Charlie Eakle

Charlie Eakle, meter reader,
Was a part-time major-leaguer.
When his two-game trial was done,
’Twas back to work where he’d begun.

According to a contemporary report, Charlie Eakle played two major-league games with the 1915 Baltimore Terrapins of the Federal League while simultaneously holding down a full-time job with Baltimore’s gas and electric company. Instead of languishing in obscurity, perhaps Eakle should be considered the patron saint of every 21st-century working stiff who’s ever sat in a corporate cubicle with their mind at a ballpark and their eyes on MLB Gameday.1

The story of Charles Emory Eakle began in Baltimore on September 27, 1887 – less than ten months after the marriage of his parents, Charles E. and Barbara (Hood) Eakle.2 City directories provide a few glimpses of his father’s work. In 1884, a Charles E. Eakle was listed as a laborer. By 1888 he had become a fireman – in the sense of a coal shoveler, not a firefighter – and continued to hold that job four years later.3

Details of the younger Eakle’s early life are limited but those in the public record hint at disruption at home. The 1900 US Census listed Barbara Eakle as married but her husband was not included among the members of her household, which also numbered four children – son Charlie and daughters Maud, Sarah, and Mary Bernadette.4 (A decade later, the 1910 Census listed Barbara as widowed.5) At age 12 in the spring of 1900 Charlie Eakle might have been the man of the house, and he was listed as employed as a spinner in a cotton mill.6 Whatever sandlot baseball he was able to play would have had to be squeezed in after work responsibilities – a harbinger of his later life.

Still, he managed. An August 1906 recap of a game between two amateur teams, Thistle Athletic Club and Western Combination, credited “Charles Eakles” with hitting a key triple.7 That page of the Baltimore Sun featured an interesting coincidence. Not far above the Thistle-Western score, a news item headlined “Indians on the Diamond” noted the emergence of several star players of indigenous lineage, including “Charley Bender, the crack pitcher of the Philadelphia American League team.” Nine long seasons later, Eakle and Bender were briefly teammates on the Terrapins, and Bender started one of the two games in which Eakle appeared.8

Baltimore was a hotbed of amateur baseball, with local teams packing the agate of the Baltimore Sun sports page alongside the results from the big leagues.9 Beginning in 1907 and continuing for the better part of the next decade, the names Eakle, Eakles, Eakel, and Eakels began appearing with some regularity in box scores for a variety of teams.10 The names were most often credited as a second baseman, shortstop, third baseman, or pitcher, and were frequently singled out for praise in the short blurbs that summarized games.11

Most of these references didn’t include a first name, and Eakle is not a strongly uncommon surname in Maryland, so it might be imprudent to assume that every single one of these appearances was Charlie.12 The record substantiates, though, that Charlie Eakle was a well-traveled and successful amateur player. He was specifically cited in articles about the Catonsville Volunteer Hose Company’s team, the Hampden Athletic Association team, the Cromwell Club, and the No-Leak-O Club, among others.13 Also, a later summary of his career described him as “a capable infielder and pitcher,” confirming his ability to play multiple positions.14

Sometime in the waning months of 1909 Eakle secured employment with the Consolidated Gas and Electric Company, the predecessor of the modern Baltimore Gas and Electric.15 This provided him with yet another athletic setting in which to shine. The company fielded a highly competitive amateur team of employees known as the Gas and Electric White Sox. “The gas company had a whale of a club,” one journalist who saw them play later wrote.16 Eakle suffered a broken ankle in 191017 but became a regular in the lineup upon his recovery, appearing in the infield and outfield and sometimes pitching as well.18

Highlights of Eakle’s career with the Gas and Electric Company nine included an exhibition in 1910 against Baltimore’s minor-league Orioles, then of the Class A Eastern League. Baltimore baseball legend Jack Dunn, the Orioles’ manager, took a turn at shortstop, and past or future major-leaguers who appeared included Jimmy Slagle, Bob Hall, Butch Schmidt, Bill Byers, and Rube Vickers.19 Four Aprils later the Gas and Electric team lost a close 2-0 matchup to Baltimore’s Federal League Terrapins, two days before the big-leaguers’ Opening Day. Eakle hit a double against his future employers and earned notice for his fielding at second base.20

