, he was survived by son Patrick in Freeland, daughter Jean Llewellyn in Laurel, MD, and son John, Jr. in Hazleton, as well as nine grandchildren and several nieces and nephews.57

Acknowledgments

This biography was reviewed by Donna Halper and Norman Macht and fact-checked by Chris Rainey.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the notes, the author also consulted www.ancestry.com, www.baseball-reference.com, www.retrosheet.org and the United Stats Census from 1900, 1910, 1920 and 1930.

Notes

1 Players by Birthplace, www.baseball-reference.com

2 Connie McGeehan of the 1903 Philadelphia Athletics spent some of his formative years in Drifton but was born in Jeddo, about a mile away, according to www.baseball-reference.com.

3 Both Shovlin’s World War II draft registration card and The Sporting News player contract card read 1892.

4 Mary Shovlin, Certificate of Death, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Health Vital Statistics.

5 “Deaths,” Freeland Tribune, November 7, 1892:4.

6 George McGee, “On the North Side,” The Plain Speaker, July 30, 1903:3.

7 “Drifton Shamrocks Great 50 Yrs. Ago,” Standard-Speaker, November 18, 1958:4.

8 “Fearnots Reunion Sunday,” The Plain Speaker, August 1, 1936:2.

9 Curtis Stewart, “Journey Into Yesteryear,” Standard-Speaker, March 8, 1965:15.

10 “YMCA Hall of Fame Will Honor John Shovlin Here,” Standard-Speaker, December 16, 1965:32.

11 “Pirates Get Star,” Evansville Press, June 20, 1911:6.

12 “Ball Market Booming,” The Dispatch (Moline, IL), August 22, 1911:8.

13 Charleston had swept a pair of seven-inning contests on the final day of the season, but Chillicothe successfully protested that the wins be disallowed since league rules mandated that doubleheaders consist of a nine-inning contest in the opener, followed by a seven-inning game with a nine-inning limit. “The Ohio State League Pennant is Awarded to Chillicothe Club”, Portsmouth Daily Times, October 22, 1913:10.

14 “The World of Sport,” The Charleston Daily Mail, August 7, 1914:6.

15 “Baseball Gossip,” The Public Ledger (Maysville, KY), July 27, 1914:1.

16 “Hitting .230,” Portsmouth Daily Times, July 15, 1915:10.

17 “Essick Lets Shovlin Out, Wright Back,” Grand Rapids Press, May 23, 1916:12.

18 “May Get Shovlin,” The Plain Speaker, July 22, 1918:6.

19 “Baseball Notes,” Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, July 20, 2018:15.

20 “’Brode’ Shovlin Playing in Ohio,” Standard-Speaker, September 19, 1918:9.

21 “May Get Shovlin”

22 “Game If Weather Will Permit,” Standard-Speaker, June 9, 1919:2

23 “Shovlin Will Join Browns in September,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, August 31, 1919:13.

24 “Line Drives,” Morning Star (Rockford, IL), September 14, 1919:11.

25 “Columbus Wins Two,” Grand Forks Herald, September 8, 1919:17.

26 “Brewers Win Easy Victory,” Star Tribune, September 9, 1919:7.

27 “Sisler Hammers Walter Johnson, But Browns Lose,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 17, 1919:29.

28 Ibid.

29 Harry F. Pierce, “Severeid Leads Burkemen on 18-Mile Cross-Country Hike,” The St. Louis Star and Times, March 1, 1920:16.

30 “Johnny Shovlin Has Big League Qualities,” The St. Louis Star and Times, March 26, 1920:28.

31 “Some Local Gossip,” The News-Herald, August 14, 1920:3.

32 “Big Leagues to Bar Contract Jumpers,” The Birmingham News, June 2, 1920:9.

33 “Five Offers Under Consideration,” Standard-Speaker, March 16, 1922:2.

34 “Baseball Notes,” The Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, August 10, 1922:16.

35 “Sport of Every Sort,” Standard-Speaker, January 25, 1923:10.

36 “Home on Shore Leave,” The Plain Speaker, July 14, 1945:7

37 “Shovlin Joins Agathon Squad,” Kenosha News, March 27, 1923:12.

38 “Miners Declare a Holiday Only to See Ruth Fan Twice,” The New York Times, October 23, 1923.

39 “Hazleton Beats Ruth’s All Stars Before Great Crowd at Cranberry,” The Plain Speaker, October 23, 1923:

40 “Phillies Defeated By Local Team at Buhler Stadium 4-2,” The Plain Speaker, October 4, 1926:4.

41 “Brode Shovlin Had a Great Season,” The Plain Speaker, September 15, 1927:2.

42 “Along Sport Lane,” Standard-Speaker, June 1, 1929:14.

43 “Shovelin Hits Tenth Straight”, The Wilkes-Barre Record, June 1, 1929:26.

44 “Laurels Go to Shovlin”, The Evening News (Wilkes-Barre, PA), November 9, 1929:11.

45 The Hazleton Standard-Speaker, September 27, 2019.

46 “800 Freeland Fans to Honor Shovlin in Sunday’s Game,” The Evening News (Wilkes-Barre), July 26, 1929:17.

47 “Shovlin is Released by Binghamton Club,” The Plain Speaker, August 17, 1931:11.

48 “Along Sport Lane,” Standard-Speaker, July 17, 1937:19.

49 Fred J. Becker. “One Big Frame Give Hi-Ways 9-6 Victory Over Agathon Old-Timers,” The Evening Independent, August 27, 1934:6.

50 “Shovelin and Cole Star as Mountaineers Divide Tilt with Williamsport,” The Plain Speaker, September 4, 1934:7.

51 “Jeddo Signs Shovelin as Playing Manager,” The Plain Speaker, July 8, 1936:12.

52 “Boyle’s Win Championship,” Standard-Speaker, September 10, 1937:2.

53 “Freeland Sports Chatter,” Standard-Speaker, August 4, 1938:15.

54 “Father Thomas O’Donnell Gave Splendid Address at Drifton,” Standard-Speaker, August 4, 1936:14.

55 “Erin Award to ‘Brode’ Shovlin,” The Plain Speaker, March 15, 1956:8

56 “YMCA Hall of Fame Will Honor John Shovlin Here,” Standard-Speaker, December 16, 1965:32.

57 “John “Brode’ Shovlin, Ex-Baseball Star, Dies,” Standard-Speaker, February 17, 1976:2.