The Original Cactus League

Warren Ballpark in Bisbee, Arizona, has hosted baseball games since it first opened in 1909. (Courtesy of Jacob Pomrenke)

 

Today, the term “Cactus League” refers to an annual rite of spring: affiliated professional baseball’s preseason in Arizona. But MLB’s Cactus League was not the first! In 1910, a league far removed from the slick modern affair of spring training coalesced in the gritty mining towns of southern Arizona, Texas, and Sonora, Mexico. Back in the Progressive Era, baseball was considered by industrialists to be one way to pacify the Wild West, which it partially did. At the same time, there was still plenty of wildness in the game. The original Cactus League was populated by baseball outlaws, has-beens, starry-eyed up-and-comers, and local heroes. This article is about them.

The short-lived league is largely forgotten but it made a significant impact on the region, offering a taste of professional baseball and providing a foothold for the establishment of more enduring leagues, eventually leading to the formation of farm teams representing the Chicago Cubs, New York Yankees, and Brooklyn Dodgers.1 Moreover, as fleeting as it was, the success of the Cactus League revealed how early twentieth-century entrepreneurs could finance clubs and present a quality of play that rivaled some contemporary teams affiliated with the National and American Leagues. This article is the first thorough exploration of the 1910 Cactus League’s creation, composition, and campaign.

Baseball enthusiasm was at a fever pitch throughout America in 1910. As reporter V. Woodbury wrote, “Baseball teams are springing up under the persuasion of this spring sunshine with the rapidity of toadstools after a summer shower.”2 Nowhere was this truer than in the mining towns of the Southwest. In Bisbee, Arizona, aggregations of men with anything in common would field a team. “Nines” were formed on the basis of occupation—machinists, muckers, bartenders, and bankers, to name a few; marital status—bachelors frequently matched up against benedicts (married men); and race—the few African American men in Bisbee formed a club that would play against their counterparts from nearby Douglas.

The best players on these amateur teams frequently banded together to form a town team that played against the best of other mining towns such as Douglas, Clifton, and Cananea, Mexico.

Fans in the Southwest had been hankering for a league for quite some time. In 1902, the Bisbee Daily Review reported on a suggestion from El Paso to form a “New Mexico, Arizona, West Texas League,” consisting of teams from Bisbee, Clifton, Globe, Morenci, Tombstone, and Tucson, Arizona; Albuquerque, Deming, Lordsburg, and Silver City, New Mexico; and El Paso, Texas.3 In hindsight, the idea seems far-fetched for several reasons. Travel between the more distant locales such as Albuquerque, El Paso, and Tucson would be challenging and the logistics of creating a schedule, in which 11 teams playing only on weekends could play each other an equal number of times, were prohibitive. Although the plan never gained traction, these early aspirations show that the desire for a league in the expanse between California and Texas was real.

The term “cactus league” had been used previously to describe games between teams in southern Arizona, New Mexico, West Texas, and Mexico.4 Occasionally, teams from Tucson, Phoenix, and Albuquerque were included, as well as smaller clubs such as Tombstone and Naco, Arizona. However, the core always consisted of the “Big Four”: Bisbee, Douglas, Cananea, and El Paso.5 Matchups between pairs of these teams were the most frequent, popular, and hotly contested.

The schedule was improvised. Managers would either issue an open challenge and await any takers or they would write each other and arrange a series. These were often followed by a reciprocal trip with the hosts of the first series traveling to the visitor’s park. Thus, it was a league in name only, as teams did not play an equal number of games or games against the same opponents with any regularity. In 1909, Douglas was declared the champion with a 34–20 record (.630 winning average). However, its schedule was inconsistent: Douglas played Cananea 21 times while matching up against Clifton, Pearce, and Tucson only once each.6 The club’s indisputable claim to the title was only secured in November, when it won El Paso’s annual baseball tournament, defeating Socorro’s ringer, future Hall of Famer Rube Waddell, in front of a crowd of 3,500 spectators.7

By that time, fans were clamoring for a higher level of play. With the promise of a crack team in Bisbee, Colonel Louis Powell, vice president of the Calumet & Arizona Mining Company, supervised the construction of Warren Ball Park, to compete in grandeur with recently built baseball parks in Douglas and Cananea.8 There was heavy support behind teams consisting of the top local players mixed with a few ringers—professional ballplayers eager to make some extra bucks, often more than their previous minor-league teams would pay. With Bisbee on board, plans for a league that included Douglas, Cananea, El Paso, and possibly others proceeded in earnest.9

Later in November 1909, Daniel O’Donovan, Eugene Neff, and Victor Walling, representing the Douglas, El Paso, and Cananea teams respectively, wrote to the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues, the umbrella organization for the affiliated minor leagues, about forming a league in the Southwest.10 The National Association approved the Cactus League’s affiliation at the Class D level during their 1909 Winter Meetings in Memphis.11 Oddly, this invitation to join affiliated baseball was not publicized in the newspapers of the Southwest. It was only in January 1910, when Frank Harbuck, scout for the Shreveport Pirates of the Texas League, and Leon Kahn, the Shreveport team’s owner, visited the region to pitch the idea that local fans found out about the possibility of having an official minor league in their midst. Harbuck and Kahn sought to secure commitments from management of the clubs in El Paso, Bisbee, Douglas, and Cananea.12 Clifton and Morenci, the other two towns with participating teams, lacked the clout to sway the decision either way. They would go along with any consensus reached by the others.

Beyond their record of playing regularly against each other, the rationale for these six towns uniting in a league was their proximity.13 The difficulty of transportation between venues was one factor that had precluded the formation of the New Mexico-Arizona-West Texas League nearly a decade earlier, but this was not a factor now. The towns represented in the Cactus League were well-connected to each other via rail. As Phelps Dodge (the dominant company in Bisbee, Douglas, Morenci, and Clifton) methodically consolidated various mining interests in southeastern Arizona, it also embarked on numerous railroad construction projects to connect its mines and their adjacent towns to the Southern Pacific Railroad, which was the primary artery by which their products were transported to the Eastern US.

Around 1900, Bisbee and Douglas were connected to the Southern Pacific at Benson. In 1901, Morenci and neighboring Clifton were linked to the railroad via the Arizona Copper Company’s lines at Guthrie. Finally, in the most ambitious undertaking of the lot, Bisbee and Douglas were connected to El Paso via 215 miles of rail line in 1903.14 Independently, in 1902, the Cananea Consolidated Copper Company completed construction of a rail line from Cananea to Naco, a border town about 10 miles south of Bisbee.15 Thus by 1910, the six teams of the Cactus League were connected by the very railroads and trains that were owned by the mining companies that ran their respective towns.

