Emmett Bowles

Emmett Bowles’ story was once characterized as “the type that leaves the baseball fan choking back salty tears.”1 Indeed, the small-town Oklahoman’s first decade in the game was primarily spent toiling in obscurity as a semipro, accentuated by a failed cup of coffee in the major leagues. He even unsuccessfully resorted to written correspondence with Cincinnati Reds President Garry Herrmann in a desperate plea to “get someplace in baseball.”2 But after years of moving from team to team and town to town, the Native American pitcher finally achieved “legendary” status – in a most unlikely desert outpost.3

Any understanding of Bowles’ background would be incomplete without some discussion of the history of the Potawatomi in Oklahoma. Following a series of treaties signed from the 1820s through ’40s, the Potawatomi in the Great Lakes region – whose descendants had “developed close political, economic, and consanguine ties to the French” – were forced to relocate west.4 Many eventually settled outside Topeka, Kansas, near St. Mary’s Mission, a Jesuit-run institution that served tribe members. In the 1870s, the Citizen Potawatomi, a band of the tribe that had accepted US citizenship and a land allotment process in the prior decade, began relocating at their own expense from Kansas to the Indian Territory (Oklahoma) per stipulations of an 1867 treaty. This chronology closely follows Bowles’ own ancestral story.

The Citizen Potawatomi Nation’s website reports this of Bowles’ maternal grandmother: “Mary Margaret (Mack) McWinnery, a full-blood Potawatomi, was born in 1844 in Michigan. She was orphaned at a young age, and a non-Indian couple named McWinnery adopted her. Mary traveled to Kansas to study at St. Mary’s [Mission], where she eventually met [and married] Amable Toupin, a French-Canadian who looked to make a fortune on the early American frontier.”5 Being “among the more affluent Potawatomi families,” the couple had the wherewithal to become early settlers in Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma, where one of their children, Adele, eventually wed Michael Bowles, a Southern farmer of English heritage.6 In the early 1890s, Adele and Michael received a land allotment (which divvied up commonly held reservation lands to individual tribal members) in Wanette, Oklahoma, a cotton-based small community about 60 miles southeast of Oklahoma City.7 It was there on August 2, 1898, that the two brought Emmett Jerome Bowles into the world. Census information indicates that Bowles was the second youngest of his six known siblings: Lillie, Mary Elizabeth, Martha Louise, Grace, Andrew, and Alberta. An unidentified brother or sister reportedly died as a youngster (as did Lillie). Bowles was only 7 years old when his father passed away, leaving the clan’s matriarch to raise the family on her “own income” in Wanette.8 The rural area traces its formative period to the 1870s, when the noted French Benedictine monk Father Isidore Robot obtained nearby land from the Potawatomi in exchange for building a mission and school for the tribe members. The resulting formation of the Sacred Heart Mission became the “first center of Catholicism” in what was then Indian Territory.9

During his youth, Bowles cultivated his diamond skills by running “barefooted over the sandburrs on the vacant lots of Wanette playing ball.”10 After graduating from Wanette Grade School around 1916, he attended Sacred Heart College (later renamed St. Gregory’s University) in Shawnee, Oklahoma, for one year. In November 1917 Bowles enlisted in the US Army. Serving overseas in World War I, he was a bugler in the 20th Engineers Regiment. Dubbed the Fighting Foresters, these soldiers “operated in various areas of France’s forestlands, managing forest growth, felling and logging timber, and operating sawmills” to produce wood for American forces throughout Europe used for “building roads and railroads, constructing barracks, erecting telephone poles, supporting trenches, and various other building and construction projects.”11 The 20-year-old headed stateside in May 1919 and received his honorable discharge from the service a month later.

Immediately after returning from war, Bowles headed to south central Kansas, where he “pitched winning ball” for the semipro Larned club during the summer of 1919.12 The right-hander also moonlighted for the Hoisington team, located in an adjacent county.13 Despite possessing the nickname “Gravy” in his home area, contemporaneous newspaper articles indicate that he was becoming more widely known by the moniker Chief, an epithet that was commonly foisted upon Native Americans back in that day.14

The 1920 campaign found Bowles much closer to home in Oklahoma toeing the slab for independent clubs in Asher and Byars; both small towns were neighboring to his birthplace.15 Census information reported that Bowles worked as a farmer when not hitting the diamond. He lived alone in Eason, another rural community near Wanette.