At various points Eakle and his teammates also beat a squad of U.S. Marines;21 traveled to Philadelphia, where Eakle pitched a three-hit, 2-1 win over another gas company team;22 and won a 19-inning, 1-0 thriller from the Maryland Meter Company, although Eakle took an 0-for-7 horse collar at the plate.23

Eakle’s membership on the Gas and Electric Company team and his employment with the company did not prevent him from playing for amateur teams in other leagues. Stories from 1912 and 1913 mention him playing with the Catonsville Volunteer Hose Company team, where his teammates included future big-leaguers Fritz, George, and Charlie Maisel.24 In 1914 and 1915 Eakle joined the Hampden Athletic Association, a team strong enough that it reportedly played for the amateur championship of the state in his first season.25

Eakle could have spent the summer of 1915 content to read meters by day while remaining one of Baltimore’s amateur stars in his spare time.26 As he approached his 28th birthday he was as good on the field as ever – perhaps better, boasting an average close to .400 in 16 games with Hampden as of late August.27 A short news item that season praised his speed and throwing arm.28

Fate, however, was interfering with the best-laid plans of players all over Baltimore, starting with the Terrapins. Manager and second baseman Otto Knabe’s club had played competitive ball in 1914, finishing in third place with an 84-70-6 record, just 4½ games behind first-place Indianapolis. The team’s signing of Bender in the offseason was seen as a push toward the top. Just 30 years old but a veteran of 12 big-league seasons, Bender came to the Federal League with 193 regular-season wins and three World Series titles on his resume. He’d posted a sparkling 17-3 record and 2.26 ERA in 1914, though he’d lost his only World Series start in Game One to the Boston Braves, who pulled off one of baseball’s great upsets by sweeping the heavily favored Philadelphia A’s.

But the Terrapins’ hopes for 1915 were dashed quickly and repeatedly. On May 7, the team had a 10-13 record. This was the last time they ranked as high as sixth in the eight-team FL. They toppled into last place on July 8 and stayed there the rest of the season, closing with a disastrous 47-107 record and .305 winning percentage.29 The Baltimore Sun attributed the team’s collapse to several factors, including over-the-hill players, boneheaded play (“it is not a bright baseball team and never was”) and a failure to significantly improve their roster. “The Federal League is considerably faster than it was last year,” the paper reported. “Baltimore did not strengthen, but the other clubs did.”30

On August 17 Knabe dislocated a finger on his throwing hand in a game against Chicago. His options for a replacement second baseman from the Terrapins’ roster were limited to outfielder Vern “Duke” Duncan, a former college second baseman at the University of North Carolina; 39-year-old catcher Fred Jacklitsch, who’d played 11 games at second base in previous seasons; and first baseman Joe Agler, a good fielder who Knabe didn’t want to use because he was left-handed. “Very few left-handers ever made good in the major leagues at any infield position except first,” the Sun reported.31

With little to lose, Knabe turned to the city’s thriving amateur scene. He summoned a pair of “very clever boys” from the sandlots to compete for the second-base job – Eakle from Hampden, and Harold Shipley from the Villa Nova Club. In a manner unspecified, Eakle won the position and made his Federal League debut on Friday, August 20, starting on Ladies Day against the Kansas City Packers, who were then engaged in a five-team dogfight for the FL pennant. “Now is the time for Knabe to experiment,” the Sun wrote. “The Diamondbacks are in last place… Games may as well be lost experimenting.”32 Knabe may have also felt that using a local player could spur interest and boost attendance for the flagging Terrapins.

Eakle’s playing height and weight are listed as 5-feet-9 and 146 pounds, while his batting and throwing preferences are listed in baseball records as unknown. It seems probable that Eakle threw right-handed, because Knabe signed him in part to avoid using a lefty at second base. Available news stories do not specify his hitting preference.