The company town model was a familiar one during this period: low wages but lots of services. Keep the working poor both working and poor. Mine employees had little autonomy, but numerous institutions were provided for them, such as banks, schools, churches, stores, and venues for entertainment. Baseball fit in nicely. As noted in Bisbee’s newspaper, “A good, clean game of the national sport revives the spectators and creates a better feeling of good will than any other agency within our reach.”16 Moreover, in addition to providing wholesome entertainment, baseball had economic benefits for the industrialists. The railroads operated for commercial purposes midweek while games were on weekends. Although the total income from passenger travel was a tenth of that generated by freight, shuttling teams and fans provided some additional revenue.17

 

 

In their effort to convince the teams to join affiliated ball, Harbuck and Kahn emphasized the benefits it would afford.18 For starters, decorum at the parks would improve. The minor leagues had recently adopted a rule doubling the number of umpires officiating every game from one to two, with the aim of fewer arguments and reduced fan rowdiness. Second, the recruitment of players would be regulated. Harbuck and Kahn provided assurances that surplus players from the Texas League would be distributed to Cactus League teams, ensuring professional-level play.19

With the reserve clause in place, the employment of players would be structured and more predictable. Competing teams could not poach players, and if a team from a higher classification drafted someone, that player’s contract had to be purchased outright or a fee of $300 would be paid. In addition, a payroll limit of $800 would level the competition between clubs representing towns of varying size and means. Finally, rules would be put in place concerning the disbursement of gate receipts, ameliorating some of the financial advantage larger market clubs would have over smaller ones.20

Initially, the proposal for the Cactus League was greeted with great enthusiasm by fans, shareholders, and team management at El Paso, Douglas, and Bisbee. Affiliation was a further sign of status, especially in Arizona, where industrialization and progressivism were relatively recent arrivals. Cananea, however, held out. Its team was arguably the best-run club in the group, and joining affiliated ball would require compromises it could not abide. The team was well-funded by the Cananea Consolidated Copper Company and did not wish to be limited by the National Association’s salary cap.21

Also, a number of “outlaw” players, banned by affiliated ball for various reasons, mainly contract jumping, played for Cananea and management did not wish to part with these local stars.22 The company would pull its support from the club if it was bound by outside rules. Besides, Cananea could always arrange lucrative matchups against the increasingly talented clubs in Sonora, such as Guaymas and Hermosillo.

The other clubs, swayed by Cananea’s resistance to the plan, ultimately rejected Harbuck and Kahn’s offer, and the Cactus League remained independent. For now, the question of affiliated ball or outlawry was answered, although it continued to be debated by the local baseball community throughout the spring, as many were open to trying again the following year.23 The problems of independent ball cited by Harbuck and Kahn—player poaching, uneven scheduling, etc.—were a real concern and, despite attempts to overcome them, they continued to plague the Cactus League during the 1910 season.24

Affiliated baseball could afford to wait. Arizona continued to be a lacuna in its colonization of the West, but the gap was steadily closing. During the 1909 NAPBL Winter Meetings in Memphis, three Southwestern leagues had been admitted at the Class D level: the Southwest Texas League, the Southern California Trolley League, and the California State League, bringing the total number of minor leagues to 50. The latter had numerous outlaw players who had defied the reserve clause, and they were granted reinstatement by the National Association.25

Harbuck himself had personal ambitions to take over the El Paso team and thus was motivated to promote a deal between the Cactus League and the National Association.26 To that end, he assured the reinstatement of the 25 or so outlaw players if an affiliated league came to fruition.27 Indeed, there seemed to be no repercussions against Cactus League teams that poached players from the minors or against the contract jumping players who came to the Cactus League from affiliated ball during that 1910 season. Occasional breaches of the rules were customarily overlooked by team owners if their consequences were not too severe. It was not until a few years later, when the upstart Federal League posed a more serious threat to the National and American Leagues’ control over their labor force that a clampdown on the practice took hold.28

Despite remaining independent, or outlaw, the Cactus League emulated affiliated leagues, even adopting some of their recently implemented rules.29 These included two umpires officiating every game, however in practice this was quickly scrapped, probably due to cost and the dearth of suitable candidates for the job.30 To enhance the fields’ appearance, groundskeepers added a chalk line parallel to the foul line near first base to demarcate the three-foot wide running lane that runners were to stay within, another feature adopted by affiliated ball during the winter meetings.31 This too was a frequently ignored rule (as it is today) but adopting it gave the nascent Cactus League an air of professionalism.

Alas, the chalk lines alone could not redeem the crude appearance of the fields, as none of them had grass. The most makeshift of the lot were in Clifton and Morenci, where the fields were constructed directly atop tailings, a waste product left over from mining operations. On the other hand, the availability of heavy mining machinery meant that all the field surfaces were pretty level. Indeed, there were no reported complaints about the condition of the fields during the season. By mid-April 1910, the schedule was set, baseball-shaped scorecards were prepared, and the entire region was eager for the season to begin. All that remained was for the teams to finalize their rosters.32

With its visions of grandeur, one feature that set this incarnation of the Cactus League apart from its informal predecessors was its team composition. The majority of players (64% of those I could identify) on the teams had professional experience in either one of the 50 recognized minor leagues, the independent (or outlaw) leagues, or in the National or American League.33 (See Figure 2.) For months leading up to the season, the teams of the Cactus League had been recruiting ringers who played a better game than what local fans were accustomed to seeing. While some semipro or even professional players had passed through in the past, never were teams so saturated with high-level talent. New arrivals were frequently given jobs with the mining companies, but these were mere sinecures—as they were expected to practice midweek in anticipation of their weekend games. Making way for the new signings, very few players (18%) who appeared on 1909 rosters returned in 1910.34

 

Figure 2. Map of Teams where 1910 Cactus Leaguers Had Most Recently Played

 

THE TEAMS

El Paso. Over 200 miles away from its nearest Cactus League neighbor, El Paso seems an odd choice to include among the six towns that constituted the league. However, it was by far the largest both in terms of population and ticket sales. The city’s 1910 population (39,279) was almost that of all the other Cactus League towns combined. Games were played at Washington Park and the gate receipts collected there would be the most substantial in the league. Harbuck took over as manager and began assembling the 1910 Mavericks, known affectionately in the local paper as Harbuck’s Husky Heroes.35 El Paso even hosted the Chicago White Sox in a preseason series.36

Douglas. This recently established border town had grown from 500 residents in 1901 to over 6,000 by 1910.39 A makeshift local team formed almost immediately, and not long after, semipro players were being recruited to play there. In 1907, Sportsman’s Park was constructed with a grandstand and box seats.40 The park was renovated at the start of the 1910 season.41 Funded by the Douglas Street Railway Company, it stood at the trolley’s east terminal, connected via four miles of track to Douglas’s smelter—the primary source of the town’s wealth and its raison d’être.42 The manager of the railway, Daniel A. O’Donovan, also managed the team until he resigned both posts late in the season to run for public office.43 Affectionately known as O’Donovan’s Demons, the Douglas team was replete with professionally experienced players.

