George Leidy

Outfielder George Leidy is “as fine a fielder as ever went after a ball, as well as a splendid hitter.” – Birmingham News, 19011

“I owe George Leidy more than any other man in baseball for training given me when I needed it most.” – Ty Cobb, 19212

A career minor-leaguer, George Leidy was a brilliant center fielder and a .300 hitter in his prime. He was also a coach, manager, umpire, and scout in a career that spanned 35 years. His mentoring was his greatest contribution to the game. In his late thirties, as a member of the 1905 Augusta Tourists, he mentored an 18-year-old teammate, Ty Cobb. “Leidy was one of the biggest forces that made me a success,” said Cobb.3 Leidy was recognized as “one of the best managers in minor league baseball.”4

George Osmun Leidy was born in Phillipsburg, New Jersey, in 1866 or 1867 and grew up there.5 His surname “Leidy” (LIE-dee) rhymes with “Heidi.”6 He was one of nine children born to John H. and Bertha (West) Leidy.7 John worked as an iron foundry moulder, a trade George learned as a young man.8

Research has revealed little about George’s early years. The earliest reports of his ballplaying are from 1891, when he was an outfielder in his mid-20s playing for the West End Athletic Club of Somerville, New Jersey,9 and the Star Athletics of Newark.

In Plainfield, New Jersey, on September 7, 1891, Leidy made a sensational play in center field for the Star Athletics. Willie Keeler, the future Hall of Famer, batted for the Plainfield Crescents with a runner on first base and sent a “sky-scraper” to center field. “Leidy started after it, and after a run of fully two hundred feet, caught the ball about a foot from the ground. He was going with such speed that he couldn’t stop and he fell, turning completely over.” He “sprang to his feet and by the prettiest kind of a throw got the ball to first” to complete “a wonderfully brilliant double play.” It was “the most remarkable play ever seen” on the local grounds, reported the Plainfield Press.10

Leidy joined the Crescents the next year and became a teammate of Keeler.11 On September 17, 1892, Leidy made six putouts in center field; “three of them would have been safe hits with anyone else in center,” noted the Press.12 His range was extraordinary. According to one report, the center fielder once caught a fly ball in foul ground.13 And he demonstrated that he could hit, achieving a .310 batting average for the Crescents.14

A right-handed batter and thrower, Leidy stood 5-feet-10 and weighed 176 pounds.15 In 1893 he batted .303 in 88 games for Scranton in the Pennsylvania State League. On June 30, he hit for the cycle against Harrisburg.16 He slugged a home run at Reading on July 24 and another in Scranton four days later, and both were said to be the longest balls ever hit at their grounds.17

Leidy began the 1894 season on the Indianapolis Hoosiers of the Western League. On June 24, he belted two home runs in the Hoosiers’ 14-3 rout of Grand Rapids.18 He was hitting .288 when the club released him in July to make room for another outfielder, Jack McCarthy, acquired from the Cincinnati Reds.19 Leidy was picked up by Reading and his ninth-inning home run on July 17 was the game winner at Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The next day he recorded eight putouts in center field in Reading’s loss to Harrisburg.20 At Lancaster on August 20, he again collected eight putouts and hit a home run.21 Offensively and defensively, he shined.

Outside of baseball, Leidy enjoyed singing. He “possessed an excellent baritone voice” and performed in many concerts.22 A report of one performance mentions that he “sang a number of Irish songs in a pleasing manner.”23

After the Reading team disbanded in July 1895, Leidy went to Lancaster, and he was the mainstay of the team in center field through the end of the 1899 season. In the five seasons from 1895 to 1899, he played in 516 games and batted .306.24

At Lancaster on August 5, 1895, Leidy made a phenomenal catch in the ninth inning of a victory over Allentown:

“Leidy was playing a deep centre when [Adam] Stanhope drove the sphere between right and centre, which seemed to be out of the reach of any of the fielders. Leidy saw it coming and started on what looked like a hopeless gallop toward it. That he could get to it seemed impossible, and the ball was descending, with the fielder coming like a race horse. Close to the ground was the sphere when Leidy at full speed, bending forward and with arms extended to their utmost limit, grasped it with the tips of his fingers, and held it fast, while he rolled head over heels after having completed one of the most remarkable plays ever seen on an outfield anywhere. The crowd went wild with delight and enthusiasm when he rose triumphant from his headlong plunge.”25

