James Philip Austin was born on December 8, 1879, in Swansea, Wales. His father, Alfred, was a shipbuilder who decided to come to the United States in 1885 in search of higher wages. Alfred Austin began work with the Cleveland Shipbuilding Company, and he was able to bring his family to Ohio in 1887 once he had saved enough money.

Unlike many future major leaguers, Jimmy didn’t see a baseball game until he was 14 years old. Although he had initially wanted to teach his young friends the game of rugby, Jimmy said later that, “I forgot all about rugby in my eagerness to learn how to catch and hit a baseball.” Soon, Austin formed a team of neighborhood kids who were eager to play. The team called itself the Franklin Athletic Club, and, while playing against other neighborhood teams, Jimmy first tried switch-hitting. Austin was the shortstop on the team, while Dode Paskert, who later starred for the Philadelphia Phillies, was an outfielder.

After finishing school, Austin went to work as a machinist-apprentice at Westinghouse in Cleveland. Shortly after his 4-year apprenticeship ended in 1903, however, the union went on strike, leaving Jimmy without a job. In a stroke of luck, Austin was soon approached to play independent league ball in nearby Warren, Ohio at a salary of $40 per month. In need of work and hoping to follow in the footsteps of fellow Clevelanders such as Ed Delahanty and Tommy Leach, Austin jumped at the opportunity.

Jimmy recruited Paskert to play with him, and the two were teammates with the Warren team. In the spring of 1904, they were both offered the opportunity to play organized baseball with Dayton, Ohio, of the Central League, on the strength of a recommendation from a traveling salesman with the White Chewing Gum Company. The following year, Austin switched to third base, the position he would play in the major leagues. In 1906, Austin stole 59 bases for Dayton, and the next spring, both Austin and Paskert were picked up by the Atlanta Crackers of the Southern Association. Paskert went, but Jimmy asked that he be sent elsewhere because he didn’t like Atlanta’s intense summer heat. Austin was shipped to Omaha of the Western League, where he stole a total of 160 bases over two seasons and caught the eye of the New York Highlanders, who purchased his contract following the 1908 season.

Jimmy made his major league debut with New York on April 19, 1909, at the advanced age of 29. Despite his age, Austin played with the joy and exuberance of a younger man. His love for the game was so infectious that it even won over the veteran whose job he was trying to take. As Austin later related in Lawrence Ritter’s The Glory of Their Times, Kid Elberfeld treated him well even though Austin was competing for Elberfeld’s third base job. When Elberfeld was suspended and Austin replaced him at third, Jimmy continued to sleep in his upper berth on the train, normally reserved for the substitutes. Elberfeld, according to Austin, would have none of it: “Put the youngster down in a lower berth,” Elberfeld ordered. “Take mine if you have to. He’s playing every day, hustling like the devil out there, and he needs his rest.”

Austin’s hustle helped him steal 30 bases during his rookie year with New York. It was during this time that manager George Stallings gave Austin the nickname “Pepper,” which took on other formulations over time, including “Pepper Jim” and “Peppery Jimmy.” During the 1909 season, Austin also appeared in what is perhaps the most famous baseball photograph of all-time. Jimmy was the third baseman sent sprawling by Ty Cobb in the photograph, taken at Hilltop Park by photographer Charles Conlon, that has since been published thousands of times. “Jimmy and I were very close friends,” Conlon later wrote. “Jimmy turned, backed into the base, and was greeted by a storm of dirt, spikes, shoes, uniform –and Ty Cobb. My first thought that was my friend, Austin, had been injured. When Cobb stole, he stole. But in a moment I realized [Austin] wasn’t hurt… then I began to wonder if by any chance I had snapped the play.”

Jimmy’s second season in New York was less successful than the first. His batting average fell from .231 to .218, and George Stallings, whom Jimmy had admired, was replaced as manager by Hal Chase. The new manager wanted to purge the team of players loyal to his predecessor. Accordingly, in February 1911, Austin was traded to the St. Louis Browns with second baseman Frank LaPorte for third baseman Roy Hartzell and cash. Though now 31 years old, and reaching the age when many players begin to decline, Austin’s career in the major leagues was just beginning.