Among the new arrivals in 1910, the majority came from either the Texas League or the Pacific Coast League. Most renowned was Henry Mathewson, younger brother and former New York Giants teammate of Christy. He pitched a bit, as he had in New York, but spent most of the season as an outfielder. Besides Mathewson, pitcher Eli Cates was the only one with previous experience at baseball’s top level, having appeared in 19 games for the Washington Nationals in 1908, producing a 2.55 ERA—respectable but above league average in those Deadball days.44 Overall, 10 men on the Douglas squad identified themselves as professional baseball players on the 1910 census.

Bisbee. Known as the Queen of the Copper Camps, Bisbee saw a great influx of wealth in the first decade of the twentieth century due to the industrialization of its copper-mining activities. Unlike its topsy-turvy town center, the suburb of Warren was a model of symmetry and organization—reflective of the City Beautiful movement. Warren Ball Park was its crown jewel. The baseball team, however, never quite matched up in talent with those of El Paso, Douglas, and Cananea. In future decades, with its minor league affiliates and visits by barnstorming superstars, the quality of baseball at Bisbee would eclipse its neighbors, but in 1910, the Miners (later known as the Maroons) were an also-ran.

The team was managed by center fielder George Dalrymple, who had 14 years of minor league experience, most recently with the Muskogee Navigators of the Western Association in 1909. Only two players returned to the Bisbee squad from the 1909 season. A few other Cactus League veterans joined the club in 1910. Most of the team, however, consisted of new recruits who came from affiliated clubs throughout the West, especially the Pacific Coast League, the Western Association, and the Texas League. Dalrymple was not averse to using his connections any chance he got, saying, “Bisbee shall have a strong winning team no matter how many changes have to be made in the ranks to secure it.”45

Bisbee’s top player was Bill “Speed” Kelly, who batted .330 for the Class B South Bend Greens before batting .143 in 17 games for the Washington Nationals in 1909. Pitchers O.D. Baldwin and R.B. Gill and shortstop D.E. Rienhardt had tryouts with the St. Louis Cardinals, Philadelphia Phillies, and St. Louis Browns respectively, but none made the cut. Another notable player was Clem “Badger” Deakins, formerly of the Alameda Grays of the independent California State League, who was known as a speedster. His friend John Tortes Meyers tried to recruit him to play for the New York Giants, but Deakins never made it—perhaps because his poor hitting negated the benefits of his speed. Before coming to Bisbee, he went 0-for-13 in six games for the Class A Los Angeles Angels. He turned things around though, leading the Cactus League in batting average. Another long-time Bisbee player was Granville Corr, an adventurous man who fought for the US Army in the battle of San Juan Hill and who rode horses for Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.46

Cananea. The border between Arizona and Mexico had always been relatively porous. Economic and cultural interactions were frequent, and this included baseball. Situated in the northern frontier of Sonora, Cananea became an American enclave in 1889, when William Cornell Greene purchased its copper mine from General Ignacio Pesqueira. Under the banner of the Cananea Consolidated Copper Company (the 4C), Greene expanded the mine and built the railroad connecting it to the border town of Naco. Even after he sold his mining interests in 1906, Greene maintained control of most of the town’s economy, including its bank, a half million acres of surrounding cattle ranches, its lumber supplies, and its company store.47 Cananea’s population grew from 891 in 1891 to 14,800 in 1910, making it the largest city in Sonora.48 With thousands of Americans living and working in the town, baseball was as popular there as anywhere else in the Southwest. Soon after construction of the railroad between Cananea and Naco, baseball games between Cananea’s team and those of its mining town counterparts in the US became commonplace. In 1907, a new ballpark was constructed in town at a cost of nearly $2,000.49

With its wealthy industrial backing, Cananea became notorious for bringing in ringers and hiring them under the pretense of working for the 4C. The most egregious case occurred during a game against Nogales on August 26, 1905, in which all but one member of the Cananea squad were new. The crowd did not know whom to support, since they had never seen any of the players on either side before.50

Cananea’s most (in)famous star was Chick Arnold, aka Chick Gandil, who played there as a teenager before moving on to Shreveport of the Texas League in 1908. Gandil told Sports Illustrated in 1956 that he also boxed and worked as a boilermaker in the copper mines.51

The locals had hoped he would return to Arizona, but things went well for him in Shreveport and in 1909 his contract was sold to the Chicago White Sox. After stints in Washington and Cleveland, Gandil returned to Chicago in 1917 and two years later became the ringleader of the players implicated in the Black Sox scandal. He did not attempt to play in the majors after that, and returned to the Southwest in 1925, when fellow outlaw Hal Chase recruited him to play for Douglas in the Copper League.52

Cananea was managed on the field by former second baseman Hugh Dugan and in the front office by Vic Walling, who also served as league director. Although none of its players had prior major-league experience, the 1910 Cananea team was widely considered the most formidable in the Cactus League.53 Six men on the team identified themselves as professional ballplayers in the 1910 census. Five of the six lived in the same boarding house in Douglas (another indicator of the fluidity of cross-border travel at the time). Ten of the players had played for Cananea before, in 1908 and/or 1909. Prior to arriving in Cananea, eight men had played in the minor leagues, mostly in Texas and California. Cananea also had the most stable roster of all the Cactus League teams, with only a handful of players leaving or arriving during the 1910 season.

