Press Cruthers

Connie Mack’s approach to late-season lineup construction didn’t always put the best team on the field, but it gave Press Cruthers a major-league career.

During the Philadelphia Athletics’ dynastic era of 1910–1914, owner and manager Mack sometimes rested his regulars once the American League pennant had been won, handing over the last few games of the season to backups and tryouts.1 It was in this context that second baseman Cruthers played his entire big-league career—five games in September and October 1913, four more in the same period of 1914.

After retirement as a player, Cruthers managed in the All-American Girls’ Professional Baseball League. He also enjoyed a lengthy career in small-town municipal government in Wisconsin, though a late-life embezzlement scandal sullied his reputation.

Charles Preston Cruthers was born September 8, 1890, in Marshallton, Delaware, near Wilmington in the northern part of the state.2 He was the fourth child, the third living, of loom repairman John Cruthers and his wife Mary (Clevenger).3 While Cruthers’ name is usually cited in the 21st century as “Press,” the alternate spelling “Pres” was commonly used throughout his life, strongly suggesting that his nickname was based on his middle name.4

Cruthers and his family seem to have intermittently preferred the name Preston to Charles. On the 1900 and 1910 US Censuses, he was listed as “Preston C.”5 Some early newspaper mentions of his baseball career called him Preston Cruthers, including an item from July 1911 in which Cruthers appeared as the head of an amateur baseball team offering to take on all comers.6 As late as 1946, reporters writing about his municipal career were still occasionally calling him Preston C. Cruthers.7 Still, Mary Cruthers used the name Charles Preston when registering her son’s birth, and World War I and II military registration cards filled out by Cruthers or with his involvement also give his name as Charles Preston Cruthers. When Cruthers married and had children, he named one of them Charles Preston Cruthers Jr., apparently settling the matter.8

Both of Cruthers’ parents hailed from the Philadelphia area, and the family made its way there in the early years of the 20th century.9 By 1910 they were living in the adjacent city of Chester, where nineteen-year-old Press was employed making templates in a pattern shop.10 As with his first name, some inconsistency exists regarding his formal education. Baseball researcher Karl Wingler reported in the 1960s that Cruthers attended Chester High School from 1904 to 1908, but Cruthers’ wife told a US Census data-taker later in his life that his education ended in the eighth grade.11

A brief biographical sketch published in December 1912 gives a view of Cruthers’ early baseball activities. (It makes no mention of his attending high school or playing baseball at that level.) By the end of 1912, Cruthers had put in three years as a semipro player in local circuits called the City League, Inter-City League, and Delaware County League. He hit .313 in 24 games in 1912, earning praise for his slick fielding at shortstop after moving there from third base. The story referred to the twenty-two-year-old as “one hundred and thirty-five pounds of sterling,” adding, “The wiseheimers [sic] predict that with additional weight he would make the big show – quite true.”12 Cruthers’ major-league height and weight are listed as 5-foot-9 and 152 pounds, and he batted and threw right-handed.

Cruthers was described as the best all-round shortstop in the Delaware County League during the summer of 1912, and his talent drew the attention of both of Philadelphia’s major-league teams.13 In late September 1912, he and a semipro teammate from the Upland team worked out with the Phillies, though nothing came of it.14 That December he married Mary Myrtle Holliday of Chester; they remained married until her death in 1975.15 The couple had four children, three of whom lived to adulthood.16

Early in 1913, Cruthers signed his first pro contract with Raleigh in the Class D North Carolina State League. Conveniently, the team was managed by Earle Mack, Connie’s son. The younger Mack had played a few games for his father in 1910 and 1911; he later joined Cruthers for a late-season cup of coffee with the Athletics in 1914.17 Cruthers “has been coming very fast,” the Raleigh News and Observer touted in a preseason story. “Is an excellent fielder and a good batter. Should make a first-class man.”18

Cruthers cashed in on his opportunity by hitting .292 in 114 games with Raleigh, tying him for seventh in the league in batting average.19 On July 5, he offset two errors on defense by hitting a game-winning homer in a 3–1 victory over Durham.20 Despite that down day in the field, his defense otherwise earned praise. One account called him “as fast as greased lightning” in robbing an opponent of a base hit, while another described him as “a sensation” skilled at running down Texas Leaguers and pop flies.21 “Cruthers will not be in the minors very much longer,” the News and Observer rhapsodized in late July. “The second baseman has certainly got everyone beat in this league.”22