On July 31, 1896, Paterson, New Jersey, edged Lancaster, 2-1, in 13 innings.26 Honus Wagner played first base for Paterson (his major-league debut came a year later), and several future managers were in the lineup: for Lancaster, Leidy in center field, Andy Roth catching, and Tom Stouch at second base; and for Paterson, Bill Armour in center field. Leidy and Roth managed Ty Cobb at Augusta in 1905, and Armour was Cobb’s first manager in Detroit, 1905-06. Stouch discovered Shoeless Joe Jackson in Greenville, South Carolina, in 1908.

Lancaster won the Atlantic League pennant in 1897, as Leidy enjoyed his finest season, hitting .330 with 31 doubles, 22 triples, and 129 runs scored in 130 games. But the Atlantic League was a Class B league that year, and no major-league team came calling.

In 1900 Leidy hit .297 in 110 games for Troy in the New York State League.27 He then moved south. He began the 1901 season on the Birmingham, Alabama, team of the Southern Association. On June 28, 1901, he was struck on the right forearm by a pitch and suffered a broken bone.28 The club released him, believing he was done for the season.29

While waiting for the bone to heal, Leidy worked as an umpire in the Southern Association. But he could not stand the unrelenting abuse hollered by players and fans. On August 24, 1901, Leidy quit in the middle of a game he was umpiring at Little Rock, Arkansas. In front of the grandstand, “he lammed his indicator at the ground and taking the balls out of his waist threw them with all his might against the wall, exclaiming … ‘I’m through! I’m through! I’ve been made a monkey of long enough, and I’m not going to stand it any longer!’”30

Three days later, with his forearm apparently healed, Leidy played in right field for Little Rock,31 and he remained with the team for the rest of the season. Combining his Birmingham and Little Rock numbers, he batted .295 in 74 games in 1901. The Atlanta Constitution praised his fine bunting: “No surer bunter can be found in the southern association than Leidy.”32

Leidy played for Atlanta in the Southern Association at the start of the 1902 season, but after a dispute with the team owner in July, he was transferred to Birmingham. A highlight at Birmingham on August 26, 1902, “was a catch by Leidy in left field of a long fly that looked good for five or six bases.”33

Early each year from 1902 to 1906, Leidy coached the baseball team at the Marion (Alabama) Military Institute.34 In 1903 he played for New Orleans until his release in July, and then briefly for Monroe, Louisiana, before rejoining the umpiring staff of the Southern Association.35 Maybe umpiring was not so awful.

In 1904 Leidy received his first managerial appointment, with Monroe of the Cotton States League. He batted .273 and led the team to a third-place finish in the six-team circuit. He did not play early in the season after he again suffered a broken right arm when hit by a pitch.36 He recovered well enough to play, but his throwing was evidently weakened. “Leidy has a transfer station at second at which all balls he throws home must stop,” noted the Vicksburg Evening Post. “If Leidy had a good throwing arm he would not be in the Cotton States League.”37

Manager Leidy was criticized for his treatment of umpires. At Greenville, Mississippi, on July 8, 1904, he made a “furious howl” over an umpire’s call, used offensive language, and “ordered his men off the baseball field,” thereby forfeiting the game.38 It was a “childish display of temper.”39

In 1905 Leidy was invited by an old friend, Andy Roth, to join the Augusta (Georgia) Tourists of the South Atlantic League.40 Roth had become manager of the team and sought the veteran Leidy to help guide the team’s passel of youngsters.41 Leidy accepted and Roth named him captain.42 The Augusta Herald described Leidy as “a fleet runner, a sure fielder, a good hitter, [and] a scrappy player, [who] knows the game from A to Z, [and] never gets rattled.”43

Teacher and pupil played side-by-side in the Augusta outfield: Leidy in center field and 18-year-old Ty Cobb in left or right. Cobb observed the master at work – Leidy made no errors in 74 games, while Cobb committed 13 errors in 103 games.44

“Cobb was just a stripling then, but he had speed to burn and plenty of fire,” said Leidy. “You could see it in the depths of his eyes.”45 In Cobb, Leidy saw a diamond in the rough. “He was awkward,” said Leidy. “But how he could hit and how he could field! And above all things how he could run around those bases!”46