Two players, Blaine Thomas and Bert Whaling, did eventually make it to the majors in later years, playing for the Boston Red Sox and Braves respectively. When Thomas played for the Red Sox, it was said that only Walter Johnson threw faster. Unfortunately, Thomas’s control did not receive similar accolades.54 Although not their most heralded ballplayer, Spider Adams was surely Cananea’s most fortunate. He had been playing for the Pasadena Silk Sox of the Class D Southern California Trolley League while working his main job as a Linotype operator for the Los Angeles Times when his friend William Goodman, a fellow ballplayer, convinced him to move to Cananea. On October 1, 1910, a few hours before Adams was to play second base for Cananea against El Paso, a bomb exploded at the L.A. Times building, killing 21 people and injuring 100 more.55 Had Spider been at his old job, he might have been among the casualties.

Other players of note include Max Reardon, who had pitched a no-hitter against El Paso the previous season, and Frank Hodges, who was timed circling the bases in 14 seconds (the major-league record is 13.8, set by Hans Lobert in 1910).56 Hodges, a team veteran, had lived in Cananea since 1902 and vowed never to play affiliated ball.57 He acquiesced in 1909 and had a brief stint with Class B Peoria. The experiment ended abruptly due to his “hostility to discipline” and he returned to play for Cananea the following year.58

Clifton. Although less populous than the others, with only 4,874 residents in 1910, Clifton had a strong fan base in the early twentieth century. No doubt its most heralded star was John Tortes Meyers, a member of the Cahuilla Nation in California, who swung both a mining pick and a baseball bat for Clifton in 1905. Later, Meyers would join the New York Giants and become Christy Mathewson’s battery mate while playing in three consecutive World Series starting in 1911. Meyers added a fourth appearance in the Fall Classic with the Brooklyn Robins in 1916. The local papers never missed an opportunity to mention that his illustrious career began in the copper-rich hills of southeastern Arizona.

By 1910, however, the Clifton team had lost some of its luster. In contrast to Cananea’s stability, Clifton had a lot of turnover. Five players returned from the 1909 squad and six others had played previously for different Cactus League teams. Six more players appear in the box scores only one time. A few of the new recruits played in the minor leagues, coming from the Texas League, Southern California Trolley League, Western League, and Kansas State League. In July 1910, after “Dauber” Mason went on a recruiting trip to Penn State University, there was a massive restructuring of the team. Frank Blythe, Bruno Klepfer, “Bull” McLeary, and Harry Leidich, all Penn State players, joined the Clifton squad. With the arrival of the college men, the rest of the team was dismissed except for four players. H.C. “Tefty” or “Irish” McIlveen, a PSU alum, had played for the Pittsburgh Pirates and New York Highlanders before joining Clifton. Tex Merritt also joined the team during the summer, but he lasted a scant month before moving back to El Paso.

Of the new arrivals, pitcher Klepfer was by far the most talented. He tallied 21 strikeouts in back-to-back games on Fourth of July weekend, and on July 28, he shut out Cananea, 3–0, with 10 strikeouts and no walks. He would go on to pitch for the Highlanders, the White Sox, and the Cleveland Indians, for whom he led the American League with a .778 winning average in 1917.

Clifton spent most of the season in the cellar. A joke published in the El Paso Herald sums up the team’s plight. It was about a Clifton fan dying and going to hell, only to be invited to a ballgame by the Devil himself. When the fan wonders how it can be hell if there’s baseball, the Devil implies the home team is Clifton.59

Morenci. Clifton’s neighbor, with a population of 5,010, also fielded a small-market team. Almost all of Morenci’s players were either locals or had previous Cactus League experience. A few did play outside of Arizona, but only briefly. Pitcher Wallace Ashley had a spell with San Francisco in the Pacific Coast League in 1907 in the middle of his five-year tenure with Morenci. Speed Kelly played for the Washington Nationals in 1909, joined the Bisbee team in 1910, and then moved over to Morenci. Robert Mainse, who identified himself as a professional baseball player in the 1910 census, started the season with Morenci, left to try out for the Braves, and then returned to play for Douglas.

THE SEASON

As the 1910 season got underway, local enthusiasm was high. The first game was a slugfest between Douglas and Bisbee on April 20. Mathewson started for Douglas and was possibly relieved (the newspapers tell conflicting stories) by Waddell, though this is unlikely because he had left the league to pitch for the St. Louis Browns April 15 through June 13, and then in one game in August, the last of his 13-year Hall of Fame career.60 For reasons not disclosed, the Douglas-Bisbee game was relegated to exhibition status after the fact, and a new Opening Day was scheduled for 10 days later.

On April 30, the new official Opening Day of the Cactus League, teams paired up with their rivals: Clifton played Morenci, Cananea matched up against El Paso, and Douglas visited Bisbee. Attendance was robust, with Bisbee and Douglas selling close to 2,000 tickets during that first weekend. Special trains with discounted fares ran between towns so that home and visiting fans alike could take in the festivities. Host towns threw galas to ring in the season and parades with marching bands moved through the streets.61 Local celebrities such as the sheriff of Tombstone attended Opening Day. A bank president threw the ceremonial first pitch.62 The M&O Tailoring Cleaning and Dye Works offered a $10 pair of pants to the first Bisbee player to hit a home run.63 Bisbee’s local paper published an article on the importance of supporting your team, and subsequently, rooters clubs were formed.64 In El Paso, Ladies Day was celebrated on alternate Fridays, with free admission for women to the ballpark.65

The teams were “off in a bunch” to start the season, with Morenci, El Paso, and Bisbee winning on Saturday and Clifton, Cananea, and Douglas leveling the standings on Sunday.66 News of the quality of play spread quickly and, within a week, major-league scouts started inquiring about the availability of certain players.67 Bisbee was so “baseball batty” that the team’s management expanded the park’s seating capacity and the local railway company ordered two additional cars to help shuttle fans to games.68

However, fan enthusiasm was tested early on as not everything went as smoothly as planned. Rooters became overly rowdy and in late May, designated rooter sections were set up and fenced in to minimize in-game disruptions.69 A fire consumed the grandstand at Douglas on May 23. While that did not hinder play and some lucky fans got in free for a while by sneaking through the gap in the wall left by the fire, it did mean a loss of gate receipts, and repairs would take time. Meanwhile, in El Paso, the Bisbee team’s luggage had been suspiciously misplaced at the train station and their dugout lacked a sunshade. To add injury to insult, Bisbee lost two key players, Harry Graham and Frenchy Lamar. The former was hit in the ear by a pitch and briefly knocked unconscious while the latter was run over by a motorcycle. Despite the mishaps, Bisbee’s hosts showed the players a good time off the field and the road trip was considered a success.70 The following weekend, El Paso fans took advantage of the special train fare and were able to go west in a private Pullman. Bearing no grudge, Bisbee hosted a ball at the Opera House in honor of El Paso’s team and fans, with more than 500 people attending.71

Huge crowds showed up for games on Independence Day. Bisbee was draped in bunting and the schedule was full of activity—speeches, battles of the bands, mining contests, and athletic events—all culminating with a doubleheader against rival Douglas on the Fourth. Douglas swept the series, as did El Paso against Cananea. Clifton lost two of its three games against Morenci despite 33 strikeouts by Penn State star Klepfer in his back-to-back starts.