Jimmy’s first season with the Browns was his best year as a player. In 1911, Austin achieved his career bests in hits (141), doubles (25), and RBI (45), while leading the American League with 34 sacrifices. An athletic fielder who was blessed with quick reflexes and superior range, Austin also led all American League third basemen in putouts, assists, and double plays. Over the course of the decade he would lead the league in double plays three more times. In 1913, Jimmy set a career high with 37 stolen bases. During that same season, Austin served the first of three stints as temporary manager of the Browns, guiding the club for eight games in September between the firing of George Stovall and the naming of Branch Rickey as his replacement.

From 1914 to 1919, he played in more than 100 games with St. Louis in each season, never posting higher than a .266 batting average, but registering a career-best .359 on base percentage in 1918, when he led the club in walks. Austin also solidified his reputation as one of the league’s best third basemen, though his powerful but erratic arm caused problems. As John Kieran of the New York Times later recalled, “What an arm! Every fourth heave he made across the diamond went into the right field bleachers.” Three times during his career, Austin led the league in errors.

In 1920, the 40-year-old Austin became a part-time player, posting a career high .271 batting average in 83 games. Still, as J. Roy Stockton of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reflected, “Austin, of course, can go in there any time and deliver, but his eyes cannot perform as well as his arms and hands.” Jimmy became a full-time coach with the Browns beginning in 1923, but he did come back to play in exactly one game in the 1923, 1925, 1926, and 1929 seasons, before officially finishing his playing career at age 49. Austin remained with the Browns through the 1932 season, when Depression-era belt-tightening forced the franchise to let him go. He then joined the Chicago White Sox for an eight-year coaching career when J. Louis Comiskey economized and hired Austin as a “one-man coaching staff” in 1933. With Chicago, Austin continued to display unbridled enthusiasm for the game he loved. “Jimmy yells and jumps around more than any other player on the team,” one newspaper reported during Austin’s first year coaching with the White Sox. “He’ll pitch batting practice, wipe off the balls on days the muddy field gets them in that condition, handle the catcher’s glove in spare moments, hit to the infield and outfield, race to the clubhouse on an errand and chip in with countless other chores.” In 1936, Austin resigned his post as a full-time coach in order to care for his chronically ill wife, Josie, but still served the White Sox as a spring training instructor.

After 32 years in the major leagues, Austin finished his coaching career in 1940 at age 60. Following his retirement, he returned to Laguna Beach, California, where he had made his home since 1913. A popular figure, Austin served as mayor of the town during the 1940s. Married to Josie for 45 years, the couple had no children. After Josie’s death, Jimmy remarried and retired from politics. He was still living in Laguna Beach when Lawrence Ritter tracked him down and interviewed him for The Glory of Their Times. Jimmy died before the book was published, passing away from congestive heart failure on March 6, 1965, at the age of 85. Austin was buried three days later in the Melrose Abbey Memorial Park in Anaheim, California. He and Ted Lewis, who played with Boston from 1896 to 1901, remain the only two men born in Wales to play in the major leagues.

Note

This biography originally appeared in David Jones, ed., Deadball Stars of the American League (Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, Inc., 2006).

Sources

“Austin to be White Sox coach.” New York Herald Tribune. February 21, 1933.

“Austin Laguna Mayor.” The Sporting News. April 27, 1940.

“Austin Now Manages The St. Louis Browns.” New York World. August 9, 1923.

“Austin Quits the Feds: Former Yankee Decides to Play Again with Browns.” New York Tribune, February 26, 1915.

“Browns Player Never Saw Baseball Until Quite a Youngster, Having Spent His Early Years in Wales.” No author, publication, or date given. Clipping from Jimmy Austin’s file at the Baseball Hall of Fame Library.

Harry T. Brundidge. “Jimmy Austin, with Browns for 20 Years, Forgot Rugby When Boyhood Chums Gave Him a Baseball.” The Star Chronicle. February 27, 1930.

“Comiskey Signs Austin As Coach of White Sox.” Associated Press, February 21, 1933.

Jimmy Austin. “How I Became a Ballplayer.” The Evening Telegram (New York). June 20, 1913.

Roger A. Godin. The 1922 St. Louis Browns: Best of the American League’s Worst. McFarland & Company, 1991.