After two years of laboring in anonymity, Bowles had a watershed season in 1921 – despite still not yet appearing in Organized Baseball. Back in the Sunflower State with his old Larned team, Bowles had “not lost a single contest to a strong club” well into August.16 The Hutchinson (Kansas) Gazette offered this scouting report of the hurler: “His broad smile and very peculiar delivery baffles opposing batters.”17 Featuring “perfect control” and a “strike out reputation,” Bowles reportedly fanned a remarkable 21 batters in an early August contest against Ellinwood.18 Particularly in the latter part of the campaign, the “husky” pitcher also loaned his services to the nearby Great Bend club, where his success continued.19 Less than two weeks after outdueling Ellinwood’s former big-league moundsman Claude Hendrix in early September, Bowles again victimized the rival club – this time with a no-hitter.20 His strong performance did not go unnoticed. Great Bend offered Bowles $50 per game plus a $1,500 year-end bonus to stay on for the 1922 season.21 Rumors also were circulating that a scout from the Kansas City Blues of the Double-A22 American Association had been giving the “bright” prospect the “once over.”23 And most significantly, the American League’s Chicago White Sox reportedly agreed to give Bowles a future tryout at the behest of Father Edward Cryne, a former collegiate athlete with Windy City roots and important baseball connections who had recently relocated to Larned. “When [Cryne] came West, [White Sox owner Charles] Comiskey, realizing our newly made Kansan’s judgment was good, requested Father Cryne to keep his eye open for big league timber,” reported the Kinsley (Kansas) Mercury.24 Finally ending any further speculation, in November the “sturdy” pitcher with “quite an assortment of stuff” signed with the Little Rock Travelers of the Class-A Southern Association after piquing the interest of the club’s manager, Kid Elberfeld.25

The frenzied activity at the end of the prior year continued into the 1922 campaign for Bowles. Reportedly on the spring camp roster in Seguin, Texas, for his promised tryout with the White Sox, the 6-foot, 180-pounder soon developed a sore arm and was farmed out to Little Rock, where the nagging ailment lingered.26 After getting hammered there in a preseason intrasquad exhibition in which he “was as wild as the proverbial March,” Bowles was demoted to the Joplin Miners of the Class-C Western Association.27 Because this proposed move “didn’t meet with his approval,” he decided instead to return to his old Great Bend club in the semipro ranks as a player-manager to open the regular season.28 The musical chairs resumed in mid-May, when Bowles was picked up by the Hutchinson Wheat Shockers of the Class-C Southwestern League. In his first regular-season appearance in Organized Baseball, Bowles “was pounded at a lively clip” by the Independence Producers in suffering an 8-3 complete-game loss.29 He was promptly released by Hutchinson and returned to Great Bend, where he tossed a no-hitter in recapturing his status as one of the “ranking independent right-handers of the state.”30

Despite the unevenness of his 1922 season to that point, Bowles was nonetheless summoned to report to the White Sox in August.31 Waiting until September 12 to finally make an appearance for the middling Chicago club, he was “hit hard” at Comiskey Park by the Cleveland Indians in his big-league debut.32 After rookie starter Cecil Duff gave up three consecutive hits to start the third inning, Bowles entered the game with one runner aboard and his team down 3-0. Although able to close out the frame, the 24-year-old was touched for two earned runs, two hits, and a walk in his one inning of work. First up to bat for the White Sox in the bottom half of the third, Bowles was replaced by pinch-hitter Augie Swentor, who was also making his premiere in “The Show.” Chicago went on to lose the contest 8-2, and Bowles was released shortly thereafter. The hurler described as dark-complexioned with black hair and blue eyes never appeared in another major-league game. (Neither did Swentor.)

Disappointedly returning to his familiar south central Kansas stamping grounds, Bowles capped his year with a modicum of consolation when he took the mound on October 27 for the independent Belpre club in a barnstorming exhibition tilt against Pratt. The Belpre squad that day included major-league star outfielder Bob Meusel, while Pratt featured none other than Silent Bob’s Yankee teammate Babe Ruth. In “arguably the most infamous case of barnstormers being penalized,” Meusel and Ruth had both been fined and suspended that spring by Commissioner Kenesaw Landis for wrongfully participating in postseason exhibition contests in 1921; this incident led to a loosening of barnstorming restrictions in the summer of 1922.33 Striking out six Pratt batters – including the Bambino – Bowles “shared the biggest honors of the day” with the slugging Meusel in Belpre’s 13-2 victory.34 Prior to his guest spot with Belpre, Bowles had earlier in the month plied his trade with the Little River and Great Bend semipro teams.