Alas, the revelry did not last. Mid-July also witnessed the first rift that threatened to break apart the 1910 Cactus League.72 El Paso, wishing to host more games, attempted to restructure the schedule midseason and convinced Douglas to go along with the plan. In response, Bisbee threatened to boycott El Paso entirely. Then, banding together with Cananea, Clifton and Morenci, the clubs threatened to kick both El Paso and Douglas out of the league if they did not agree to adhere to the original schedule. After El Paso’s bluff was called, a compromise was reached in which each team was assured two homestands a month and all previous and future Friday games would count as exhibitions only. The revised standings had Douglas in first place, followed by Bisbee, Morenci, Cananea, El Paso, and Clifton.73 El Paso’s fans did not take kindly to the new results and blamed the manager, Harbuck, who was summarily canned.

By mid-August, additional signs of the ill health of the league emerged. Players on both the Douglas and Bisbee teams suddenly quit, citing dissatisfaction with their clubs. A week later, Bisbee club president Sam Frankenberg and manager Dalrymple both resigned their positions. Also, in-game tantrums by players and managers about calls made by umpires became regular affairs, prompting Bisbee’s local paper to call for decorum, fearing that attendance would drop.74 The month closed with Douglas on top with a 1½-game lead over El Paso, which had an equal lead over Cananea. Morenci, Bisbee, and Clifton rounded out the standings.

With Klepfer returning to college on August 24 and catcher Merritt off to play in Indianapolis soon after, Clifton’s prospects of climbing out of last place suffered a serious blow. They would play Morenci three more times over Labor Day weekend. The final game was sullied by foul language on both sides and an investigation was demanded by numerous offended fans.75 By September 10, both clubs were out of money and withdrew from the league.76 Meanwhile, Cananea played three games against Bisbee. The middle game was marred by a bench-clearing brawl after Bisbee’s Ducky Gowan struck Cananea catcher Bert Whaling following a disputed play at the plate. Why he took his frustration out on the catcher and not on the umpire who made the call remains a mystery. Cananea had a chance to win with a runner on third in the 11th, but Whaling fell victim to a hidden ball trick executed by Harry Buckles.77

Mid-September was ostensibly a restart for the Cactus League. After Clifton and Morenci folded, only three games separated first-place Douglas from last-place Bisbee, with about a dozen or so games left. When the Texas League’s season ended on September 5, there was an influx of players from there and other leagues whose seasons were also wrapping up. This occurred despite an agreement earlier in the year that no major roster changes would happen after September 1.78

On September 17, in a bizarre finish that foreshadowed the demise of the league as a whole, Bisbee allowed El Paso to score three runs in the ninth inning en route to a 5–3 victory. Bisbee captain Graham inexplicably ordered hit-and-run plays on the first pitch every time a man reached first base. When pitches came in way outside, batters held their swings and Bisbee was left with a spate of runners caught stealing.79 Perhaps the sloppy play was a sign of the mood of the players and managers. The same weekend, Cananea lost to Douglas when four men were ejected, leaving Cananea with not enough players to field a team. A week later, the Bisbee team disbanded for financial reasons, leaving only three teams remaining.80 That ostensibly spelled the end of the season and Cananea, with the best record (30–23), was declared the pennant winner.81 After a mild protest by El Paso concerning the discounting of unplayed games, a meeting was convened with representatives of both teams, and Cananea’s claim was confirmed.82

 

Figure 3. Cactus League Week-by-Week Standings

 

RETROSPECT/LEGACY

The 1910 Cactus League season was beset by many of the pitfalls Harbuck had predicted would plague the league if it chose independence. The first concerned player and crowd decorum and the autonomy of umpires. As with most of the players, the umpires employed in previous seasons were replaced by those with professional experience elsewhere. A few with minor-league experience were recruited from California and Texas. These outsiders did not fare well, having trouble keeping order from the start. The brief tenure of Jack Goyheneix serves to illustrate the situation. Goyheneix was a professional umpire, having worked in Oakland in 1908 and Los Angeles in 1909. Highly regarded at first, labeled a “star umpire” and “cracker-jack,” things quickly went south once he was thrust into heated competition.83 On May 1, in the eighth inning of the second game of the season, in front of a record crowd, the Douglas team, leading 13–3, stormed the field after Goyheneix called a ball hit down the third-base line foul. Luckily, the local sheriff was on hand and he abruptly put an end to the threats on the umpire’s person.84

The last straw occurred in Douglas on May 29, when infielder Bill Harper threw his bat at Goyheneix and punched him in response to a called third strike. Frank Clark, a local constable, was in the stands and arrested Harper on the spot.87 While Harper’s manager and teammates were vocal about him being in the wrong, it was the umpire who ended up facing punishment for the incident. Bisbee and Douglas lodged complaints against Goyheneix with league director Vic Walling, and within a week, the long-suffering Goyheneix was fired.88 The reason Walling and others gave had nothing to do with Goyheneix’s skill at calling a game accurately, but rather it was his inability to maintain order on the field and to control the crowd.

Other umpires recruited from the outside suffered similar fates. J.J. Toman, a veteran California State League umpire, lasted a month. He too was dismissed for an inability to maintain order. One Sunday, Douglas manager O’Donovan accused Toman of being drunk the night before and too hungover that afternoon to perform his duty when a disgruntled crowd rushed the field.89 Eventually, Toman was dismissed and he moved on to the Pacific Coast League.90

The umpires should not have elicited the denigration that many of them faced. Whether their disputed calls were correct or not is impossible to say, but the violent reactions of the players and the rioting in the stands were visible to all, and that put a pall on the entertainment. Fans frequently bemoaned the recalcitrance of players toward umpires, but even if the umps were not to blame for the breaches of decorum, the responsibility of maintaining order on the diamond fell squarely on their shoulders and if they could not accomplish that, they were sent packing. Their job security was at the whim of local team managers, and they were actively discouraged by league authorities from using the two weapons they had at their disposal: ejections and fines. Thus, as N.M. Walker noted in the El Paso Herald, for a Cactus League umpire, “There was no tangible way of enforcing his authority.”91 The only arbitrator to last the whole season was George Quilling, a bookkeeper, who worked Clifton and Morenci games and was occasionally assisted in the field by Wallace Ashley, a Morenci pitcher, on his days off. As the tenure of these two men demonstrates, the umpires who fared the best were well-respected local citizens, not out-of-state professionals.