George Henger. “Austin’s Double Jump: The Browns Former Third Baseman Emulates the Example of Johnson, Wingo and Marquard By Rejoining the Team He Only Recently Deserted.” No publication given. Clipping from Jimmy Austin’s file at the Baseball Hall of Fame Library.

The Sporting News. “Daguerreotypes Taken of Former Stars of the Diamond.” James Peter (Jimmy) Austin. Clipping from Jimmy Austin’s file at the Baseball Hall of Fame Library.

“Jimmy Austin Jumps Back to the Browns.” Clipping from Jimmy Austin’s file at the Baseball Hall of Fame Library.

“Jimmy Austin Named Browns’ New Manager.” New York Tribune, August 8, 1923.

Ed Prell. “At 54, Austin Shows Sox Real Spirit.” Chicago American. May 12, 1933.

Lawrence S. Ritter. The Glory of Their Times: The Story of the Early Days of Baseball Told by the Men Who Played It. William Morrow, 1984.

“St. Louis Fans Against Austin,” No author or publication given. March 13, 1915.

The Sporting News, June 12, 1965. Obituary. “Jimmy Austin, Old Brownie Player, Coach and Manager.”

“Thomas and Austin Punished For Row.” New York Tribune, August 8, 1916.

Untitled article with no author. October 27, 1932 describing Austin leaving the Browns as coach. Clipping from Jimmy Austin’s file at the Baseball Hall of Fame Library.

Untitled article with no author. March 23, 1939 describing Austin’s energy as a coach.
Clipping from Jimmy Austin’s file at the Baseball Hall of Fame Library.

Joe Williams. “When Baseball’s Greatest Picture Was Snapped, Photographer Didn’t Know He Clicked Camera: Hand Worked Quicker Than Mind as Ty Cobb Made His Daring Slide.” New York Telegram, October 30, 1930. Clipping from Jimmy Austin’s file at the Baseball Hall of Fame Library.

Horatio Alger could not have conjured up a life story like this, which has the power to make the most hardened cynic believe in ideals again. Edward Morgan Lewis was born on Christmas Day 1872 in Machynlleth, Wales. His parents were John C. Lewis and Jane L. (Davies) Lewis. When the boy was 8 years old, his family moved to Utica, New York, where they lived on the banks of the Erie Canal. Little Ted earned his first quarter delivering groceries for the local corner store (though he was docked if he broke a ketchup bottle), and scouted out other odd jobs, supplementing the immigrants’ straitened budget.

It is an article of faith that Welshmen have wonderful voices and a love of poetry, and the Lewis family reinforced this tradition. The great American poet Robert Frost was a crony of Ted Lewis’s for 20 years — even into their 60s, they played “singles” baseball or softball in the backyard whenever they got together. Frost read from Tennyson and Whitman at his friend’s memorial tribute, and his address showed the profound influence of culture on character:

“He told me once — I was afraid that the story might not be left for me to tell — that he began his interest in poetry as he might have begun his interest in baseball — with the idea of victory — the ‘Will to Win.’“He was at an Eisteddfod in Utica, an American-Welsh Eisteddfod, where the contest was in poetry, and a bard had been brought in from Wales to give judgment and to pick the winner; and the bard, after announcing the winner and making the compliments which judges make, said he wished the unknown victor would rise and make himself known and let himself be seen. (I believe the poems were read anonymously.) The little ‘Ted’ Lewis sitting there beside his father looked up and saw his father rise as the victor. So poetry to him was prowess from that time on, just as baseball was prowess, as running was prowess. And it was our common ground.”

Lewis worked as a bundle boy in a department store and as a surveyor’s helper, studying borrowed textbooks by lamplight. With the $50 in personal savings he managed to put aside, the youth entered Marietta College in Ohio, which gave him the opportunity to meet his tuition payments by working as a letter carrier, hotel clerk, and janitor.

In the fall of 1893 sophomore Ted Lewis transferred to Williams, the small liberal-arts school nestled in the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts. He made a tremendous impression on his classmates, becoming president of the elite Gargoyle Society and winning the class cup in a walkover, receiving 32 votes while no one else got more than four. Lewis’s accomplishments on the mound were certainly a part of his status. In 1895 he won all eight games in the Triangular League (which then consisted of Williams, Amherst, and Dartmouth rather than Wesleyan), and he followed up with six more in his senior year.

