Timon Bowden

Timon1 Bowden had nine at-bats in September 1914 for the second-division St. Louis Browns and manager Branch Rickey, a former opposing collegiate skipper. Yet that wasn’t Bowden’s greatest athletic achievement. Prior to his short time in the majors as an outfielder, he was considered “one of the finest of Southern athletes in his era, 1910-13” as a “self-sacrificing end [and] halfback” for powerful early University of Georgia Bulldogs football squads.2 Bowden’s level of sacrifice continued as a lieutenant during the Great War, as he gained attention from a heartfelt wartime letter penned to his father back home which was published nationally. The patriotic Bowden even reenlisted as a 51-year-old, before sadly taking his own life seven years later.

David Timon Bowden was born on August 15, 1891, in McDonough, Georgia (30 miles southeast of Atlanta). He was the sixth of eight children born to James Filmore Bowden, a farmer, and Sarah Jane (Mayo) Bowden.

Timon starred in baseball, football, and track from 1908-1910 for Locust Grove (Georgia) Institute, a Baptist college preparatory school seven miles south of McDonough. He contracted typhoid pneumonia in the spring of 1909 at Locust Grove but eventually recovered. In fall 1910, Bowden enrolled at the University of Georgia and made the football squad as a freshman. The pledge wasn’t in the lineup for UGA’s season opener, a 101-0 trouncing of his former school, Locust Grove.

Standing 5-feet-10 and weighing 175 pounds, Bowden also made the Georgia baseball team that next spring, starting at first base and proving “[too] valuable a man to keep out of a single game.”3 The Ginn brothers, Rucker and Starks, manned the two corner outfield posts, with Bob McWhorter in center and brothers Carl and Homer Thompson the usual battery at the beginning of the season. Also the backup receiver, Bowden caught his first game in a loss to Mercer on May 17, catching “a most remarkable game for his first effort this season.”4

He returned as a left halfback for the football team in fall 1911, blocking many times for star right halfback McWhorter.5 During the 1912 baseball season, Bowden suffered a split finger on his throwing (right) hand in April, so he initially played outfield. Nonetheless, he made Georgia coach Frank Anderson’s postseason All-Southern team as a catcher. About Bowden, Anderson remarked, “He is the hardest worker I ever saw; he has the prettiest throw to second you ever lamped.”6 Georgia’s 1912 football squad, coached by Alex Cunningham, was one of the school’s best teams of the era, losing only to Vanderbilt that season. Bowden was “easily the star” for Georgia on October 26, throwing the winning touchdown in a 13-9 victory against Alabama.7

By January 1913, it was reported that Bowden would probably sign a baseball contract with the Boston Braves. Bowden had spent several days that winter at the home of Braves manager George Stallings in Haddock, a little more than an hour away from McDonough.8 Nonetheless, Bowden committed to finishing school and playing baseball for the Bulldogs during the spring before potentially joining the Braves.9

Bowden’s arm was in poor shape, and his damaged wing kept him on the Georgia bench until mid-May. Upon his return, Bowden led the team in hitting.10 He then reported to the Cordele (Georgia) Babies of the Class D Empire State League in late June for his first professional engagement.11 Manager Eddie Reagan, a lawyer, was also from Bowden’s hometown of McDonough. The lefty-swinging Bowden hit .286 in 59 games. He won the 100-yard dash and the sprint around the bases in final-day field events at Cordele.12 His entrée into professional baseball thus wiped out his final year of football eligibility for Georgia for 1913.13 Bowden taught and coached at a district agricultural and mechanical school in Granite Hill in Hancock County that fall.