After the season, Earle Mack brought a picked team of North Carolina State League players, including Cruthers, to the Philadelphia area to play some exhibition games.23 On his arrival, Cruthers worked out for the Athletics, and on September 15, the Athletics drafted Cruthers and Durham outfielder Shag Thompson.24

The Athletics’ full-time second-base job was nailed down by future Hall of Famer Eddie Collins, who hit .345 and led the league with 125 runs scored in 1913.25 But the A’s clinched the AL pennant in the second game of a September 22 doubleheader against the Detroit Tigers, freeing up Connie Mack to give his youngsters and backups some late-season action.26

Cruthers made his big-league bow in intimidating fashion, starting at second base against another future Hall of Famer, Walter Johnson of Washington, on September 29. Cruthers went 0-for-4, struck out twice, and made an error that contributed to the only run of the game as a lineup of Philadelphia yannigans lost, 1–0. Four of Mack’s nine starters—Cruthers, Wickey McAvoy, Harry Fritz, and Monte Pfeffer—were making their major-league debut, and the Philadelphia Inquirer sarcastically referred to the lineup as “Mack’s kindergarten brood.”27 It was Johnson’s 36th victory of the season.

Cruthers appeared in four additional games in 1913, three of them starts. He collected his first major-league hit, a ground single off Washington’s Doc Ayers that bounced off the first-base bag, on September 30.28 The next day he went 3-for-4. All told, Cruthers went 5-for-17 in his five-game stint, a .294 average. After his first game, he did not commit another error. He did not play in the World Series, won by the Athletics over the New York Giants.

When Cruthers was drafted, the Raleigh newspaper predicted he’d be back in Raleigh in 1914, noting that Cruthers and Thompson “[need] more experience before going up to the big leagues.”29 Instead, Cruthers landed neither in Raleigh nor in Philadelphia to start the season. After a spring training trial with the Athletics, he was sent to the Reading, Pennsylvania, team of the Class B Tri-State League, where he hit .269 in 108 games. His fielding average of .958 also ranked near the top of the league’s second basemen.30

An early-season news item pegged a weakness in the young man’s skills. While he was fast afoot, sure with the glove, and solid at bat, Cruthers had a subpar throwing arm, even by second-base standards. “When it comes to making the long throw to the plate on the double steal, or on a long hit to deep right, or working as pivot man on a short-to-second-to-first double play, his throw arrives at its goal just the vital fraction of a second too late to get the runner,” the story declared.31

The Athletics clinched their fourth AL pennant in five seasons on September 27, 1914; true to form, Mack had three big-league debutants in his lineup the next day.32 Starting a few days later, Cruthers again served as a late-season sub for Collins, who’d hit .344 and again led the AL in runs scored.

Cruthers started four straight games at second base from September 30 to October 3. In his first game back, he went 2-for-4 with a triple and scored the game-tying run in the ninth inning as the Athletics beat the Senators, and on October 2, he collected his only big-league RBI off Washington’s Harry Harper.33 Again, he did not play in the World Series, in which the Athletics fell to the Boston Braves in one of the era’s biggest upsets.

Cruthers ended the season hitting .200 in 15 at-bats. He wrapped up his nine-game major-league career with a .250 batting average (8-for-32), one run scored, a double, a triple, no homers, and one RBI.34 He did not walk, struck out four times, and was caught stealing once. His lifetime fielding average was .973.

Cruthers spent the next four seasons with Memphis of the Class A Southern Association. His average declined from .290 in 1915 to .226 in 1918, and the momentum of his career slowed. Connie Mack, reportedly satisfied with other recruits, did not beckon him in September 1915, even though the Athletics slumped to a miserable 43–109–2 record.35 Cruthers began the 1916 season with a lengthy holdout, then fell short of his usual standard of play when he arrived in Memphis; the Nashville Banner said he had “slowed up considerably during the past pair of seasons.”36 He was still believed by some to be a candidate for the major-league draft in September 1916, but was not chosen.37

Traded to Indianapolis in June 1918, Cruthers refused to report. Instead, he went home to Chester and took a job with a company known for providing ballplayers with jobs to keep them out of active military service.38