Although reportedly under contract with either the Portland Beavers or the Seattle Indians of the Double-A Pacific Coast League for the 1923 season, Bowles “didn’t want to go.”35 Instead, he remained in Kansas playing semipro ball for his old Larned squad. At some point during the year the Wichita Izzies of the Class-A Western League picked up Bowles’ contract, but it does not appear that he ever played for the team.

Continuing to call Kansas home in 1924, Bowles “pitched winning ball” after opening the campaign with the Independence Producers of the Class-D Southwestern League.36 The team ceased operations in early July; shortly thereafter he joined the Topeka Senators of the Class-C Western Association. Despite being awarded the victory in his first start (and appearance) with the team, Bowles was “pounded” and “knocked out of the box” in the high-scoring contest.37 And after being tagged with two losses while pitching poorly in a handful of outings over the subsequent two-week period, he was quickly released by the Senators. At the end of July, Bowles headed back the Southwestern League upon being picked up by the Eureka Oilers, with whom he finished the hectic season.38 All told during his time in the Southwestern loop with Independence and Eureka, the 26-year-old tossed 223 innings in 31 games and posted a 15-12 record with a respectable 4.32 RA9 (total runs, both earned and unearned, allowed per nine innings).

In February 1925 Bowles signed with the Denver Bears of the Class-A Western League for a salary of $300 per month. However, with his old Independence and Eureka clubs both believing they held claims to his services, a contract dispute was ignited. “I do not care with whom I play, but I do wish to make sure of a position,” Bowles said of the predicament.39 Denver ultimately prevailed but released the journeyman hurler toward the end of spring training. Back in the mix, Independence (now a member of the Class-C Western Association) quickly added Bowles to its regular-season roster; however, he “failed to make the grade” and was released after only two weeks without appearing in a game.40 Heading west, Bowles spent the season as the “big ace” of the local semipro club in Florence, Colorado, a town a little over 100 miles south of Denver, where he boasted that he had “as good a curve ball as anybody” that he could throw in a “knothole.”41

Moving about 30 miles east for the 1926 campaign, Bowles signed on as a slabman for the independent Pueblo Fords.42 Late that summer, he also moonlighted for the Wyoming-based Green River club in the Denver Post Tournament.43 Eventually becoming popularly known as the “Little World Series of the West,” this prominent competition (sponsored by its namesake newspaper) drew some of the nation’s best semipro teams.

After a 1927 season spent with the independent club in Rushville, Nebraska, Bowles returned to Pueblo – and Organized Baseball – in 1928, signing with the Steelworkers, the city’s new entry in the Class-A Western League.44 Upon posting an 0-2 record after pitching abysmally in his only two outings, he was released. Bowles remained in Colorado and spent the balance of the campaign tossing for the Leadville club, with which he competed again in that year’s Denver Post Tournament.45

After 10 nomadic seasons, Bowles settled down in Madrid, New Mexico, a booming coal-mining company town located between Albuquerque and Santa Fe. There, the “old master” excelled for the semipro Madrid Miners from 1929 to 1938 before finally hanging up his spikes.46 Although the team was made up primarily of miners from the Albuquerque and Cerrillos Coal Company, some “ringers” employed by the business – including Bowles – were “given special privileges” and not required to work underground.47 Behind the “stellar” veteran hurler’s mound exploits, the Miners – whose historic ballpark is said to be the first in the West to have been equipped with lights – became “one of the most feared teams in the Central New Mexico League” in the 1930s.48 Consistently drawing “nearly the entire town” of over 3,000 denizens to home games along with “crowds from around the state,” the team, with Bowles its “legendary” star, became an “institution” in central New Mexico.49 And despite their remote desert locale, the widely popular Miners drew barnstorming opponents of note such as the Detroit Colored Giants, the House of David, and the Zulu Cannibal Giants.50

With World War II pulling many miners into military service and the country simultaneously beginning to decrease its dependence on coal, the flagging mining industry began to suffer. Madrid began a decline to almost ghost-town status by the mid-1950s. It was at that time that Bowles, who had remained in Madrid as a miner until its near bitter end, relocated to the much more vibrant Albuquerque. There, the adopted New Mexican held memberships in the Catholic Church and the American Legion.51 Bowles shared his life with Nora (née Kirkham), a homemaker from his hometown whom he had wed in 1921 in a “seemingly sudden event” that “rather surprised” their friends.52 The union produced three daughters: Wilma Jean, Betty Jo, and Mickie Ann.