Cobb had considered quitting baseball, but that changed when Leidy took an interest in him. Leidy told him he “had the makings of a big leaguer” and painted for him a grand vision of what his life could become if he focused on baseball.47

Coaching the young Cobb was like training a wild colt. “I was a bundle of springs,” Cobb admitted, and was “running hog-wild.”48 “This kid is high-strung and he can’t be bullied,” Leidy observed. “He’s got to be nursed along,” “handled like a prancing colt” if he were to become “a fine thoroughbred race horse.”49

Leidy taught Cobb how to use his speed and instructed him on sliding techniques.50 Unlike the conservative Roth, Leidy favored aggressive tactics.51 Take chances on the basepaths, Leidy told Cobb; it puts pressure on the defense. Cobb stole 40 bases for Augusta52 and credited Leidy for his success.53

Cobb was fast enough to beat out bunts for base hits, and for many hours, Leidy worked with him on his bunting. “He put a sweater along the third base line at just the right spot that a bunt should be placed,” said Cobb, and he “made me bunt and bunt and bunt until I got so I could just about put the ball on that sweater every time.”54

Daring on the basepaths and pinpoint bunting would become hallmarks of Cobb’s game. Leidy “never would rant at me in a harsh manner to discourage me, but always talked to me in a nice fatherly manner,” said Cobb.55 “He was never too busy to go into details and explain things to me. Through him I began to see the hundreds of things one must learn in the game. … He put the right notions into my head and his kindliness kept me working to look well in his eye. He constantly encouraged me and spurred me on.”56 Years later, “Leidy said that he never had a more likeable, independent, hot tempered or naturally skillful recruit than Cobb.”57

At Columbia, South Carolina, on June 29, 1905, the Augusta Tourists defeated the Columbia Gamecocks, 5-3.58 Cobb was the leadoff hitter and Leidy batted second in the lineup. They each contributed three hits and scored two runs. A local newspaper noted that “Cobb is very fast and yesterday he beat out ground balls that other men would never have reached first base on. He is a good man for this league and will someday go into a better one.”59

On July 20, the Tourists were in fourth place in the six-team league when Leidy replaced Roth as manager.60 But Leidy served as manager for less than a month. After winning seven of 10 games, the team won only two of the next 12.61 He was released on August 14 and Roth was reinstated.62

At the time of Leidy’s release, Cobb was back home in Royston, Georgia, after a family tragedy. On August 8, Cobb’s mother mistook Cobb’s father for a burglar and fatally shot him.63 When the shaken Cobb returned to Augusta for the game of August 16, his baseball mentor was no longer on the team.

Cobb led the South Atlantic League with a .326 batting average (the league average was .225),64 and on August 30, he made his major-league debut with the Detroit Tigers. Over the next 23 years, he was one of the greatest players in baseball history. Periodically, he and Leidy would get together, and they would reminisce about the 1905 season.65 “I regard Leidy as one of the best friends I ever had in baseball,” said Cobb.66

Leidy batted .264 in 86 games for Augusta. The next year he played for the pennant-winning Mobile, Alabama, team of the Cotton States League. His .291 batting average in 109 games ranked fifth in the league among players with at least 300 at-bats. The league average was only .222.67

In 1907 Leidy hit .259 in 135 games for the San Antonio Bronchos of the Texas League, and though 40 years old, he stole 38 bases. His .982 fielding percentage was the highest among outfielders in the circuit.68 He captained the team that year and was promoted to manager after the season.69

Under Leidy’s leadership, the 1908 Bronchos won the pennant in the eight-team Texas League. (It would be 25 years before San Antonio would win another Texas League title.) He hit .285 in 134 games and stole 34 bases. But the team owner relieved Leidy of his managerial duties in August because he kept making “a spectacle” of himself by his exaggerated protests of umpires.70 When Leidy was an umpire, he detested such behavior, but as manager he was unabashedly truculent. “It is just as natural for Leidy to wrangle and kick in a baseball game as it is for water to run downhill,” said the Shreveport Journal.71

Leidy returned to manage the Bronchos in the spring of 1909 and was colorfully effusive about his pitching staff. “The Bronchos will have the real smoky article on the hill this season,” he said, “and the men behind the platter will take all they can be handed in the way of torrid whips. In some parts of the club there will be experiments in a way, but the pitching and backstopping staffs will be the goods packed in large crates and backed up to the ginger mill.”72

Indeed, Bronchos pitchers Fred Winchell and Harry Ables were one-two in the league in strikeouts that year, with 260 and 259, respectively. And Willie Mitchell, a 19-year-old phenom, fanned 215.73 The trio of promising hurlers, along with Bronchos shortstop Dolly Stark, earned September call-ups to the Cleveland Naps of the American League.