In 1981, after Cruthers’ death, his son Charles Jr. told a spicy story to baseball researcher Bill Haber. Charles Jr. claimed that Connie Mack had sent a telegram to Memphis telling Cruthers to report to Philadelphia, but the Memphis team’s owner intercepted it and sold Cruthers to Indianapolis instead. According to his son, Cruthers refused to accept the Indianapolis assignment and was banished from organized ball.39 Cruthers never played pro ball again after 1918—though it’s not clear whether that was due to front-office double dealing, as described by his son, or simply because Cruthers’ performance had been declining and he’d found a lucrative job off the field.40

Cruthers continued to play and manage semipro baseball with a variety of teams. (He received early experience in managing in 1919, when he skippered Chester High School’s baseball team.)41 In 1922, he moved to Kenosha, Wisconsin, taking a job at the Simmons bedding company and a roster spot on the company’s baseball team.42 The team included a number of players with major-league experience, including Dickie Kerr, Larry Kopf, Ben Dyer, Ty Tyson, Rolla Mapel, Norman Plitt, and Bill Lathrop.43

Shortly after coming to Kenosha, Cruthers bought a home in the neighboring, independent village of Pleasant Prairie. In 1933, he successfully ran for the position of town clerk, which he kept for more than 25 years.44 Although he held a war-related job during World War II, the town clerk position appears to have been his chief employment for the rest of his working years.45 His duties included issuing legal advertisements announcing town business. Perhaps appropriately, one early example of these ads involved the granting of a liquor license to a baseball park run by another former major-leaguer, Ollie O’Mara.46

Cruthers wasn’t done with baseball, though. His sons, Charles Jr.47 and Harold (“Hal”), both played pro ball in the lower levels of the Brooklyn Dodgers’ minor-league system in the years before World War II. During the war, “Pres” managed both sons on a team backed by Kenosha United Auto Workers Local 72. At one point, they played a team from the Great Lakes Naval Training Center that was managed by Hall of Famer Mickey Cochrane and included Schoolboy Rowe, Clyde McCullough, Virgil Trucks, and other major leaguers.48

And in August 1945, the third season of the All-American Girls’ Professional Baseball League, Cruthers replaced Eddie Stumpf as manager of Kenosha’s team, the Comets. Cruthers’ big-league pedigree and extensive semipro managing experience were cited, and he was reported to be “eager to take the managerial helm.”49 The Comets were 30–49 when Cruthers took over; they finished in sixth (last) place with a 41–69 record.

Cruthers returned as skipper for 1946. In a league expanded to eight teams, Cruthers avoided a last-place finish, but he couldn’t improve the Comets’ performance. The team went 42–70 and finished seventh. In February 1947, Cruthers was replaced by former big-league outfielder Ralph Shinners.50

At least one Comet, Jeanette Bottazzi, had positive things to say about Cruthers, describing him years later as “like somebody’s father or grandfather.”51 A Kenosha sports column cryptically hinted that Cruthers had “several problems” behind the scenes, mentioning “undeserved treatment” by players and fans. “It’s tougher than a boarding house steak to manage a gals’ team,” the item concluded.52

Cruthers continued to serve as town clerk until the spring of 1960, when he announced his retirement at age sixty-nine. He said he planned to move to California, do more hunting and fishing, and nurse a chronic hip injury.53 He was succeeded as clerk by Lawrence Carpenter, who’d served as Pleasant Prairie’s treasurer. Carpenter’s tenure proved short-lived: He suffered a heart attack in October 1960 and retired in November 1961.54

State auditors were the next to look at Pleasant Prairie’s books, and they didn’t like what they saw.55 In July 1962, two criminal charges of embezzlement were filed against Cruthers, who was accused of diverting more than $7,530 of town funds for his own use in separate incidents in 1959 and 1960. All told, $15,761.50 of town money from Cruthers’ and Carpenter’s tenures could not be accounted for.56 Carpenter was beyond prosecution, having taken his own life in January 1962.57

Cruthers agreed to return to Wisconsin to stand trial. In a pre-trial interview, the limping, white-haired former clerk claimed he had “not taken a nickel” from the town’s coffers and would clear his name.58 Cruthers initially pleaded innocent, but changed his plea to no contest in May 1963 and was found guilty of both charges.59 He was sentenced to eight years at the state prison at Waupun, Wisconsin; the judge immediately commuted his sentence to probation.60

Cruthers, who had been inducted into the Delaware County (Pennsylvania) Athletes Hall of Fame in January 1963, lived the rest of his life quietly.61 Cruthers and his wife moved back to the Kenosha area in 1968 to live with their daughter.