On September 3, 1959, Bowles died in Flagstaff, Arizona, where he had been working. Just prior to making a speech at the Flagstaff chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous, the 61-year-old “dropped dead” at the podium of a heart attack.53 Funeral services were held at St. Therese Catholic Church in Albuquerque, with interment nearby at Mount Calvary Cemetery.54

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank Kelly Boyer Sagert for her research assistance.

Sources

In addition to the sources listed in the Notes, the author accessed Bowles’ file from the library of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York; Bowles’ player contract card from The Sporting News collection; Ancestry.com; Baseball-Reference.com; Chronicling America; Fold3.com; GenealogyBank.com; NewspaperArchive.com; Newspapers.com; Paper of Record; Retrosheet.org; and Stathead.com.

Notes

1 L.M. Sutter, New Mexico Baseball: Miners, Outlaws, Indians and Isotopes, 1880 to the Present (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2010), 65.

2 Kelly Boyer Sagert, untitled biographical profile from Bowles’ file at the library of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

3 Sutter, New Mexico Baseball: Miners, Outlaws, Indians and Isotopes, 1880 to the Present, 68.

4 Mary B. Davis, Native America in the Twentieth Century: An Encyclopedia (New York: Routledge, 2014), 469.

5 “CPN Family Reunion Festival: Honored Families of 2018,” Citizen Potawatomi Nation, June 25, 2018, potawatomi.org/blog/2018/06/25/honored-families-of-2018, accessed May 27, 2022.

6 “Moving to Indian Territory,” Citizen Potawatomi Nation Cultural Heritage Center, potawatomiheritage.com/history, accessed June 3, 2022.

7 Sagert, untitled biographical profile from Bowles’ file at the library of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

8 1910 US Federal Census.

9 “Wanette,” Oklahoma Historical Society, okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=WA017, accessed May 30, 2022; “Benedictine Beginning: 1875-1891,” Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, archokc.org/history/1875-1891, accessed May 30, 2022.

10 Kate R. Snider, “Wanette,” Shawnee (Oklahoma) Morning News, October 30, 1921: 6.

11 “WWI: The 20th Engineers Regiment (‘Fighting Foresters’),” US Forest Service Southern Research Station,  srs.fs.usda.gov/video/fightingforesters, accessed May 30, 2022; “World War I: 10th and 20th Forestry Engineers,” Forest History Society, foresthistory.org/digital-collections/world-war-10th-20th-forestry-engineers, accessed May 30, 2022.

12 “Local Jottings,” Larned (Kansas) Chronoscope, October 9, 1919: 12.

13 “Beloit Was Too Good,” Hoisington (Kansas) Dispatch, September 4, 1919: 1.

14 Kate R. Snider, “Wanette,” Shawnee Morning News, April 7, 1921: 7.

15 Kate R. Snyder, “Asher,” Shawnee Morning News, June 30, 1920: 5; Kate R. Snyder, “Asher,” Shawnee Morning News, July 4, 1920: 5.

16 “Larned Will Meet Grain Club Today,” Hutchinson (Kansas) Gazette, August 14, 1921: 8.

17 “Larned Will Meet Grain Club Today.”

18 “Larned, With Indian Pitcher, Coming to Play Grain Club,” Hutchinson Gazette, August 13, 1921: 2; “Mound Battle Is Certainty,” Hutchinson News, August 13, 1921: 10.

19 “Chief Bowles May Get League Tryout,” Hutchinson News, September 20, 1921: 13.

20 “Locals Defeated Ellinwood,” Great Bend (Kansas) Daily Tribune, September 6, 1921: 6; “A No-Hit Game for Bowles,” Great Bend Daily Tribune, September 19, 1921: 2.

21 “Big Offer for ‘Chief’ Bowles,” Larned (Kansas) Tiller and Toiler, September 15, 1921: Second Section-1.

22 Double A then was the equivalent of today’s Triple A.

23 “Chief Bowles May Get League Tryout.”

24 “Scouting for Big League,” Kinsley (Kansas) Mercury, October 20, 1921: 5.