To start 1914, “Scrappy” Bowden signed with the Macon (Georgia) Tigers of the Class C South Atlantic League (“SALLY”), managed by George Stinson.”14 The story goes that Stallings recommended that Macon permanently change Bowden from a catcher to an outfielder, proclaiming, “[H]e has the speed and natural ability to become a great outfielder, and if you desire to have a star of the first magnitude on your team you will place him in the outfield.”15 Bowden led the league with a .362 batting average as of early July.16 He later slumped, ending at .313 over 105 games while playing second base and the outfield, stealing 36 bases and leading the league with 79 runs.17

After a late-July scouting trip by Charley Barrett and Pop Kelchner, Timon was sold to the St. Louis Browns for $3,000, with delivery slated for after the SALLY League season.18 However, in early August, Browns manager Rickey sent a wire to Macon president Bill Young to forward Bowden immediately, as the Browns were in dire need of an extra outfielder.19 Rickey was familiar with Bowden, as his University of Michigan ballclub had ventured south in the springs of 1912 and 1913 to face Bowden’s Georgia Bulldogs, as well as other southern schools.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch labeled the Georgian Bowden “another ‘Ty Cobb the Second’” based on his home state and speed, and reported that Bowden was also being wooed by the Braves, Pirates, Naps, and Giants.20 Bowden chose the Browns because, as he said, “For two seasons I played against Branch Rickey when he was coach of the Michigan nine and I formed a great admiration for him.” Kelchner asserted that “Bowden is one of the best looking minor leaguers I have ever seen. He is a natural ball player and in my opinion he may be able to jump right in the lineup and stay … I think we have obtained a high-class ball player.”21 Unfortunately, owing to the deteriorating health of his mother, Bowden still had not reported as of August 10.22 He missed the Browns’ road trip, as Sarah soon passed away.23

Bowden eventually arrived in St. Louis, from Georgia, on September 8.24 He made his Browns debut on September 17, replacing Burt Shotton in center field, part of Rickey’s wholesale mid-ame changes in a 12-2 blowout loss to the Washington Senators. Pitcher Allen Sothoron, infielders Ed Hemingway and Dick Kauffman, outfielder Bob Clemens, and catcher Dutch Schirick (his only game) all made their debuts in the same game. Bowden was hitless in two at-bats. He recorded his first major-league hit on September 23 off Marty McHale in a 9-2 loss to the New York Yankees. He singled as a pinch-hitter off Rube Foster of the Boston Red Sox the next day. Unfortunately, his final three plate appearances over the next three days resulted in strikeouts. Bowden ended up going 2-for-9 with six strikeouts in his seven games played. He played 14 innings in the field, cleanly handling all four chances that came his way. That was the extent of his major-league career.

Bowden had planned to be a football coach for Mercer University back in Macon in the fall. Regrettably, because of his late stint with the Browns, Bowden had to bow out of the commitment.25

The Browns sent Bowden to the Atlanta Crackers of the Class A Southern Association in January 1915.26 There he was reunited with his University of Georgia batterymate Carl Thompson.27 In early May the Crackers returned Bowden to St. Louis, which assigned him to the Waco Navigators of the Class B Texas League. After less than a week, Waco returned him to the Browns, who flipped him to Fort Worth in the same league.28 Bowden played but one game with the Panthers before his release.29 After one more TL game with San Antonio, he was again released.30

Bowden soon landed back in the Peach State with the Columbus Foxes of the South Atlantic League, playing alongside former UGA teammate Homer Thompson (Carl’s brother). The SALLY regular season ended in July amid the financial difficulties of a majority of the league’s franchises.31 The Foxes defeated Bowden’s former squad, Macon, in league playoffs at month’s end.32 Bowden led Columbus with a .423 batting average in the series, and hit .309 in 40 total games with the Foxes.33 Bowden next latched on with the Portland (Maine) Duffs of the Class B New England League by mid-August, helping manager Hugh Duffy lead them to the league crown.