Leidy guided the 1909 Bronchos to a third-place finish. His batting average dipped to .231 in 92 games (the league average was .234), but he led the league’s outfielders in fielding percentage.74 During the season he had one particularly egregious run-in with an umpire. At San Antonio on May 14, he “came to blows” with umpire George Derrick.75 Leidy was suspended by the league for five days and fined $50.76

Leidy led the Bronchos to third-place finishes again in 1910 and 1911. With his team in second place on July 19, 1912, he was let go. By then in his mid-40s, he was no longer a productive player, and the club preferred a good playing manager over a wise old bench manager.77 First baseman Frank Metz was named to replace him, and Leidy spent the remainder of the season as an umpire in the league.78

On June 2, 1913, Leidy married 20-year-old Viola “Lola” Wells, a native Texan from rural Caldwell County.79 The couple had a daughter in 1917 and divorced in the early 1920s.80 Research has discovered no other children or marriage of Leidy.

In 1913 Leidy managed the Austin and Beaumont teams of the Texas League. Playing in 56 games, he hit only .164. Beaumont finished in the cellar, but in an impressive turnaround, Leidy lifted the team to a third-place finish the following year. Beaumont fans showed their appreciation by a Leidy Day celebration on July 28, 1914. Leidy and his wife were given “paper and silver money, [and] a lot of other gifts.”81

“Cap” Leidy, as he was called, was popular in San Antonio, too. Without him, the Bronchos lost 103 games in 1914 and finished in seventh place.82 He returned to manage the Bronchos in 1915 and engineered another turnaround, leading the team to a second-place finish. Along the way, he continued to excoriate umpires. After getting ejected from one game, he “went out of the park, climbed up on [the] right field fence and hollered at the umpires all the rest of the game. Just blistered them up and down, and they couldn’t do a thing with him.”83

With his Bronchos languishing in sixth place on June 28, 1916, Leidy, “that grand old warhorse,” resigned.84 He returned briefly to umpiring but gave that up, too, saying that he had neither the temperament nor the eyesight for the job.85

Leidy scouted for the New York Yankees in 1917,86 and for the Detroit Tigers in 1921,87 the year Cobb became the Tigers manager. Among the players Leidy discovered was Lil Stoner,88 a Texan who pitched for Detroit between 1922 and 1929.

During the 1922 season, Leidy served as a coach and manager of the Omaha Buffaloes of the Western League.89 He mentored 18-year-old Babe Herman and 20-year-old Heinie Manush, a pair of Detroit recruits sent by Cobb to develop under Leidy’s watchful eye. Herman batted .416 and Manush .376 for the Buffaloes.

In 1923 Leidy managed the semipro Rosebuds of Victoria, Texas.90 He umpired in the East Texas League in 1924 and in the Western League in 1925.91

Leidy was about 60 years old when he served as a coach of the 1926 San Antonio Bears of the Texas League.92 Besides imparting his wisdom to the lads, he entertained them on rainy days with his “musical selections” and “funny stories.”93 Leidy “always had something funny to tell,” said Cobb.94

Shortly after undergoing an operation, Leidy died at a San Antonio hospital on December 1, 1927.95 The cause of death was a bacterial infection.96 He was interred at the Fairmount Cemetery in his hometown of Phillipsburg, New Jersey.

In the years that followed, Leidy was mostly forgotten. But Ty Cobb never forgot. For decades, he praised his mentor in interviews and articles.

Acknowledgments

This biography was reviewed by Bill Lamb and Rory Costello and fact-checked by Dan Schoenholz.

Sources

Ancestry.com and Baseball-reference.com, accessed March 2023.

Cobb, Ty. My Twenty Years in Baseball (edited by William R. Cobb). Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, 2009, 22-32. In this collection of his writings, Ty Cobb describes how George Leidy mentored him at Augusta in 1905.