Baseball was the most popular sport at the college in those days, and the Williams Weekly was full of manly exhortations to give full voice while cheering. The souvenir scorecard from the 1896 Commencement Game against Amherst is another charming curio, with Captain Ted’s photo on the front cover and official yells (Osky-wow-wow, Skimmy-wow-wow, Jimmy-wow-wow, W-O-W) on the back.

Lewis faced some most intriguing opponents besides Yale and Harvard. These included the original black pro team, the Cuban Giants, whose trip to the Purple Valley bears further investigation. Another was Louis Sockalexis, then the star center fielder for Holy Cross. A year before his briefly spectacular run with Cleveland, the Penobscot Indian “played a phenomenal game, catching and batting balls, whenever and wherever he pleased.”

During his college days, Lewis also won the heart of hometown girl Margaret Hallie Williams with a move that would have left Sir Walter Raleigh in the dust. At a local game in Richfield Springs, New York, he had promised her that he would meet her at the grounds and usher her in. But Margaret arrived a little late, while Ted was facing the first batter. Yet when he spied his wife-to-be, he calmly dropped the ball, walked off the hill (making the captain think Lewis had gone “bughouse”), and saw to his escort duties. The gallant then returned to a huge hand from the crowd.

Seeking money to further his studies, the graduate commenced his major-league career with the Boston Beaneaters. Frank Selee’s club was the class of the National League in the 1890s, winning five pennants behind numerous Hall of Famers and near-greats. Lewis was a key part of the last two titles, especially in 1898, when he led the league in winning percentage at 26-8. He also appeared in three games in the 1897 Temple Cup series, winning one, losing one, and allowing Boston to claw back from an early blowout into a near win with a strong effort in long relief. In 1904 Boston Globe sportswriter and old-time player Tim Murnane remembered Lewis as “a superb pitcher, with great curves and fine speed, both of which he used with rare judgment. He was a fine batsman for a pitcher and was a willing worker for his club.”

The “good guy” Beaneaters had an ongoing battle with John McGraw’s Baltimore Orioles, notorious for their ruffian tactics. “Parson” Lewis prefigured the fictional Yalie Galahad Frank Merriwell and McGraw’s Mr. Clean with the Giants, Christy Mathewson. A leading example of Lewis’s devotion to fair play came on August 24, 1901, when he helped rescue umpire Joe Cantillon from a mob of Boston fans who stormed the field. Tim Murnane stated, “It is doubtful if good, clean sport ever had a more earnest and successful practitioner than ‘Ted’ Lewis.” Echoing these sentiments, Damon Hall, a close friend from Williams, said: “One might have supposed in those earlier days of professional baseball that a college graduate who did not drink, who refused to play Sunday ball, who said his prayers and read his Bible daily, who even asked his teammates to go to prayer meetings with him, would have been esteemed somewhat of a prig by the other members of the squad. Instead, they took him to their hearts.”

Indeed, Ted had seriously considered entering the ministry but decided he could reach more young people through the classroom. While with Boston he found time to coach the Harvard nine. After jumping to the new American League in 1901 and playing with the very first Red Sox team (then known as the Americans, among other early names), Lewis retired from baseball to devote his full energies to teaching. His lifetime record was 94-64, with an earned-run average of 3.53 and a batting average of .223.

The Professor had earned his master’s from Williams in 1899, and from 1901 to 1903 he taught elocution at Columbia. His alma mater then lured him back to teach oratory for eight years, during which he also lectured at the Yale Divinity School. In 1910 the Welsh community of Berkshire County formed a society, acclaiming Lewis as president. For many years he would return to North Adams on St. David’s Day, March 1, to address his leek-waving brethren. (The only other major leaguer born in Wales was Jimmy Austin, who was one of Lawrence Ritter’s subjects in The Glory of Their Times.)

Also in 1910, Lewis ran for Congress as a Democrat in a staunch Republican district, and missed pulling off an upset by just 736 votes. He said, “It may be that I am starting in on this campaign in the ninth inning with the score 9 to 0 against me. But if the odds are against me I’ll play the game out, for you never can tell what a score you may make in the ninth.”