25 “Elberfield Signs an Indian Pitcher,” Arkansas Gazette (Little Rock), November 20, 1921: 18.

26 “Local Happenings,” Great Bend Daily Tribune, July 31, 1922: 3.

27 “Tutweiler and Sturdy Join Travelers’ Training Camp; Kidlets Trim Streeties,” Arkansas Democrat (Little Rock), March 14, 1922: 7.

28 “Local Happenings,” Great Bend Daily Tribune, March 25, 1922: 3; “Bowles to Manage Team,” Great Bend Tribune, May 8, 1922: 1.

29 “Bowles Is Hit Hard and Loses,” Hutchinson News, May 19, 1922: 3.

30 “A No-Hit, No-Run Game,” Great Bend Daily Tribune, June 12, 1922: 3; “Pitchers’ Battle Likely Tomorrow,” Hutchinson News, June 17, 1922: 3.

31 “Local Happenings,” Great Bend Daily Tribune, July 31, 1922: 3.

32 “Cleveland Takes 8 to 2 Game from White Sox,” Wilmington (North Carolina) Morning Star, September 13, 1922: 5.

33 Bill Francis, “At Home on the Road,” National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, baseballhall.org/discover-more/history/barnstorming-tours, accessed June 16, 2022.

34 “Local Happenings,” Great Bend Daily Tribune, October 28, 1922: 3.

35 “‘Rusty’ Pitched Two-Hit Game,” Ness County News (Ness City, Kansas), May 5, 1923: 1; “Chief Bowles Reports to Wichita,” Larned Tiller and Toiler, September 20, 1923: 2.

36 “The Fanning Bee Hive,” Hutchinson News, July 14, 1924: 3.

37 “The Fanning Bee Hive.”

38 “Eureka Hires New Pitchers,” Emporia (Kansas) Daily Gazette, July 30, 1924: 8.

39 “Fight Over Contract,” Wichita Daily Eagle, February 14, 1925: 3.

40 “Same Old Faces and Many New Ones in Western Association This Year,” Ardmore (Oklahoma) Daily Press, April 16, 1925: 2; “The Fanning Bee Hive.”

41 “Florence, Colorado, Enters Post’s Tenth Annual Baseball Tournament,” Denver Post, July 28, 1925: 17; Sagert, untitled biographical profile from Bowles’ file at the library of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

42 Leo Hoban, “North Denver Merchants Down Knights of Columbus, 10-8, in Elitch League,” Denver Post, May 10, 1926: 15.

43 C.L. Parsons, “Cheyenne and Woodmen Win Wednesday Afternoon Games in Post Tourney,” Denver Post, September 2, 1926: 22.

44 “Bats Will Swing at Hemingford,” Alliance (Nebraska) Times and Herald, April 26, 1927: 1.

45 “Leadville Wins From Rifle, 6-5,” Denver Post, July 17, 1928: 18; “Boulder and Texon Post Tourney Winners,” Denver Post, August 5, 1928: Section 5-3.

46 “Bowles Yields But 5 Hits to Local Ball Club,” Albuquerque Journal, August 11, 1930: 2.

47 Levi Weaver, “Miner Leagues: Discovering a Hidden Baseball Treasure in Madrid, New Mexico,” The Athletic, January 15, 2019, theathletic.com/756090/2019/01/15/miner-leagues-discovering-a-hidden-baseball-treasure-in-madrid-new-mexico, accessed June 19, 2022; Laurie Evans Frantz, The Turquoise Trail (Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing, 2013), 59.

48 Sutter, New Mexico Baseball: Miners, Outlaws, Indians and Isotopes, 1880 to the Present, 68; William M. Simons, The Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture, 2005-2006 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2007), 135.

49 Weaver, “Miner Leagues: Discovering a Hidden Baseball Treasure in Madrid, New Mexico”; Sutter, New Mexico Baseball: Miners, Outlaws, Indians and Isotopes, 1880 to the Present, 68.

50 Simons, The Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture, 2005-2006, 140-141.

51 “Emmett J. Bowles Dies in Arizona,” Albuquerque Tribune, September 4, 1959: A-2.

52 Kate R. Snider, “Wanette,” Shawnee Morning News, April 29, 1921: 6.

53 “Albuquerque Man Dies at Meeting,” Arizona Daily Sun (Flagstaff), September 4, 1959: 10.

54 “Bowles Rites Set,” Albuquerque Tribune, September 7, 1959: B-1.