For 1916, Bowden signed as player-manager of the Montgomery (Alabama) Rebels of the SALLY League. The Rebels finished with a 42-47 record before disbanding in late July. The next season, Bowden started with the Chattanooga Lookouts of the Class A Southern Association, hitting .271 in 51 games before being traded to the Mobile Sea Gulls of the same league in June. Bowden hit a combined .250 in 134 games.34

Bowden enlisted in the army in December 1917 and was initially stationed at Camp Gordon in Georgia, where he soon was “helping check off the new arrivals and…also kept busy extending the proverbial glad hand.”35 Bowden, Joe Jenkins, and Milt Reed all played for Camp Gordon’s baseball team after becoming eligible once completing officer training school in April. He faced his former Atlanta Crackers club in mid-April.36

Bowden became a lieutenant in the 82nd Division, serving 16 months in France beginning in May 1918. He was transferred during his hitch to headquarters with the Third Army Corps.37 While overseas, Timon penned an emotional letter to his father James back in McDonough, which was soon published in the local Henry County Weekly,38 then republished nationally by the Manufacturers Record: An Exponent of Americanism in that periodical’s August 1918 edition. Frank Thompson, a writer for another rural Georgia newspaper, the Monroe Advertiser (Forsyth, Georgia), forwarded the letter to Manufacturers Record. Thompson wrote a preface that stated, “If any man can read this letter through without a tear showing in his eyes he is either stronger or more heartless than I. The expressions are noble, and come from a heart and soul full of God-fearing patriotism.”39 The letter follows below:

“France, Sunday, July 7, 1918.

My Dear Papa:

Late yesterday afternoon I walked up the road a few miles toward the front to a little village that the Germans had ravaged some time ago. And under a grove of trees were a group of American troops resting, on their way back from the front, and they were singing:

‘Abide with me,
Fast Falls the eventide,
The darkness deepens,
Lord with me abide.’

The last time I heard this was back in McDonough; this time it was ‘somewhere in France.’ My ears, still warm from the thunder of battle, eagerly drank in soft cadences of the old familiar hymn. The major commanding the column, his officers by his side, stood just where I was on the fringe of the gathering, in the darker shadows, but dimly seen. Many of the townspeople were collected, scarce understanding, yet held in a spell by the soft sweetness of the music. And never before in alien land had come back to me as in that twilight hour.

For a moment or two the singing ceased; the hymn was ended. The roll of the guns but a mile or two away seemed strangely unusual; even they were silent. A few low, crooning notes – scarce a whisper, like the sighs of the night wind in the tree tops – and then came to those who had listened:

‘Lead, Kindly Light,
Amid the encircling gloom.’

Who in this world to whom these lines were familiar could have remained silent? Many had been content only to listen to the previous hymn, but with the gray shadows deepening around us until all was indistinct no mortal so dulled but stretched out its being to the great God of battle.

Over the old square lined with high-pitched gables, its quaint old church tower a shapeless blot on the sky, against which the lurid light of battle stabbed the darkness, the plea for guidance rolled on and upward to the very gates of Heaven. No rank or file there, but one great appeal from the very human souls of that wayside group – indeed, a song of prayer wrung from those who felt that amid the dangers so real, so near, only One Power could lead them in the way of safety.

That song ended, the circle began to waver a bit, but the soldiers were loath to break the solemn spell cast by the soul-stirring words. ‘Just another, sergeant,’ some pleaded. The circle steadied, and for a moment the guns were silent. Then, with a deafening crash, a nearby ‘Howitzer’ rent from the very heavens and lit the sky for an instant with blood read glare. There was the silence of awe, then

‘Onward, Christian soldiers,
Marching as to war.’

The sergeant felt the call of the guns and boldly led that song of battle. That sound of terror so close, so compelling, had roused in every heart the dead call that has taken there far from home, from ease and safety, from friends and families; but these be the things for which we fight.

And it is onward we are going. There is no doubt in our minds, no hesitation in our actions. No fear can be allotted to these brave lads who in this remote part of France, sang again their hymns of prayer and praise.

To some, perhaps, their words had almost faded from memory, but from home and Sunday schools and churches, too, the lines came echoing back over all the years.

The last line had died away, echoing up the narrow streets. ‘America!’ shouted the sergeant. Sharp to attention came the soldiers, and ‘America’ rang out as clear as a bugle call, and so ended that gathering of pathos and devotion.