The next year, however, Massachusetts Agricultural College in Amherst beckoned. Lewis soon proved how capable an administrator he was, being pressed into service as acting president in 1913-14 (when he made another unsuccessful bid for Congress, supported by pioneering muckraker Ray Stannard Baker). The dean of languages and literature again stepped into the breach in 1918-19 and 1924, finally accepting the position of president officially in 1926. It was through his efforts that the modest “Aggie” school was transformed into today’s University of Massachusetts. Lewis felt uncomfortable with the political pressure there, however; there was an ongoing power struggle with the state government over funding and the authority of the Board of Trustees. Thus Lewis moved to the University of New Hampshire in 1927. But before he left, Massachusetts Agricultural College surprised its outgoing president by conferring upon him the honorary degree of doctor of laws.

Under the aegis of President Lewis, UNH, in Durham, New Hampshire, established a graduate school and broadened its infrastructure considerably, building the first women’s dormitory. In Durham Lewis received many of his famous friends, including Robert Frost. He had first met the then-unknown poet, a fellow MAC professor, in 1916 — and the Eisteddfod veteran delivered the first public reading of Frost’s verse. Forty years later, by then a grand American institution, Frost wrote about the 1956 All-Star Game for Sports Illustrated, also reminiscing about his pitching lessons from Lewis.

The UNH archives also show how Lewis knew and corresponded with US Presidents William Howard Taft (then chief justice of the Supreme Court), Calvin Coolidge (as vice president), Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. There are letters from other well-known individuals in this special collection, including another chief justice, Charles Evans Hughes; polar explorer Richard Byrd; heavyweight boxing champion Gene Tunney; and Philadelphia Athletics manager Connie Mack.

Ted Lewis died at midnight on May 23, 1936, at the age of 63. His health had begun to fail about two years before, but even though the beloved “Prexy” was suffering greatly from liver cancer, he summoned up his old athletic reserves to climb the stairs to his office. In February he underwent an operation, and he rallied enough to make an appearance at UNH’s Opening Day ballgame versus Bates — pitched and won by future major leaguer Bill Weir. The students again took heart, but Lewis relapsed shortly thereafter. He was survived by his widow, Margaret; his two sons, Edward W. Lewis and John B. Lewis; and his daughter, Gwendolyn (Mrs. Samuel W. Hoitt).

Lewis was laid to rest in the Durham Community Cemetery on May 26, with former Boston teammate Fred Tenneyserving as one of the pallbearers. In a memorial tribute before the entire student body and faculty that afternoon, Robert Frost read his friend’s two favorite poems, Tennyson’s “In Memoriam” and Walt Whitman’s “On the Beach at Night.”

UNH sports teams still play today at the Lewis Fields, but this man’s most fitting memorial might be the measured question he always posed to his colleagues: “Well … what can we do to better the situation?”

An updated version of this biography appeared in “The Glorious Beaneaters of the 1890s” (SABR, 2019), edited by Bob LeMoine and Bill Nowlin. This biography also appeared in “New Century, New Team: The 1901 Boston Americans” (SABR, 2013), edited by Bill Nowlin.
 

Quotes on Ted Lewis, the ballplayer

Compiled by UNH alumnus Rich Eldred for his Lewis sketch in Nineteenth Century Stars (SABR, 1988):

“Teddy Lewis will pitch good ball for the Boston Americans no matter how many others may croak.” — Wilbert Robinson

“When at concert pitch there are few better than Lewis.” — Tim Murnane, Boston Globe

“Lewis was steady as a minister should be. … Chicago’s heaviest hitters went down before his speedy deliveries like corn stalks before a gale.” — Jake Morse, Boston Herald

“Parson Lewis is closing his career in a blaze of glory.” — Boston Globe after Lewis beat Nixey Callahan with a two-hitter in his final game

Sources

Ted Lewis File at National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Cooperstown, New York.

Ted Lewis File at Williams College Alumni Association, Williamstown, Massachusetts. (Includes a typewritten manuscript of “Edward Morgan Lewis, Early Career” by his younger relative Hobart L. Morris Jr.)

Obituary, New York Times, May 24, 1936.

Online census records, 1910 and 1920.