Photo credit: San Antonio Express, June 29, 1916.

Notes

1 “Caught at Random,” Birmingham (Alabama) News, August 21, 1901: 11.

2 John B. Sheridan, “Back of the Home Plate: Observations of a Veteran Scribe,” The Sporting News, August 25, 1921: 4.

3 Ty Cobb, My Twenty Years in Baseball, edited by William R. Cobb, Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, (2009): 23.

4 “Only One Strange Face among Texas Managers,” Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram, January 14, 1915: 10.

5 One source gives Leidy’s middle name as “Osmun” and his date of birth as January 10, 1866 (“Twenty-nine Years in Baseball,” Houston Post, April 25, 1915: 17), though his tombstone shows 1867. His middle name appears as “Osmum” at Baseball-reference.com and as “Osman,” “Osmund,” and “Osmond” in other sources. But the correct spelling is probably “Osmun,” because he had an eponymous nephew named George Osmun Leidy. On a World War II draft registration, this nephew signed his middle name as “Osmun.”

6 “Questions and Answers,” Indianapolis News, June 12, 1894: 7.

7 The 1900 US Census shows John and Bertha Leidy living in Phillipsburg, New Jersey, and indicates that Bertha had nine children, six living at the time of this census. John’s occupation is given as “Moulder (Foundry).”

8 “Base Ball Notes,” Plainfield (New Jersey) Courier, October 3, 1892: 3; “Plainfield News,” Sporting Life, October 15, 1892: 1.

9 “Another Shameful Defeat,” Plainfield (New Jersey) Press, July 27, 1891: 2; “Another Championship Game,” Plainfield Press, September 8, 1891: 3; “The Gilt-edged Crescents Nowhere,” Plainfield Press, September 21, 1891: 2.

10 “Three Ball Matches,” Plainfield Press, September 8, 1891: 3.

11 “Some of the Crescent Players,” Plainfield Courier, March 18, 1892: 2.

12 “Somerville Shut Out,” Plainfield Press, September 19, 1892: 2.

13 “Those ‘Sporting Editors’ Again,” Plainfield Press, July 28, 1892: 2.

14 “Murphy Was High Man,” Plainfield Courier, October 8, 1892: 2.

15 Leidy’s Sporting News Player Contract Card.

16 “Harrisburg Wasn’t in It with the Lively Local Men Yesterday,” Scranton (Pennsylvania) Republican, July 1, 1893: 5.

17 “The Scrantons Spank the League Babies on Their Own Dung-Hill,” Scranton Republican, July 25, 1893: 5; “Baseball Notes,” Scranton Republican, July 26, 1893: 5; “Allentown Falls Down before Us and We Are in Third Place,” Scranton Republican, July 29, 1893: 5.

18 “Won the Sunday Game,” Indianapolis News, June 25, 1894: 6.

19 “Base Ball Notes,” Scranton Republican, July 14, 1894: 3.

20 Sporting Life, July 28, 1894: 5.

21 Sporting Life, September 1, 1894: 5.

22 “Great Umpire Calls Leidy Out,” Lancaster (Pennsylvania) New Era, December 2, 1927: 22.

23 Walter G. Bahn, “Do You Remember,” Lancaster (Pennsylvania) News, November 30, 1924: 4.

24 Leidy’s batting average computed from statistics at Baseball-reference.com and, for the 1898 season, the statistics in Sporting Life, November 26, 1898: 9.

25 “Brilliant Features,” Lancaster (Pennsylvania) Intelligencer, August 6, 1895: 1.

26 “A Very Good Game,” Lancaster News, August 1, 1896: 4.

27 Reach’s Official Base Ball Guide for 1901 (Philadelphia: A.J. Reach Co., 1901), 133.

28 “Birmingham Gets Two Games Today,” Birmingham (Alabama) Age-Herald, July 4, 1901: 3.

29 “Leidy Is Out,” Birmingham News, August 6, 1901: 7.

30 “Leidy Is a Lu-lu,” Arkansas Democrat (Little Rock), August 26, 1901: 8.

31 “Geo. Leidy Signed,” Arkansas Gazette (Little Rock), August 28, 1901: 3.

32 “Diamond Dust,” Atlanta Constitution, June 8, 1902: 10.