Another feature of affiliated baseball lacking in the Cactus League that Harbuck had warned about early on was roster stability. Without the benefit of the reserve clause and a lack of protection from poaching by other teams and leagues, the makeup of the teams (other than Cananea) was more fluid than the norm in those days. Team personnel wavered substantially throughout the 1910 season. Of the 62 players I identified on the Opening Day rosters of the Cactus League teams, fewer than half (27) remained with their teams through the course of the season. Bisbee was the most fluid, with only two players, Pinky Grindle and Speed Kelly, seeing out the whole season. Douglas and Cananea were the most stable, with seven and six season-long stalwarts respectively.

There was only one reported trade—that of Badger Deakins going from Bisbee to El Paso for Ducky Gowan in late July. At least 16 players played for multiple Cactus League clubs in 1910. A few of those had been released by their original teams while others, such as Ben Feherman, Tex Merritt, and R.B. Gill, returned after brief attempts to make it on to minor-league (and in the case of Gill, major-league) rosters. On occasion, players released from teams in the affiliated minors showed up to play, and there was a large influx of new players in the fall as other leagues’ seasons ended while the Cactus League remained in action.

Unlike the umpire problem discussed above, the fluidity of team rosters did not bother the fans. Local favorites such as Harry Kane in Douglas or Dauber Mason in Clifton were counted upon to stay put (and did) while the arrival of fresh talent from places such as the Pacific Coast and Texas Leagues was always met with excitement. Surely these dynamic new players would help the local nine move up in the standings. The players did not seem to mind the fluidity either. When Walter Hanson cheerfully left in early May to play for Peoria, a group of fans and players saw him off at the train station, wishing him luck.92

Harbuck may have been right in his admonitions, but these were not the reasons for the demise of the league. The league ultimately folded because it was unprofitable. Clifton, Morenci, and Bisbee all ran out of funds midseason. Douglas and El Paso finished the campaign but they were over $2,000 and $3,000 in the red respectively.93 In the aftermath of the Cactus League, team rosters reverted to local amateur players, with only a smattering of journeyman talent. Most of the players who arrived in 1910 found places on affiliated clubs elsewhere, and at least eight would subsequently play in the majors.

Despite the undignified end to the season, the legacy of the Cactus League was positive—“a success in every way except financially.”94 The local communities simply could not afford to field teams of salaried players. For the next few years, offseason meetings were held by stakeholders attempting to revive the league, but the pecuniary sting of 1910 was still felt, and potential financiers balked. The fans, on the other hand, viewed the league with nostalgia, longing for quality baseball “as has not been the case since the glorious days of Cactus League,”95 the play of which “were equal to many games in Class ‘A’ leagues throughout the country.”96 Individually, the careers of Cactus League players who went on to play in affiliated baseball were followed with great interest.97 Another attempt to create a minor league occurred in 1915 with the Rio Grande Association, but it too failed during its inaugural season, and it was not until 1928, with the formation of the Class D Arizona State League, that affiliated baseball took hold in Arizona.98

In 1924, the original Cactus League reached mythical status when rodeo champion and Hollywood star Hoot Gibson played “Swat” Anderson, “the Babe Ruth of the Cactus League,” in the film Hit and Run. After that, there were few mentions of the phrase Cactus League until 1952, when a new era began with the meeting of the Giants and Indians at Hi Corbett Field in Tucson, and the Cactus League of major-league spring training was born.99 By then, the original version, “down Arizona way, where players race the sand lizards around the bases,” was a distant memory.100 

ROBERT SCHON, PhD, is an associate professor of anthropology and classics at the University of Arizona. He is the director of the Excavations at Warren Ballpark, the first-ever archaeological dig of a baseball field. He is an avid New York Mets fan.

 

Acknowledgments

My interest in mining-town baseball began during a visit to Bisbee’s Warren Ballpark, as it is known today. In Bisbee, I was fortunate enough to meet Judy and Mike Anderson, founders of the Friends of Warren Ballpark, who graciously facilitated my access to essential resources and shared their deep knowledge of local baseball history, making this project possible. Rebecca Orozco, instructor emerita in history and anthropology at Cochise College, has also been an invaluable collaborator. My University of Arizona undergraduate research assistants Aimee Weber and Stephen Uzzle completed the yeoman’s work of compiling the newspaper pages that formed the basis of this article. My research was funded by the University of Arizona’s College of Humanities and School of Anthropology as well as the Southwestern Foundation for Education and Historical Preservation. I thank those institutions for their financial support. Finally, I am indebted to the two anonymous reviewers and the Baseball Research Journal editorial team, whose feedback greatly improved the manuscript.

 

Notes

1. Mike Anderson, “The History of Baseball in Cochise County,” Cochise County Historical Journal 44, no. 2 (2014), 1–68.

2. “Many Ball Teams Being Formed,” El Paso Herald, March 29, 1910, 10.

3. “League Suggestion,” Bisbee Daily Review, May 1, 1902, 4.

4. Between 1902, when it first appears in the press, and 1952, when it first describes spring training in Arizona, the phrase Cactus League appears on some 615 newspaper pages. On at least three occasions the term was used as a synonym for “bush league,” as when describing the poor play of the St. Louis Cardinals (Sun, May 2, 1907, 7). It was also the setting for Connie Mack’s mythical yarn about Biff McDuckin (Evening Star, February 28, 1909, 4), and was mentioned in a Hollywood film, Hit and Run (Seattle Star, September 13, 1924, 9.) It is used generically 97 times to refer to baseball in the Southwest, while the vast majority, 418 mentions, are specific to the 1910 Cactus League chronicled in this article. An additional 92 mentions refer to an El Paso bowling league.

5. L.R. Crawford, “Cactus League Dope,” El Paso Herald, September 7, 1910, 11.

6. “Douglas Demons are Champions,” Bisbee Daily Review, September 21, 1909, 5.

7. “Douglas Demons Cop first Money Easily,” Bisbee Daily Review, November 7, 1909, 1; “To Play Big League Ball,” El Paso Morning Times, October 31, 1909, 2, https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/history/blogs/tales-from-the-morgue/2012/05/23/1909-mathewson-cobb-scott-and-waddell-to-play-big-league-ball-in-el-paso/31522773/.