In Eakle’s first game Baltimore fell behind at home 5-0 in the first two innings and sagged to an 8-4 defeat. The rookie contributed to the early deficit by letting Art Kruger’s second-inning grounder “get through him” for an error. The next batter, George Perring, hit a two-run double to left. Eakle contributed a hard-hit two-out double in the sixth inning off Packers starter Gene Packard, but was stranded at second. The Sun reported that Eakle “made a fairly good showing after his nervousness had worn off,” while the Kansas City Times said he “looked good.”33 Another report cited the rookie’s “stage fright” as he played in front of hometown fans cheering him on: “He felt that it was up to him to do things and tried a little bit too hard.”34

Eakle returned to the starting lineup on Saturday, August 21, for a game played in sloppy conditions and halted by rain after seven innings.35 In a matchup of pitchers nicknamed “Chief” – a sobriquet once widely given to players of Indian heritage – Baltimore’s Bender faced off against Kansas City’s George Johnson. Johnson shut out the Terrapins on six hits, most of them bunts. Bender lasted five innings, taking a 6-0 loss to drop his season record to a dismal 4-16.36

Eakle’s second-game performance closely resembled his first. At the plate he singled and stole a base in three at-bats, also reaching base on an error. In the field he again made a costly two-base throwing error in the fifth inning. The Packers scored five runs in the frame, turning a narrow 1-0 lead into a comfortable 6-0 advantage.37 “Kid Eakle got a little too anxious,” the Kansas City Star summarized.38 The Terrapins played an exhibition against the amateur Cross Country Club on Sunday, August 22. Eakle did not appear, as Harry Swacina, a first baseman by trade, minded the keystone sack.39

On Monday, August 23, Sun sportswriter C. Starr Matthews reported that Eakle would not be back in the Terrapins’ lineup: “Eakle was only able to get away from his position for a couple of days, so he will not be able to play.” The rookie, Matthews explained, had been splitting time between the big leagues and his day job. “Eakle did not do so badly, considering that he was picked up without any notice and pushed into the lineup. The young fellow had to work up to noon each day from 7 o’clock in the morning and then took a chance on the ball field with professionals. His fielding was a little off, but he was very nervous.”40

John Gallagher, who also made his big-league debut on August 20 as a defensive substitute at shortstop, started at second base for the Terrapins for most of the remainder of the season. Knabe returned in early September but confined himself for the most part to pinch-hitting and defensive substitution.

Eakle closed his brief big-league career with a .286 batting average, but a .600 fielding percentage. He quickly returned to starring on the amateur stage. On September 7, back with the Hampden team, he fell a single shy of hitting for the cycle in the first game of a doubleheader against a team representing the Naval Militia.41

If Eakle chose to turn his back on the Terrapins rather than the other way around, it was a sound career decision. The Terrapins and the Federal League folded after the 1915 season. The Gas and Electric Company, in contrast, kept right on serving the city. Decade after decade between 1920 and 1950 the U.S. Census recorded Charles Eakle as a resident of 818 Wellington Street, Baltimore, and a meter reader with the Gas and Electric Company.42 The Census also recorded him as single; in 1950, it reported that he had never married. He shared the house on Wellington Street with his mother until her death in 1943, and also with some of his siblings both before and after his mother’s passing.43

Eakle’s life after professional baseball was interrupted by military service in World War I. According to military records Eakle enlisted on April 29, 1918, in the U.S. Army’s 313th Infantry, dubbed “Baltimore’s Own” because of its large number of recruits from the city.44 The regiment sailed for France in July 1918 and saw active duty that autumn, losing 223 soldiers in combat.45 The Sun reported that Private Eakle suffered minor wounds in an engagement in which four members of his company died and 23 were injured.46 He was discharged from service as a private first class in June 1919.