Slowly I started back for my village. The houses grew smaller as I reached the outskirts of the town and black darkness, with all its hidden horrors, lay in front of me. For a moment a soft glow from the guttering candle of a wayside shrine picked out a figure whose coast of blue told me a comrade of France sought comfort there in prayer. And I felt as if again a child, when I, too, knelt in prayer at my mother’s knee, and I felt like singing:

‘Lead, Kingly Light, amid the encircling gloom,
The night is dark and I am far from home,
Lead thou me on.’

Yes, sir, it will make you think a bit when you are what you term ‘over there.’ But we have got the old ‘Bosh’ by the neck now, and it won’t be long before we will be ‘over there,’ and we all want it to be soon.          

– Timon40
W.S.S. —

In a subsequent letter to a friend, Bowden asserted, “We are fighting a dirty bunch of ‘boogers.’”41 It was reported that while in France he was wounded during a battle.42 Upon returning stateside, Bowden led his soldiers at Camp Merritt in New Jersey, then for final discharge at Camp Russell in Wyoming. By September, he landed in Atlanta, playing in a bankers’ league game with brother James at shortstop.43

In April 1920, in his last professional baseball stop, Bowden signed a contract to manage the Rome entry in the Georgia State League. Mobile still laid claim to Bowden, but Rome bought out the contract.44 The squad had 18-year-old Red Lucas, future National League pitching star, on the roster and finished 50-40, good for second place, and narrowly lost the league title to Carrollton.45 After the season and back in Georgia in November, Timon married local gal Orion Elizabeth Arnold, who was two years his junior.

After his baseball career concluded, Bowden assumed a position as an assistant sales manager at Armour Fertilizer Works in Atlanta, later moving to Greensboro, North Carolina, to be assistant Southern manager with the company. As of 1930, the Bowdens lived in Harnett, North Carolina, with their daughters Elizabeth and Frances (“Franny”); Timon was then a division manager at Armour. He later worked as a sales manager at Johnson Cotton Company. In 1941, he worked in the Motor Supply Depot of the Army Ordinance Department and lived in Wilmington. In August 1942, the 51-year-old Bowden re-enlisted in the US Army at Fort McPherson in Atlanta,46 and later served as a corporal with the Medical Section, 1580th Service Unit, at Camp Campbell in Kentucky.47 He helped at the War Assets Administration after his discharge.

Bowden suffered from an undisclosed illness for several months at a private hospital in the fall of 1949.48 Back at his home in Decatur, Georgia, David Timon (D.T.) Bowden died on October 25, 1949 of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.49 The deceased was 58 and survived by his wife, both daughters, two brothers, two sisters, and two stepchildren. He was buried at Bethany Baptist Church Cemetery in McDonough, Georgia.

Acknowledgments

This biography was reviewed by Bill Lamb and Rory Costello and fact-checked by James Forr.

Sources

In addition to the sources shown in the Notes, the author used Baseball-Reference.com, StatsCrew.com, and MyHeritage.com.

Notes

1 The vast majority of historical references list Bowden’s first name as Timon, not Tim.

2 ‘Ole Timer,’ “Ole Timer Recalls Bowden’s Blocking,” Atlanta Journal, October 27, 1949: 27.

3 M.J. Witman, “Georgia Expects Showers of Bacon,” Macon (Georgia) Daily Telegraph, April 2, 1911: 30.

4 “Mercer Baptists Use Whitewash,” Atlanta Constitution, May 18, 1911: 4.

5 “Ole Timer Recalls Bowden’s Blocking.”

6 F.B. Anderson, “Four Georgia Players Prove Stars on Anderson’s 1912 All-Southern,” Atlanta Journal, May 26, 1912: H12.

7 “Alabama Outplay Georgia but Goes Down to Defeat,” Montgomery Advertiser, October 27, 1912: 15; “Fierce Battle Won by Georgia from Alabama,” Atlanta Constitution, October 27, 1912: 9.