8. “New Park Opens at Warren,” Bisbee Daily Review, June 27, 1909, 8.

9. “Organized Baseball is Favored by Bisbee Fans,” Bisbee Daily Review, February 15, 1910, 5.

10. “League of Six Clubs to be Formed Soon,” Bisbee Daily Review, November 18, 1909, 8.

11. “Arbitration Board Adjourns,” Sentinel Record, November 13, 1909, 7.

12. “Cactus League is not Likely,” Bisbee Daily Review, January 27, 1910, 2.

13. “Cactus League with Six Teams is Urged,” Bisbee Daily Review, February 11, 1910, 5.

14. Robert Glass Cleland, A History of Phelps Dodge, 1834–1950 (New York: Knopf, 1952), 141–48.

15. David F. Myrick, Railroads of Arizona Vol. 1: The Southern Roads (Berkeley: Howell–North Books, 1975), 199.

16. “Cananea Gathering Strong Ball Team,” Bisbee Daily Review, April 1, 1908, 5.

17. “Cheap Rates to Boom Baseball,” Bisbee Daily Review, February 1, 1910, 3.

18. “Cactus League with Six Teams is Urged.”

19. “Cactus League is not Likely.”

20. “Baseball Meeting Today Decides Important Issues,” Bisbee Daily Review, February 13, 1910, 11.

21. “O’Donovan Says Make League Independent,” Bisbee Daily Review, November 21, 1909, 3.

22. “Cananea Positively not to Consider the Cactus League,” Bisbee Daily Review, February 18, 1910, 5.

23. “The Outlaw Question,” Bisbee Daily Review, May 3, 1910, 8.

24. “Baseball Meeting Today Decides Important Issues,” Bisbee Daily Review, February 13, 1910, 11.

25. Marshall Adesman, “1909 Winter Meetings: If it Takes All Winter,” in Baseball’s Business: The Winter Meetings. Vol 1: 1901–1957, ed. Steve Weingarden and Bill Nowlin (Phoenix: Society for American Baseball Research, 2016), 58–59.

26. “Cactus League in Baseball World is Assured,” El Paso Herald, January 24, 1910, 3.

27. “The Outlaw Question,” Bisbee Daily Review, May 3, 1910, 8.

28. Daniel R. Levitt, The Battle that Forged Modern Baseball: The Federal League Challenge and Its Legacy (Lanham, MD: Ivan R. Dee, 2012).

29. “Liveliness Anticipated in Baseball Affairs this Week,” Bisbee Daily Review, March 20, 1910, 16.

30. Lee Hamilton, “Doings in Sport’s Domain,” Bisbee Daily Review, March 29, 1910, 8.

31. Hamilton.

32. “Free Score Card to be Issued During Entire Ball Season,” Bisbee Daily Review, April 7, 1910, 8.

33. 72 of the 112 Cactus League players I could identify.

34. To reconstruct the rosters, I began with a compilation of all the box scores listed in the local newspapers. In some cases, the players’ full names appear in the 1910 US census, and in at least 21 cases, they self-identify as professional ballplayers. The El Paso Herald printed profiles (with photos) of a number of local players and those are highly informative. Notwithstanding the beneficial cross-references, there are numerous hinderances to secure identification as well (see William F. McNeil, The California Winter League: America’s First Integrated Baseball League, 22–23, for a similar account related to the California Winter League). Nevertheless, what follows is an as-accurate-as-possible narrative of the 1910 Cactus League’s makeup.

35. “Harbuck Selected as Playing Manager for El Paso’s Team,” El Paso Herald, March 4, 1910, 12.

36. “El Paso Ties the White Sox at the Park,” El Paso Herald, April 1, 1910, 3.

37. Lee Hamilton, “Cactus Dope,” El Paso Herald, June 24, 1910, 4.

38. In most cases, players were referred to in box scores by last name only and their names did not appear anywhere else. This was not a big deal for a player with a last name like Chayka—easy enough to identify in other sources as George Chayka—but it made a player named Anderson more difficult to identify. Luckily, when a player arrived in town, their first name and the team they came from were frequently listed. Likewise, when they departed, the paper printed the team they were headed to. In these cases, when the previous or subsequent team was affiliated with the National and American Leagues, the player and his professional record can be found at Baseball Reference. Nicknames are also helpful. Ed Klepfer was only listed as “Bruno” in the paper, but his first name and nickname appear together in Penn State University’s yearbook, helping to secure his identification.

39. Robert S. Jeffrey, “The History of Douglas, Arizona” (master’s thesis, University of Arizona, 1951), 15–17.

40. “Douglas will Have Winning Ball Team,” Bisbee Daily Review, June 1, 1907, 5.

41. “Sporting News,” Bisbee Daily Review, June 25, 1910, 8.

42. Richard, V. Francaviglia. Streetcars to the Smelters: An Historical Overview of the Douglas Street Railways, 1902–1924 (Bisbee AZ: Copper Queen Publishing, 1986), 16–17.

43. “Mr. Donovan Resigns Both Managerships,” Bisbee Daily Review, September 28, 1910, 5.

44. In 1902, while with the Jefferson City Convicts of the Missouri Valley League, Cates pitched a complete game no-hitter against the Nevada Lunatics. Unfortunately, Lunatics pitcher Jim Courtwright did the same and Cates ended up losing the game, 1–0. There have only been 10 double no-hitters in minor-league history and none in the majors. Tim Hagerty, “Double no-hitters: Games with no hits for either team,” The Sporting News, December 17, 2016.

45. “Sporting News,” Bisbee Daily Review, July 13, 1910, 8.

46. “At Home in the Army, Circus or Base Ball,” Bisbee Daily Review, May 31, 1908, 5.

47. Miguel Tinker Salas, In the Shadow of the Eagles: Sonora and the Transformation of the Border During the Porfiriato (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 166–67.

48. Josiah McConnel Heyman, Life and Labor on the Border: Working People of Northeastern Sonora, Mexico, 1886–1986 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1991), 29.

49. “Cananea to the Front in Base Ball,” Bisbee Daily Review, February 26, 1908, 5.

50. “The Game at Cananea,” Oasis, September 2, 1905, 9.

51. Arnold (Chick) Gandil as told to Melvin Durslag, “This is My Story of the Black Sox Series,” Sports Illustrated, September 17, 1956, 64.