Myrtle Cruthers died in February 1975. Her husband, living in a care facility, followed on December 27, 1976, at age eighty-six.62 He was survived by a brother, two sons, a daughter, nine grandchildren, and nine great-grandchildren. Following services at a local funeral home, Cruthers was buried in Sunset Ridge Cemetery in Somers, Wisconsin.63

Acknowledgments

This story was reviewed by Rory Costello and Abigail Miskowiec and fact-checked by Dan Schoenholz. The author thanks the Giamatti Research Center at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum for research assistance.

Sources

In addition to the sources credited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for background information on players, teams, and seasons.

Photo credits

Full-body photo of Cruthers from the Memphis Commercial Appeal, March 20, 1917: 11. Photo of Cruthers’ disembodied head from the Memphis Commercial Appeal, April 19, 1918: 13.

Notes

1 Between 1910 and 1914, the Athletics won four American League pennants and three World Series titles.

2 As of November 2025, Cruthers was the only big-league player, manager, coach, or umpire in Retrosheet with Marshallton listed as his birthplace. (One former major leaguer died there: former outfielder Bill Bruton, in 1995.)

3 State of Delaware delayed birth registration for Charles Preston Cruthers, accessed via FamilySearch.org in August 2025, https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FLJT-457?lang=en. Cruthers’ birth was not registered until 1942, with his mother, Mary, serving as the source of his birth information.

4 For instance, at least one news story during Cruthers’ criminal trial in the early 1960s spelled it with one “s”: Joe Jacoby, “Cruthers Says He’ll Clear Name,” Kenosha (Wisconsin) News, July 24, 1962: 8. The earliest mention of “Pres Cruthers” in Newspapers.com at the time this biography was researched dated to early 1914: “Cruthers Gone South,” Chester (Pennsylvania) Times, February 25, 1914: 6.

5 1900 US Census (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M31R-M4R?lang=en) and 1910 US Census (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MGQ5-PQK?lang=en) listings for “Preston C. Cruthers,” accessed via FamilySearch.org in August 2025.

6 “First Ward’s Challenge,” Chester (Pennsylvania) Times, July 18, 1911: 6.

7 “Two Precincts in Pleasant Prairie,” Kenosha Evening News, August 9, 1946: 3.

8 1918 World War I draft registration card (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:WB3N-JDW2?lang=en) and 1942 World War II draft registration card (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:X59R-Z4M?lang=en) for Charles Preston Cruthers, accessed via FamilySearch.org in August 2025. A letter signed by Charles P. Jr. is part of Cruthers’ clip file at the Giamatti Research Center at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

9 Cruthers’ Delaware birth registration document, cited above, lists his parents’ birthplaces as Manayunk and Roxborough, Pennsylvania. Both places began as independent communities and were consolidated into the city of Philadelphia in the 1850s; today, they are neighborhoods of the city.

10 1910 US Census listing for the Cruthers family, previously cited. The family was in Chester by February 1908, based on a mention in “Hockessin,” Wilmington (Delaware) Evening Journal, February 27, 1908: 8.

11 Letter of April 22, 1962, from Karl Wingler to “Lee” (possibly Lee Allen), included in Cruthers’ clip file at the Giamatti Research Center; 1940 US Census listing (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:K7NZ-77R?lang=en) for Charles Cruthers and family, accessed via FamilySearch.org in August 2025. Wingler’s letter does not cite a source.

12 “Who’s Who in Local Baseball: Preston Cruthers,” Chester Times, December 7, 1912: 5. The story does not mention the Delaware County League by name but mentions that Cruthers played for a team called Upland. Other coverage from the same period in the same newspaper makes clear that Upland played in the Delaware County League.

13 “The Up Is Possible in County Struggle,” Chester Times, July 31, 1912: 6.

14 “Texas Leaguers,” Chester Times, September 27, 1912: 4. A more oblique reference to Cruthers being scouted by big-league teams is found in “Sports By ‘Mac,’” Chester Times, September 21, 1912: 6.

15 “Cruthers” (obituary), Kenosha News, March 1, 1975: 9. Myrtle Cruthers was referred to as Mary in official documents such as the Cruthers family’s listings in the 1920 US Census (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MFRL-PC8?lang=en) and 1930 US Census (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:X9QP-D4Q?lang=en), both accessed via Familysearch.org in August 2025.

16 “Cruthers” (obituary), Kenosha News, March 1, 1975: 9.