Eakle’s war injury must have been minor – it didn’t stop him from posting one of his finest amateur games a few months after he returned to the US. On August 25, 1919, pitching for a team called the Hampden Yanigans, Eakle pitched a no-hitter against the General Chemical Company team. He struck out 14 in a 7-0 victory.47 At the start of the 1920 season, an article listing “some of the best amateur players in the city” cited him by name.48

His box-score appearances dwindled in the mid-1920s. A report in June 1924 had him quitting the Hampden team; the following spring, he was listed as its manager.49 September 25, 1925, appears to have marked the final appearance of Eakle, Eakel, Eakles, or Eakels in an amateur box score in the Baltimore Sun. At age 38, he pitched in relief for the Hampdens in a 7-0 loss to Fairfield Farms, a dairy-sponsored team.50 The Gas and Electric Company operated a bowling league for its employees, and the Eakle/Eakles name appeared in numerous listings of bowling results.51

Eakle might have returned to the baseball diamond at age 46 in August 1934 for a special one-game appearance. Four teams of Baltimore baseball old-timers played a nostalgic doubleheader that month at Oriole Park – the former Terrapin Park, where Eakle had spent his brief big-league career. The Baltimore Sun reported that “Eackels” played third base for one of the teams, serving as the middleman in a pitcher-to-third-to-first triple play. At least two other 1915 Terrapins, Karl Kolseth and Tommy Vereker, also took part in the games.52

Eakle lived long enough to see major-league baseball return to Baltimore with the 1954 arrival of the major-league Orioles, the transplanted St. Louis Browns. The Terrapins were a faded memory by then. Terrapin Park/Oriole Park burned in 1944 after serving as the home ballpark of the International League Orioles since 1916. Gallagher, the 1915 Terrapins’ eventual choice at second base, died in 1952; Bender, the team’s would-be savior, followed two years later.

Charlie Eakle died at age 71 on June 15, 1959, at the family home on Wellington Street.53 He was survived by his three sisters. Following services at St. Thomas Church in Baltimore, he was buried in the city’s New Cathedral Cemetery.54 He shares a gravesite with his sister, Maud, who died in 1967.55

Two separate decisions made nine years after Eakle’s death cemented his legacy. In January 1968, the Old Timers’ Baseball Association, a group of Baltimore-area baseball veterans, posthumously inducted him into their Hall of Fame. Former New York Giants and Boston Red Sox pitcher Johnnie Wittig was also among the honorees. Former big-league player and manager Johnny Neun presented the awards, and Frank Cashen, executive vice president of the major-league Orioles, served as toastmaster.56

In March 1968 the major leagues’ Special Baseball Records Committee voted to resolve disputed historical issues, including the open question of which leagues besides the American and National should be classified as major. The committee ruled that the Federal League of 1914 and 1915 would be considered a major league.57 That decision ensured that Charlie Eakle, the moonlighting meter reader, gained a small but permanent place in the big-league statistical record.

Postscript: Harold C. Shipley

The Baltimore Sun never explained why Eakle played and Harold Shipley, the other amateur, didn’t. Here’s a brief look at Shipley, who didn’t quite make the majors:

Harold Claude Shipley was born June 25, 1887, in Carroll County, Maryland, the older of two brothers.58 Both Shipleys became Baltimore-area amateur ballplayers, playing together on several teams including the Villa Nova Athletic Club of Pikesville.59 Harold Shipley worked for many years with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad,60 and in 1914, he was one of about 250 employees who joined a booster club welcoming the Terrapins to Baltimore.61

The 1915 Villa Nova team, managed by Shipley, played in the same league as Eakle’s Hampden team.62 On June 19, Eakle went 2-for-6 with a triple as Hampden stomped Villa Nova, 11-1. Shipley didn’t play that day; box scores indicate he played intermittently in 1915. Some newspaper mentions of the team don’t list him as an eligible player.63

It’s a challenge to guess why Shipley got a tryout despite not starting on his own team. The Sun shows no record of Villa Nova scrimmaging the Terrapins, like Eakle and Hampden did. Scout Steve Brodie was working for the Terrapins in 1915, and perhaps he saw Shipley play.64

On August 21, as Eakle played his second game with the Terrapins, Shipley started at second base for Villa Nova in the first game of a doubleheader against the Mount Washington All-Stars. He went 1-for-5 with a double and two runs scored.65 If any scouts were on hand, they were not impressed enough to sign Shipley. The closest he came to playing in the bigs was a column in the Evening Sun of August 23, 1915, which listed him as the probable starter at second base for that afternoon’s game against Brooklyn.66 Instead, Enos Kirkpatrick played.