“In the Loop,” News for Staff and Faculty, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, May 18, 2004.

Online records, University of New Hampshire.

Photos of Reese conjure up the image of the kind old country doctor. His gray hair, friendly demeanor, and pipe remind one more of a friendly uncle than a doctor. How he practiced his trade was both idealistic and egalitarian. But while he enjoyed an excellent reputation for his skill and fairness, the medical profession vilified him. It was evidence of his talents and character that he overcame this opposition by the force of his personality and his popularity in his adopted hometown.

Reese’s involvement with baseball players was purely a sideline. The primary focus of his practice was treating his one-time colleagues, the mill workers of Youngstown. Reese’s unique ability of manipulating muscles and ligaments put working men and ball player alike back to work, giving him the reputation of miracle worker in some circles.

Reese’s origins were humble and harsh. He was born May 6, 1855, in Rhymney, Wales, the son of William and Sarah Morris Rees. (Little is known about his parents; family records indicate his grandfather was a coal miner.) His father died three months later. Eleven years later his mother died. Orphaned, Reese went to work in the Welsh ironworks. He was taken in by an ironworker named Tom Jones, who taught Reese the trade of bonesetting, a term Welshmen used for treatment of strains of muscle and tendon, not actually setting broken bones. Reese remained under Jones’ tutelage until he left for the United States in 1887.

Like many immigrants of the time, Reese was compelled to emigrate for a simple reason: there were no jobs in the old country. He sailed steerage class to America without his family, sending for them six months after arriving in the United States. Upon their arrival Reese left his job as a roller’s helper at Jones & Laughlin Steel in Pittsburgh and moved to Youngstown, where he took a job at the Brown-Bonnell Mills. Family history says he successfully treated an injured mill worker in 1889 for a dislocated shoulder. It was a good deed that changed Reese’s life forever.

As word of his talent spread, Reese was presented with a dilemma. Treating injured workers was taking him away from his primary job and his main source of income. However, management did not complain about Reese’s “moonlighting.” Reese was a piece worker; therefore, he wasn’t paid when he wasn’t doing his job and the trade-off of getting injured men back to work sooner than expected benefited management. Eventually the strain of doing double duty, working in the mills and treating patients night and day, forced Reese into a full-time medical practice in 1894.

That move did not simplify his life. It merely swapped one set of problems for another. The local medical establishment, jealous of its turf, began a six-year battle with Reese, charging him with quackery and practicing medicine without a license. The threat behind that latter fact forced Reese to adopt a policy of charging patients what they could afford, rather than charging a fee for service, a clear violation of state law. The policy, primarily applied to factory workers was tersely stated, “Pay me when you get it.” He was also known to charge the rich and famous more for his services than the working man and his family.

Reese did all he could to satisfy his establishment critics. In 1897 he enrolled in medical school at Case University in Cleveland. His formal education lasted three weeks because Reese could not stand the sight of blood during surgery. His teachers recognized his talents, however, and gave their blessings to his practice of muscle and ligament manipulation, which resembled osteopathy, a medical theory founded in the United States during the late nineteenth century.

One instructor went so far as to say that anyone who had a quarrel with Reese had a quarrel with him. The teacher added that the medical establishment’s concerns about Reese were unfounded and further medical instruction could rob him of his unique talents as a healer.

The struggle with the medical community ended in 1900. By the turn of the century Reese had developed strong ties in his community, making influential friends and practicing his trade within strict limits. For instance, he refused to treat acute illnesses. In 1908 during a typhoid outbreak in Youngstown, Reese referred patients to licensed physicians. Ultimately, the state of Ohio formally recognized his practice. The exact origin of this “licensing” is unclear, but it effectively ended open opposition by medical authorities.

Reese’s biography, titled Child of Moriah, written by Reese’s grandson-in-law David Strickler, noted that the first baseball player Reese treated was Jimmy McAleer, a Youngstown native who was an outfielder for the Cleveland Spiders at the time. McAleer, who later became manager of the St. Louis Browns, spread the word about Reese’s talents. In 1903, the Pittsburgh Pirates offered Reese the position of full-time team physician. Reese, preferring to stay at home, refused the offer and continued to treat ballplayers no matter what team for which they played.