17 Mack and Cruthers were both in the Athletics’ starting lineups on September 30 and October 1, 1914—Mack at first base, Cruthers at second. The Athletics beat Washington in both games, played before sparse crowds at Griffith Stadium.

18 “Mack Secures Twelve Players,” Raleigh (North Carolina) News and Observer, February 26, 1913: 5. The story also shaved two years off Cruthers’ age, listing him as twenty years old.

19 “League Secretary Gives Out Averages,” Asheville (North Carolina) Sunday Citizen, September 7, 1913: 16.

20 “Cruthers Break [sic] It Up with Homer,” Raleigh News and Observer, July 6, 1913: 15.

21 “Raleigh Defeats Patriots Again,” Raleigh News and Observer, August 22, 1913: 7; “Capitals Given Severe Check,” Raleigh News and Observer, August 13, 1913: 3.

22 “Diamond Dust,” Raleigh News and Observer, July 22, 1913: 3.

23 “Earl [sic] Mack a Success First Year as Leader,” Fort Worth (Texas) Record, September 1, 1913: 3; “Earl [sic] Mack Will Bring Leaguers Here Sunday,” New Brunswick (New Jersey) Daily Home News, September 10, 1913: 8.

24 “Earl [sic] Mack Will Bring Leaguers Here Sunday”; “Athletics Draft Cruthers and ‘Shag’ Thompson,” Raleigh News and Observer, September 16, 1913: 3. News articles about Earle Mack’s minor-league all-star team do not mention Thompson taking part; it’s possible the Athletics scouted him separately, or that Earle Mack recommended Thompson to his father. Thompson did not play for Philadelphia in 1913 but played 48 games with the club across the next three seasons.

25 Collins also posted the American League’s best Wins Above Replacement total at 9.0, though that metric had not yet been developed in 1913.

26 “Athletics Are Champions for Fifth Season,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 23, 1913: 1.

27 “Johnson Had No Cinch Winning,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 30, 1913: 12. Pfeffer never played another big-league game.

28 “Mack’s Infants Made but One Real Hit off Recruit Doc Ayers,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 1, 1913: 12.

29 “Athletics Draft Cruthers and ‘Shag’ Thompson.”

30 “Foster Leading Tri-State Hitter,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 5, 1914: 10.

31 “Cruthers for Reading,” Allentown (Pennsylvania) Leader, May 6, 1914: 10.

32 “Mack’s Athletics League Champion For Sixth Time,” Philadelphia Evening Ledger, September 28, 1914: 11. The September 28 game marked the only big-league appearances for all three of Mack’s first-time players, Toots Coyne, Buck Sweeney, and Fred Worden.

33 Three more fledgling big-leaguers—Sam Crane, Ferdie Moore and Ben Rochefort—made their major-league debuts with the Athletics in games started by Cruthers in 1914.

34 A discrepancy exists regarding Cruthers’ lifetime batting average. Three Washington, D.C., papers—the Post, Evening Star, and Herald—credited him with three hits in the game of October 1, 1913, while the Philadelphia Inquirer credited him with two. If Cruthers collected three hits, his lifetime batting line would be 8-for-32, or .250; if two hits, 7-for-32, or .219.  The game in question was in Washington, so this account sides with the Washington papers’ accounts, which awarded Cruthers three hits.

35 “Phillies, In Steam-Roller Act, Sweep Onward through West,” Philadelphia Evening Ledger, September 15, 1915: 10. Collins was sold to the Chicago White Sox for $50,000 in December 1914; Mack purchased future Hall of Famer Nap Lajoie from the Cleveland Indians the next month to replace him.

36 “Starr To Develop Hitting Pitchers,” Little Rock (Arkansas) Democrat, March 9, 1917: 17; Bob Pigue, “In the Sport Realm,” Nashville Banner, January 30, 1917: 8; “Press Cruthers Joins the Chicks,” Nashville Banner, July 7, 1916: 14.

37 “Chick Pitcher Drafted by Yankees,” Memphis Commercial Appeal, September 16, 1916: 9.

38 “Missing Indian Found in Shipbuilding Loop,” Indianapolis News, June 28, 1918: 22. Cruthers’ entry in the 1930 US Census, cited above, specifies that he did not serve in the armed forces.

39 Letter from Charles P. Cruthers Jr. to Bill Haber, dated March 11, 1981, preserved in Press Cruthers’ clip file at the Giamatti Research Center. Cruthers Jr. claimed to have spoken with Connie Mack about his father’s career in 1944. Cruthers Jr. placed these events in 1917, but contemporary news reports place Cruthers’ trade to Indianapolis in June 1918.