Tracking Shipley’s baseball involvement after 1915 becomes difficult, as the Sun referred to amateur ballplayers mostly on a last-name-only basis. Articles from 1916 about Villa Nova do not mention either Shipley brother.67 Harold helped found a company football team for the railroad in 1927 and promoted a charity football game between two other amateur teams in 1930.68

Harold Shipley died on June 16, 1940, not quite 51 years old. He was buried in Mount Olive Cemetery in Randallstown, Maryland.69 He was survived by wife Helen and three sons.70

Author’s note and acknowledgments

This article was reviewed by Rory Costello and Rick Zucker and checked for accuracy by members of SABR’s fact-checking team. The author thanks Lynn Blumenau for assistance with genealogical research, as well as the Giamatti Research Center of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

Sources and photo credit

In addition to the sources identified in the Notes, the author consulted other news articles and box scores from the Baltimore Sun. He also consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for basic background information on teams, seasons, games, and players.

Photo from the Baltimore Sun, December 7, 1918: 7.

The opening poem is an original work of the author.

Notes

1 Lest this reference become obsolete at some point in the future, MLB Gameday was a feature on Major League Baseball’s website in the early 21st century that allowed users to follow the live action of games, play by play and pitch by pitch, on their computer screens. (Readers: Ask your grandparents to describe the unique thrill conveyed by the words, “In play, run(s).”)

2 “Eakle” (obituary), Baltimore Sun, June 18, 1959: 27; “Marriage Licenses,” Baltimore County Union, December 4, 1886: 3.

3 Woods’s Baltimore City Directory, 1884: 322; R.L. Polk and Company’s Baltimore City Directory, 1888: 334 and 1892: 356. The Polk directories listed Fire Department employees as “fire dept,” so those listed as “fireman” were presumably the men who shoveled coal into furnaces, such as on railroad locomotives or steamships. An 1895 story in the Baltimore Sun referred to a “Fireman Eakle” working aboard a Baltimore and Ohio Railroad train, but absent a first name, it can’t be concluded for certain that this was Charlie Eakle’s father. “En Route for His Tomb,” Baltimore Sun, May 30, 1895: 2.

4 1900 US Census listing for Barbara Eakle and family, accessed via Familysearch.org in April 2023. An error in the listing is, perhaps, a warning against taking Census records as gospel: The youngest child in the family is listed as a two-year-old son named Burdette. Numerous other sources make clear that the child in question was in fact a daughter, Mary Bernadette. The census also said that Charles E. and Barbara Eakle had five children, four of them living. Barbara Eakle shares her gravesite in Baltimore’s New Cathedral Cemetery with a younger Barbara Eakle, born in 1894 and died in 1897. Findagrave.com listing for Barbara (Hood) Eakle, accessed April 2023.

5 1910 US Census listing for Barbara Eakle and daughters, accessed via Familysearch.org in April 2023. Charlie Eakle, who would have been 22 at the time, is not listed with his mother and sisters. The author of this biography was unable to find him in the 1910 Census despite extensive searching.

6 Eakle was listed on the Census as having been employed for each of the preceding 12 months, with no period of unemployment.

7 “Thistle, 6; Western, 4,” Baltimore Sun, August 14, 1906: 8.

8 “Indians on the Diamond,” Baltimore Sun, August 14, 1906: 8.

9 The Baltimore Sun sometimes featured a sports column called “Gossip of Baltimore’s Amateur Balltossers” that gives a sense of the beehive of baseball activity in the region. A good example of the column (though Charlie Eakle isn’t in it) can be read in the Sun of August 9, 1914: 3.

10 The earliest baseball reference to “Eakle” that the author of this biography could find appeared in the Baltimore Sun of April 8, 1907: 8. Eakle was credited with playing left field for a team representing the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad’s car repair shops, raising the possibility that he might have worked there for a period.

11 The spellings sometimes varied between games of a doubleheader. One edition of the Baltimore Sun from 1910 credits “Eckles” with playing third base for the Gas and Electric Company team in the first game of a twin bill, and “Eakle” with playing third base in the nightcap. “Season’s Longest Game,” Baltimore Sun, September 4, 1910: 10.