33 “Barons Take Two from New Orleans,” Birmingham Age-Herald, August 27, 1902: 8.

34 “Coach Leidy,” Marion (Alabama) Democrat, February 28, 1906: 8.

35 “Southern News,” Sporting Life, July 4, 1903: 13; “Monroe Releases Leidy,” Pine Bluff (Arkansas) Graphic, July 31, 1903: 5; Sporting Life, August 15, 1903: 19.

36 “Food for the Baseball Fans,” Arkansas Gazette, May 29, 1904: 8.

37 “Baton Rouge Gossip,” Vicksburg (Mississippi) Evening Post, July 26, 1904: 4.

38 “Monroe Forfeits; Leidy Again Shows Rowdyism,” Greenville (Mississippi) Democrat, July 9, 1904: 1.

39 “Leidy Makes a Scene,” Vicksburg (Mississippi) Herald, August 2, 1904: 3.

40 “A Man of Many Leagues Been Signed,” Augusta (Georgia) Herald, February 19, 1905: 8.

41 There were several future major leaguers on the roster of the 1905 Augusta Tourists. Besides Ty Cobb, there was 20-year-old Nap Rucker and 21-year-old Eddie Cicotte and Clyde Engle, among others.

42 “George Leidy Made Captain,” Augusta (Georgia) Chronicle, May 12, 1905: 8.

43 “Notes of the Players,” Augusta Herald, April 27, 1905: 6.

44 Francis C. Richter, ed., The Reach Official American League Base Ball Guide for 1906 (Philadelphia: A.J. Reach Co., 1906), 259.

45 Sam Greene, “Do You Remember? Asks Leidy,” The Sporting News, April 8, 1926: 6.

46 Bill Bailey, “How the Pirates Lost ‘Ty’ Cobb,” Guthrie (Oklahoma) Leader, May 11, 1909: 8.

47 Sheridan, “Back of the Home Plate: Observations of a Veteran Scribe”; H.G. Salsinger, “Ty Cobb’s Life Story, Chapter VII,” Atlanta Constitution, November 30, 1924: 28.

48 Ty Cobb, My Twenty Years in Baseball, 32.

49 H.G. Salsinger, “Ty Cobb’s Life Story, Chapter VI,” Atlanta Constitution, November 29, 1924: 10.

50 Ty Cobb, “Baseball Ambition Necessary – Cobb,” San Francisco Examiner, May 30, 1934: 26.

51 “Pre-season Dope on Texas League Was All to the Bad,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, May 9, 1909: 14.

52 Richter, Reach Guide for 1906, 254.

53 “Cancer Tags Out the Immortal Georgia Peach,” Charlotte (Nort Carolina) Observer, July 18, 1961: 14.

54 Joe Gootter, “Sport-o-grams,” Paterson (New Jersey) News, December 7, 1949: 36.

55 “News from the World of Sports,” Lancaster Intelligencer, April 12, 1913: 6.

56 Ty Cobb, My Twenty Years in Baseball, 23, 32.

57 “Ty Cobb Is True,” Fort Worth (Texas) Record-Telegram, December 30, 1926: 11.

58 “Beusse in the Box Pitches a Good Game,” The State (Columbia, South Carolina), June 30, 1905: 5.

59 “Caught in the Infield,” The State, June 30, 1905: 5.

60 “South Atlantic League Standing of the Clubs,” Macon (Georgia) Telegraph, July 20, 1905: 5; “George Leidy Made Manager,” Augusta Chronicle, July 21, 1905: 8.

61 Augusta’s record was 37-38 on July 20, 1905, when Leidy became manager (Macon Telegraph, July 20, 1905: 5); 44-41 through games of August 1 (Macon Telegraph, August 2, 1905: 5); and 46-51 after Leidy’s last game as manager on August 12 (Macon Telegraph, August 13, 1905: 14).

62 “Geo. Leidy Released; Roth Made Manager,” Augusta Chronicle, August 15, 1905: 8; “News Notes,” Sporting Life, August 26, 1905: 17.

63 “Cobb’s Mother Killed Father,” Augusta Chronicle, August 10, 1905: 8.

64 Richter, Reach Guide for 1906, 254.

65 Greene, “Do You Remember? Asks Leidy.”

66 “Struthers Unable to See Tyrus Cobb,” Anaconda (Montana) Standard, February 5, 1912: 8.