52. Anderson, “The History of Baseball in Cochise County,” 29–30.

53. “Base Ball Bug Hits Cananea Hard,” Bisbee Daily Review, January 19, 1910, 3.

54. “Prospects for Ball Tournament Grow Brighter,” Bisbee Daily Review, August 28, 1912, 5.

55. Lew Irwin, Deadly Times: The 1910 Bombing of the Los Angeles Times and America’s Forgotten Decade of Terror (Guilford CT: Globe Pequot Press), 2015.

56. “Food for the Fans Down in Cananea,” Bisbee Daily Review, April 15, 1908, 8.

57. “Hodges Will Stay,” Bisbee Daily Review, February 2, 1909, 2.

58. “Reminiscences of Cananea Baseball,” Bisbee Daily Review, August 24, 1909, 5.

59. “A Joke They Appreciate Out About Clifton These Days,” El Paso Herald, June 30, 1910, 5.

60. “Cactus League is Duly Inaugurated,” Daily Arizona Silver Belt, April 21, 1910, 5. This article also appears in the Arizona Republican on the same date. However, a lengthier article in the Bisbee Daily Review on April 21, headlined “Alleged Game in Sandstorm Score, 13–12,” only lists Mathewson, not Waddell, in the box score.

61. “Inaugural Ball to be Feature of Opening Day,” Bisbee Daily Review, April 24, 1910, 16; “Rooters Parade Friday Eve with Three Bands, Bisbee and Cananea Teams in Line,” Bisbee Daily Review, May 10, 1910, 8.

62. “Sheriff Here,” Bisbee Daily Review, May 1, 1910, 5; “Opening of Cactus League,” Copper Era, April 29, 1910, 2. E.M. Williams was the president of First National Bank, and was also president of the Baseball Association.

63. “Attention Ballplayers and Fans,” Bisbee Daily Review, May 1, 1910, 9.

64. “How Rooting Helps to Win Hot Contest,” Bisbee Daily Review, May 1, 1910, 16; “Rooters to Get Together for Action,” Bisbee Daily Review, May 6, 1910, 8.

65. “Cactus League Chatter,” Copper Era, May 20, 1910, 1.

66. “The Cactus League,” Copper Era, May 6, 1910, 2.

67. “Scouts After a Number of Local Players,” Bisbee Daily Review, May 8, 1910, 16.

68. “Baseball Park is Being Made Over,” El Paso Herald, May 23, 1910, 5.

69. “Games at El Paso Friday do not Count in Standing,” Bisbee Daily Review, May 19, 1910, 8.

70. “Team Returns with Two Fast Men Disabled,” Bisbee Daily Review, June 1, 1910, 5.

71. “Ball Great Success,” Bisbee Daily Review, June 5, 1910, 5.

72. “Pass City no Longer in Cactus Cabal,” Bisbee Daily Review, July 15, 1910, 5.

73. “Cactus League Squabble has been Settled,” Bisbee Daily Review, July 19, 1910, 5.

74. “Quit Jawing with Umpire During Game,” Bisbee Daily Review, August 7, 1910, 5.

75. “Local Team is After a Texas League Star,” Bisbee Daily Review, September 9, 1910, 5.

76. “Morenci–Clifton Quit the League,” El Paso Herald, September 13, 1910, 5.

77. “Dropped Pair; Opener Lasted Twelve Heats,” Bisbee Daily Review, September 6, 1910, 5.

78. Lee Hamilton, “Clubs Can’t Stock Up on Big-bug Talent this trip,” Bisbee Daily Review, April 17, 1910, 12.

79. “Miners Lose Out in the Ninth Round,” Bisbee Daily Review, September 18, 1910, 5.

80. “Cactus League Wobbling,” Arizona Republican, October 11, 1910, 1.

81. “Pennant will be Given to Quien Sabes,” Bisbee Daily Review, October 19, 1910, 5.

82. “Cananea is Given Disputed Pennant,” El Paso Herald, November 9, 1910, 11; note that this is contra Bob Ingram, who wrote, “If there was ever a decision, it never appeared in the newspapers” in Ingram, Baseball from Browns to Diablos (El Paso: Paul Brothers Publishing, 1991), 23.

83. “Treatise on Name of Star Umpire,” Bisbee Daily Review, April 21, 1910, 8.

84. “Demons Get Even for the Dubbing Saturday, with the Awful Score of 13 to 3,” Bisbee Daily Review, May 3, 1910, 4.

85. “At Bisbee and Cananea Sunday,” El Paso Herald, May 17, 1910, 10.

86. Lee Hamilton, “Bisbee Baseball Batty,” El Paso Herald, May 18, 1910, 14.

87. “Harper Brings Disgrace on Team Mates by Assaulting Umpire Goyheneix,” Copper Era, June 3, 1910, 1.

88. “Goyheneix has Lost his Goat; A New Umpire,” El Paso Herald, June 6, 1910, 12.

89. “Douglas Protests,” Bisbee Daily Review, September 16, 1910, 5.

90. “Toman to be Barred from Local Games,” Bisbee Daily Review, September 20, 1910, 5.

91. N.M. Walker, “Cactus League Dope,” El Paso Herald, May 3, 1910, 5.

92. “Barbecue for Base Ball Boys if they Win Two Straight,” Bisbee Daily Review, May 12, 1910, 8.

93. “Roy Gill Returns, Says he will Stay,” Bisbee Daily Review, January 18, 1912, 8; “El Paso Ball Club is Short Over $3000,” El Paso Herald, November 8, 1910, 5.

94. “Cactus Country Favors a League,” El Paso Herald, January 16, 1912, 12.

95. “Would Revive Cactus League in Southeast,” Bisbee Daily Review, February 8, 1920, 3.

96. “Sporting Chat Hot off the Bat,” Arizona Republican, January 5, 1913, 2–2; “Somewhere in France,” Bisbee Daily Review, November 13, 1918, 4; “The Great American Game,” Bisbee Daily Review, July 16, 1922, 4.

97. For example: “Harry Ables Makes Good with the N.Y. Americans,” El Paso Herald, April 18, 1911, 2; “Chick Gandil, Hamilton, & Whaling have Played Here,” El Paso Herald, September 27, 1919, 17.

98. Anderson, “The History of Baseball in Cochise County,” 1–68.

99. “Mitchell Hits 3 Doubles as Indians Whip Giants,” Evening Star, March 9, 1952, 40.

100. Seattle Star, March 20, 1916, 7.