12 There is, for instance, an unincorporated rural community called Eakles Mills in the western part of the state, about a 10-minute drive from Antietam National Battlefield. Also, city directories, Baltimore Sun articles, and US Census records indicate that a Charles T. Eakle lived and worked in Baltimore at the same time as the subject of this biography. Charles T. Eakle was born in 1882, five years before the ballplaying Charles E. Eakle, and died in 1929, according to listings on Familysearch.org accessed in May 2023.

13 For Catonsville: “Amateur Baseball Clubs Are Issuing Challenges,” Baltimore Sun, February 14, 1913: 8; and “Firemen to Open Season April 15,” Baltimore Sun, March 23, 1913: 4; For Hampden: “Hampden 10, Swimmers 4,” Baltimore Sun, July 20, 1919: 28; For the Cromwell Club: “Cromwells Elect Officers,” Baltimore Sun, March 10, 1920: 14; For No-Leak-O: “Birds Booked to Play,” Baltimore Sun, April 9, 1920: 14.

14 “Wittig, Cotter, Horner Moving In,” Baltimore Sun, January 18, 1968: C1.

15 This employment date is extrapolated from a December 1949 news story noting that Eakle had been honored for reaching 40 years of employment with the company. “99 Employes [sic] Given Service Awards,” Baltimore Sun, December 9, 1949: 24. The Consolidated Gas and Electric Company, here and in other stories, was often simply referred to as “the Gas and Electric Company.” The company’s shareholders approved the adoption of the Baltimore Gas and Electric brand on April 1, 1955. “Charles Crane Promoted by Gas, Electric,” Baltimore Sun, April 2, 1955: 19.

16 Jesse A. Linthicum, “Sunlight on Sports,” Baltimore Sun, April 11, 1943: 32.

17 “Record Baseball Season,” Baltimore Evening Sun, October 20, 1910: 8.

18 Based on a review of Gas and Electric Company team box scores in the Baltimore Sun in the first half of the 1910s.

19 “Birds Walked Away,” Baltimore Sun, April 3, 1910: 10.

20 “Terrapins and White Sox Play Close Contest,” Baltimore Sun, April 12, 1914: 13. The game was also noteworthy for a broken ankle suffered by the Terrapins’ starting third baseman, Enos Kirkpatrick, while trying to avoid a home-plate collision. Kirkpatrick returned from his injury to play 55 games for the Terrapins in 1914 and 68 in 1915.

21 “Gas Men Defeat Marines,” Baltimore Sun, July 31, 1910: 10.

22 “Sam Felton Is Beaten by Sox,” Baltimore Sun, September 21, 1913: 4.

23 “Season’s Longest Game,” Baltimore Sun, September 4, 1910: 10.

24 See Endnote 13 above. “Firemen Lose Their Third,” Baltimore Sun, October 14, 1912: 10. Fritz and George Maisel were brothers; Charlie Maisel was their cousin. Charlie Maisel, like Charlie Eakle, played his entire big-league career – a single game – as a member of the 1915 Baltimore Terrapins.

25 “Gossip of Baltimore’s Amateur Balltossers,” Baltimore Sun, September 30, 1914: 5. This article promoted an upcoming championship doubleheader between Hampden and another team, but the Sun never reported on the outcome, if the games were played. The title “amateur championship of the state” may have been self-proclaimed.

26 The earliest reference the author could find that identified Eakle’s job title as meter reader was in R.L. Polk and Company’s Baltimore City Directory for 1914: 656; accessed in April 2023.

27 “Athletic League Batting Averages,” Baltimore Sun, August 27, 1915: 8. Sixteen games represented almost all of Hampden’s schedule to that point; a few of Eakle’s Hampden teammates are credited with 17 appearances, but none with more than that.

28 “Athletic League News and Gossip,” Baltimore Sun, July 8, 1915: 11.

29 The only team with a worse winning percentage in 1915 was Bender’s former employer, the A’s, who went 43-109 for a .283 winning percentage in the American League.