40 Bob Pigue, “Chicks Planning for Good Outfit,” Birmingham (Alabama) News, February 17, 1919: 5.

41 “Chester High Nine Opens with Trades on Saturday,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 17, 1919: 17; “Chester High Beats Darby,” Chester Times, May 10, 1919: 14.

42 “Chester Wins, 6-5, Cruthers Departs,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 16, 1922: 19; “Ball Games Are Big Attraction,” Portage (Wisconsin) Register-Democrat, September 22, 1923: 1. Cruthers’ 1930 US Census listing, cited above, describes him as a foreman in a bed factory.

43 “When Kenosha Baseball Rivalled Major League Brand” (photo and caption), Kenosha News, April 6, 1963: 9. Although he’s not in this photo, Cruthers’ Philadelphia teammate Wickey McAvoy also worked and played for Simmons in this period.

44 “Retiring Pleasant Prairie Clerk Once Star with Owls,” Kenosha Evening News, April 13, 1960: 12.

45 Cruthers’ listing in the 1940 US Census (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:K7NZ-77R?lang=en), accessed via FamilySearch.org in August 2025, lists his occupation as “town clerk.” While that doesn’t rule out other employment, it suggests that Cruthers considered his municipal position to be his principal work. His World War II draft card, cited above, lists his employer as “Town of Pleasant Prairie.” Cruthers’ World War II job is mentioned in “Plan Caucuses; Candidates File in Pleasant Prairie,” Kenosha Evening News, March 4, 1949: 5.

46 “Application for Liquor License” (advertisement), Kenosha Evening News, July 2, 1934: 13.

47 As of August 2025, Charles Cruthers Jr. was identified in Baseball-Reference as “Preston Cruthers.”

48 Eddie McKenna, “UAW-Great Lakes Play Ball Game Tonight,” Kenosha Evening News, August 25, 1944: 8.

49 Eddie McKenna, “Switch Stumpf to League Office; Pres Cruthers Will Manage Comets,” Kenosha Evening News, August 11, 1945: 3.

50 Eddie McKenna, “Ralph Shinners Signs to Manage Comets,” Kenosha Evening News, February 15, 1947: 6.

51 Brian Englehardt, “Jeanette Bottazzi,” SABR Biography Project, accessed August 2025, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/jeanette-bottazzi/.

52 “Tee Time Tales at Larkin Golf Party for Chisox,” Kenosha Evening News, September 18, 1946: 12.

53 “Retiring Pleasant Prairie Clerk Once Star with Owls.”

54 “Pl. Prairie Picks Clerk and Treasurer,” Kenosha Evening News, April 29, 1960: 8; “Pleasant Prairie Clerk Resigns,” Kenosha Evening News, November 16, 1961: 14.

55 Associated Press, “Convict Clerk of Embezzling,” Waukesha (Wisconsin) Daily Freeman, June 18, 1963: 2.

56 “Fund Shortage Charged in Pleasant Prairie,” Kenosha News, July 20, 1962: 1. According to an online inflation calculator made available by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, $7,530 in January 1960 money had the same buying power as $83,022 in July 2025, while $15,761 had the same buying power as $173,773 over the same time span.

57 “Former Official Is Found Dead,” Kenosha Evening News, January 12, 1962: 8.

58 “Former Town Clerk Picked Up in California,” Kenosha News, July 21, 1962: 1; Jacoby, “Cruthers Says He’ll Clear Name.”

59 “Cruthers Guilty, Rules Judge Baker,” Kenosha Evening News, May 27, 1963: 1. A plea of no contest, formally known as “nolo contendere,” means that the defendant does not admit guilt but agrees to accept the punishment associated with a guilty plea.

60 “Judge Orders Probation for Cruthers,” Kenosha News, June 17, 1963: 1.

61 “Hall Of Fame Inducts 19 Greats,” Delaware County (Pennsylvania) Daily Times, January 24, 1963: 20.

62 “Cruthers” (obituary), Kenosha News, March 1, 1975: 9; “Cruthers” (obituary), Kenosha News, December 28, 1976: 19.

63 “Cruthers” (obituary), Kenosha News, December 28, 1976: 19; “Ex-Town Clerk, Cruthers, Dies,” Racine (Wisconsin) Journal Times, December 28, 1976: 6A.