67 Francis C. Richter, ed., The Reach Official American League Base Ball Guide for 1907, Philadelphia: A.J. Reach Co. (1907){, 342-344.

68 Francis C. Richter, ed., The Reach Official American League Base Ball Guide for 1908, Philadelphia: A.J. Reach Co. (1908): 297, 303.

69 “Green Diamond Dust,” Galveston (Texas) Tribune, May 24, 1907: 10; “Recruiting Bronchos,” Austin (Texas) Statesman, October 28, 1907: 1.

70 Al Brown, “Panthers Win in Fine Rally,” Fort Worth (Texas) Telegram, August 16, 1908: 10; Al Brown, “Leidy Is Out as Manager,” Fort Worth Telegram, August 18, 1908: 3.

71 “Bunts and Bobbles,” Shreveport (Louisiana) Journal, June 5, 1909: 6.

72 “Leidy’s Estimate of Broncos,” Houston Post, February 28, 1909: 20.

73 Francis C. Richter, ed., The Reach Official American League Base Ball Guide for 1910 , Philadelphia: A.J. Reach Co. (1910): 379.

74 Richter, Reach Guide for 1910: 369, 377.

75 “News Notes,” Sporting Life, June 5, 1909: 23.

76 “Leidy Is Out,” Houston Post, May 19, 1909: 3.

77 “Timely Sport Chatter of All Sorts,” Fort Worth (Texas) Record, July 20, 1912: 8.

78 “The Texas League,” Sporting Life, August 3, 1912: 22.

79 1910 US Census and Texas marriage records at Ancestry.com.

80 “‘Cap’ Leidy of Ball Fame Dies,” Des Moines Register, December 2, 1927: 11. This obituary indicates that Leidy was “survived by a wife and 10-year-old daughter,” but no information about the daughter has been found. His Texas death certificate indicates that he was divorced at the time of his death. The 1920 US Census shows Leidy and his wife residing in San Antonio, but there is no mention of children. A record at Ancestry.com indicates that Lola Leidy married H. Bronson Doyle in Los Angeles on February 27, 1924, which suggests that she divorced Leidy in the early 1920s.

81 “Leidy Day Feature of Week,” Fort Worth Record, August 2, 1914: 9.

82 Francis C. Richter, ed., The Reach Official American League Base Ball Guide for 1915, Philadelphia: A.J. Reach Co. (1915): 193.

83 Ned C. Record, “Fanatic Fancies,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, May 5, 1929: 21.

84 “Kike’s Komment,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, February 1, 1916: 10; “Kike’s Komment,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, June 29, 1916: 10.

85 “Poor Old Leidy,” Portsmouth (Ohio) Times, July 27, 1916: 16.

86 J. Ed Grillo, “Kitty Bransfield Familiar Figure in National League,” Washington Evening Star, December 28, 1916: 15.

87 “Marshall Crackers Viewed by Scouts,” Shreveport (Louisiana) Times, June 12, 1921: 9.

88 “Ty Cobb’s Memory Working in High,” Lincoln (Nebraska) State Journal, April 11, 1926: 9.

89 “Rain Calls a Halt to Burch Rods Workout on Saturday,” Omaha World-Herald, March 26, 1922: Sports, 2; “New Manager for the Omaha Club,” Lincoln State Journal, December 7, 1922: 3.

90 “Leidy to Lead Rosebuds,” Victoria (Texas) Advocate, April 29, 1923: 1.

91 “Geo. Leidy Named Captain of Umpires of E. Texas League,” Longview (Texas) News, February 27, 1924: 1; “Western League Gets Umps,” Spokane Spokesman-Review, March 15, 1925: 6.

92 “Texas Rosters – San Antonio Bears,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, May 9, 1926: 19.

93 Ned C. Record, “Fanatic Fancies,” Fort Worth Record-Telegram, March 25, 1926: 11; Ned C. Record, “Fanatic Fancies,” Fort Worth Record-Telegram, December 2, 1927: 15.

94 Cobb, My Twenty Years in Baseball: 23.

95 “Great Umpire Calls Leidy Out.”

96 Leidy’s cause of death is given as “Septicemia” on his death certificate.