30 C. Starr Matthews, “Manager Knabe Dislocates Finger,” Baltimore Sun, August 18, 1915: 5.

31 Matthews, “Manager Knabe Dislocates Finger.”

32 C. Starr Matthews, “Knabe Will Give Youngster Chance,” Baltimore Sun, August 20, 1915: 10. This article misidentifies Eakle as “Eckle” and his competitor as “George Shipley.” The following day, the Sun named the other player as Harold Shipley, and other sports stories from the 1915 season identify Harold C. Shipley as manager and sometime player with Villa Nova. Neither Sun coverage nor official baseball records indicate that Shipley ever played in a regular-season game for the Terrapins.

33 C. Starr Matthews, “Terrapins Easy Prey,” Baltimore Sun, August 21, 1915: 5; “Bill Bailey Let ‘em In,” Kansas City Times, August 21, 1915: 8.

34 C. Starr Matthews, “Manager Knabe to Shift Line-Up,” Baltimore Evening Sun, August 21, 1915: 6.

35 One news account of the game compared the field to “a big lake.” “Packers Back in the Lead,” Kansas City Star, August 22, 1915: 14A.

36 “Packers Back in the Lead.” Bender appeared in only one more game for Baltimore, lasting just one-third of an inning against Brooklyn on August 26. He closed the season with a 4-16 record and 3.99 ERA. He pitched for the Philadelphia Phillies in 1916 and 1917 to essentially finish his major-league career, though he made a single appearance with the Chicago White Sox in 1925.

37 C. Starr Matthews, “Packers Now First,” Baltimore Sun, August 22, 1915: 10.

38 “Packers Back in the Lead.”

39 “Terps In Exhibition,” Baltimore Sun, August 23, 1915: 6. Swacina also appeared as a substitute at second base on August 26, while Knabe remained out of the lineup.

40 C. Starr Matthews, “John Ganzel Day at Terrapin Park,” Baltimore Sun, August 23, 1915: 5.

41 “Hampden Lands Two Games,” Baltimore Sun, September 8, 1915: 8.

42 U.S. Censuses of 1920, 1930, 1940, and 1950 accessed through Familysearch.org and 1950census.archives.gov in April 2023. Some Censuses identified Eakle’s employer simply as “Gas Company,” which could mean that he specifically worked on the gas side of the business. His position was consistently given as “meter reader.”

43 U.S. Censuses of 1920 through 1950; “Eakle” (obituary), Baltimore Sun, August 10, 1943: 18.

44 Military record for Charles E. Eakle accessed April 2023 through Familysearch.org.

45 “313th Infantry, 79th Division, American Expeditionary Force, World War I Photograph Collection,” Maryland Center for History and Culture, accessed April 2023. As of May 2023, military history buffs could visit the Internet Archive to read a detailed history of the 313th Infantry.

46 “On The Casualty List,” Baltimore Sun, December 7, 1918: 7. In keeping with the Sun’s long tradition of taking liberties with Eakle’s name, the photo caption here gives him an incorrect middle initial – “Charles S. Eakle” – but identifies him as the son of Barbara Eakle of 818 Wellington St.

47 “Pitches No-Hit, No-Run Game,” Baltimore Sun, August 26, 1919: 8. The word “yanigan,” more commonly spelled “yannigan,” was once popular to describe second-string players, rookies, or backups; the implication here is that Eakle was pitching for the Hampden club’s second team. William F. Ross III, “Spring Training in Georgia: The Yannigans Are Coming!,” Society for American Baseball Research, The National Pastime: Baseball in the Peach State, 2010; accessed April 2023.

48 “Birds Booked to Play,” Baltimore Sun, April 9, 1920: 14.

49 Ralph Brackbill, “On the Lots,” Baltimore Sun, June 11, 1924: 25; “Hampden Nine to Tackle Medicos,” Baltimore Sun, April 17, 1925: 40.

50 “Fairfield Farms Nine Wins Interclub Crown,” Baltimore Sun, September 25, 1925: 16.

51 One of many examples: “Generals Capture Three Loop Tilts,” Baltimore Sun, December 18, 1926: 13.

52 Craig E. Taylor, “500 Ball Fans See Old Stars in Comeback,” Baltimore Sun, August 20, 1934: 14.

53 Gene Packard – the pitcher who surrendered Eakle’s first hit, a double on August 20 – had died in California just about one month earlier, on May 19, 1959. George Johnson, who surrendered Eakle’s other major-league hit, was shot dead in an argument in June 1922.