As his reputation spread, players from all major league teams came to Youngstown to see the Bonesetter. Pitchers, catchers, outfielders, infielders, stars, and rookies were treated. Strickler’s book lists 54 players treated by Reese, 28 of whom are in the Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown. Scores more visited him but weren’t listed because Reese never sought publicity, and some players did not want anyone knowing they might be hurt.

From his experience with players, Reese became an expert in treating sore arms, bad backs and charley horses. Reese noted that most of his patients were pitchers: “It’s not the curve ball pitchers who come the more often…but the boys who try to throw the ball past a batter, the speed ball pitchers…If the soreness is in the elbow it’s a speedball pitcher nine times out of ten; if in the shoulder, a curve ball pitcher.” Several players credited Reese with saving their careers, including long-time Cleveland pitcher George Uhle and Pittsburgh and Brooklyn infielder Glenn Wright. Others saw their playing days come to an end when Reese’s ministrations could not overcome the strains on their bodies. Among Hall of Famers who came to see the Bonesetter were Honus Wagner, Cy Young, Ty Cobb, Rogers Hornsby, Eddie Collins, Grover Cleveland Alexander, Walter Johnson and John McGraw.

While Reese provided cures, the repairs were not painless. Wagner said Reese hurt him, “…like the devil, but always does the work.” Reese himself liked Wagner and described their first meeting, “…because they call me ‘bonesetter’ he [Wagner] was trembling clear down to his shoes. And the minute I placed my hands on his back he fainted dead away.”

The Bonesetter was not always happy with his ball-playing patients. He believed many of them re-injured themselves because they would not follow his directions. While Reese would treat boxers and an occasional football player, he disliked sports that put their participants in harm’s way. Present-day Youngstown is a football hot bed, but Reese did not share the passion, hating football. None other than George “Papa Bear” Halas had to persuade Reese that his bum knee came from sliding into a base and not from the hands of a brutish linebacker.

Reese’s patient list was not confined to athletes. Patients listed included celebrities and politicians, most notably Theodore Roosevelt, Charles Evans Hughes and fellow Welshman and former British Prime Minister David Lloyd George. Will Rogers was among his show business clients, along with countless showgirls who needed treatment for strained muscles or twisted ankles. Former baseball player turned evangelist Billy Sunday was also among his patients, both as a player and fire-and-brimstone preacher.

Age caught up with Reese in 1931. He died of heart failure at the age of 76. His wife, Sarah; died in 1911; five daughters survived him: Mary Ann, Sarah, Gertrude, Elizabeth and Kathryn. His passing was noted in the Youngstown Vindicator like that of a major head of state. His obituary noted that he treated patients as they came in, that the famous had to stand in line. Patients paid what they could afford, while widows and orphans of mill workers were not charged for his services. Seven years before his death, the baseball publication Sporting Life paid tribute to Reese’s contribution to baseball noting, “[he] has prolonged the active life of countless baseball stars and preserved them for the fans of the country to cheer.”

John D. “Bonesetter” Reese came to America to seek a better life for himself and his family, a motive the sons and daughters of immigrants understand. He built his life around the opportunity given him in his adopted nation. That simple fact best describes “Bonesetter” Reese’s life and his contribution to his fellow citizens of Youngstown and to our national game.

Reese’s All-Star Patient Team

Pitchers: Cy Young, Christy Mathewson, Walter Johnson, Big Ed Walsh, Grover Cleveland Alexander, Addie Joss, Chief Bender and Stanley Coveleski

Catchers: Gabby Hartnett and Roger Bresnahan

First Basemen: George Sisler and Frank Chance

Second Basemen: Eddie Collins, Rogers Hornsby and Napoleon Lajoie

Third Basemen: Home Run Baker and Jimmy Collins

Shortstops: Honus Wagner and Donie Bush

Outfielders: Ty Cobb, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Tris Speaker, Edd Roush and Max Carey

Manager: John McGraw

Sources

In preparing this article, I made primary use of David Strickler’s self-published 1989 book Child of Moriah: A Biography of John D. Bonesetter Reese, the Reese papers at the Mahoning Valley Historical Society, various issues of Sporting Life published in 1908, and unsolicited clippings from many SABR members.