54 “Eakle” (obituary), Baltimore Sun, June 18, 1959. Incidentally, Eakle’s clipping file at the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum’s Giamatti Research Center consists entirely of his Sun obituary. His death passed unmentioned in The Sporting News.

55 Findagrave.com listing for Charles Emory Eakle, accessed April 2023.

56 “Wittig, Cotter, Horner Moving In;” “Old Timers Due Salute Tonight,” Baltimore Sun, January 19, 1968: 22. Continuing a Sun tradition into its seventh decade, Eakle’s last name was misspelled “Eakel.”

57 John Thorn, “Why Is the National Association Not a Major League … and Other Records Issues,” ourgame.mlblogs.com. Posted May 4, 2015; accessed April 2023. Thorn, a SABR member, is the official historian of Major League Baseball. Since Thorn’s post was written, Major League Baseball has also awarded major-league status to some of the Negro Leagues.

58 World War I draft registration card for Harold C. Shipley and US Census records for Leanna (Eyler) Shipley and family, accessed via Familysearch.org in April 2023. Harold Shipley’s mother is identified in some sources as Lena, but more commonly as Leanna.

59 Brothers Harold and Raymond Shipley played and managed together on the Stone Chapel Baseball Club in 1912, on the Pikesville Yannigans in 1913, and for Villa Nova in 1914 and 1915. “Stone Chapel Nine Has Fourth Meeting,” Baltimore Sun, April 3, 1912: 8; “Double Win for Pikesville,” Baltimore Sun, June 15, 1913: 14; “Villa Nova Takes Opener,” Baltimore Sun, June 21, 1914: 14; “Villa Nova Loses Both,” Baltimore Sun, June 29, 1915: 9. The Pikesville box score includes a third Shipley: Robert. He may have been related to Harold and Raymond, but he wasn’t their brother, based on U.S. Census records for the Shipley family.

60 The 1920 through 1940 U.S. Censuses, accessed through Familysearch.org, all list him as a railroad employee. In 1920 his job title was listed as accountant; in 1930, clerk; and in 1940, accountant.

61 “More Terrapin Boosters Preparing for the Season,” Baltimore Sun, March 20, 1914: 9.

62 “Gossip of Baltimore’s Amateur Balltossers,” Baltimore Sun, February 13, 1915: 8.

63 “Hampden Assumes Lead,” Baltimore Sun, June 20, 1915: 13; “Gossip of Baltimore’s Amateur Balltossers,” Baltimore Sun, April 12, 1915: 8.

64 C. Starr Matthews, “Knabe Returns Without Player,” Baltimore Sun, August 25, 1915: 5.

65 “Villa Nova Adds Two More,” Baltimore Sun, August 22, 1915: 13.

66 C. Starr Matthews, “John Ganzel Day at Terrapin Park,” Baltimore Evening Sun, August 23, 1915: 5. Matthews reported Eakle’s departure from the team in this same column. With Eakle absent, Matthews might have simply assumed that the other amateur tabbed by the Terrapins would now get a turn at second base. He didn’t.

67 A preseason example: “Villa Nova to Play in Athletic League,” Baltimore Evening Sun, March 7, 1916: 11.

68 “Baltimore and Ohio Will Have Football Eleven This Fall,” Baltimore Evening Sun, August 13, 1927: 10; “Trenton, Triple C Elevens Are Primed for Charity Joust,” Baltimore Sun, December 31, 1930: 11.

69 “Shipley” (obituary), Baltimore Evening Sun, June 17, 1940: 26.

70 A family tree for Harold Claude Shipley on Familysearch.org listed four children for Harold and Helen: Raymond, George, Harold and John. John’s dates of birth and death are listed as “1920-Deceased;” no obituary for him appears in the Baltimore Sun, and no entry at Findagrave.com matches his approximate date of birth. John is listed as living with his family in the 1920 US Census, but not in 1930, when he would have been 10 years old.