8 “Timon Bowden Will Sign with Boston Nationals,” Atlanta Georgian, January 24, 1913: 13.

9 “Timon Bowden May Join Stallings’ Boston Team,” Macon Daily Telegraph, January 23, 1913: 9. Bowden’s player card from The Sporting News does not show that he ever signed a contract with the Boston Braves.

10 “Bowden Led All Hitters,” Atlanta Journal, May 25, 1913: H1.

11 “Cordele Gets Bowden,” Valdosta (Georgia) Daily Times, June 27, 1913: 3.

12 “Field Day is a Huge Success,” Americus (Georgia) Daily Times-Recorder, August 28, 1913: 5; “Cordele Is Shut Out,” Macon Daily Telegraph, August 28, 1913: 7.

13 Alex Cunningham, “No ‘Paper Title’ for the University, Georgia Must Develop an Eleven,” Atlanta Constitution, September 7, 1913: 7.

14 “Peaches Will Train This Year the Earliest Ever,” Macon Daily Telegraph, February 22, 1914: 9.

15 Harry F. Pierce, “Timon Bowden Would Now Be Catcher but for Stallings,” St. Louis Star, October 29, 1914: 14.

16 P.L. Johnston, “Bowden Better Than Folmar, Figures Show,” Macon Daily Telegraph, July 12, 1914: 7.

17 “Sports Gossip,” Columbus (Georgia) Ledger, June 8, 1915: 3.

18 “Timon Bowden Sold to St. Louis Browns,” Macon Daily Telegraph, July 18, 1914: 3.

19 “Sportsorials,” Macon (Georgia) News, August 6, 1914: 5.

20 Clarence F. Lloyd, “Browns to Land Real Slugger in College Player,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 4, 1914: 14. Referred to as Timothy Bowden in the article.

21 “Browns to Land Real Slugger in College Player.”

22 Clarence F. Lloyd, “Bushes Full of Baseball Talent, Scouts Declare,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 10, 1914: 10.

23 “Mrs. J.F. Bowden Yields to Death,” Henry County Weekly (McDonough, Georgia), August 14, 1914: 1; “Burlington Battery on Trip with Browns,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 17, 1914: 10.

24 John M. Quinn, “Browns Have Still Chance to Finish Ahead of Chicago,” St. Louis Star, September 9, 1914: 8.

25 “Bowden Selected to Take Charge Mercer Eleven,” Macon Daily Telegraph, June 10, 1914: 9; “Bowden Unable to Coach at Mercer,” Macon News, September 29, 1914: 9.

26 Dick Jemison, “Four Brownies are Now Crackers,” Atlanta Constitution, January 20, 1915: 10.

27 “A Cracker a Day for Fans: 8. D.T. Bowden,” Atlanta Constitution, March 4, 1915: 9.

28 “Hardy Lets Bowden Go Back to Browns,” Waco Morning News, May 23, 1915: 12.

29 Karl Bettis, “Kerr’s Two Station Blow in the Ninth Is Wasted Effort,” Fort Worth Record, May 24, 1915: 3.

30 “Kike’s Komment,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, June 22, 1915: 11. Baseball-Reference.com erroneously has Bowden participating only with San Antonio in seven Texas League games.

31 “Columbus Jumps to Lead in SALLY League; Season Closes Tuesday,” Columbia (South Carolina) Record, July 18, 1915: 5.

32 Dick Jemison, “Chancey of Tigers Led the Batters,” Atlanta Constitution, July 29, 1915: 8.

33 “Bowden Sending Contracts from His Home Town,” Montgomery Advertiser, March 16, 1916: 13.

34 Baseball-Reference.com incorrectly shows Bowden’s 1917 stats all being accumulated at Mobile.

35 “2 Graphophones Secured for Men Isolated at Camp,” Atlanta Journal, December 21, 1917: 10.

36 “Crackers and Gordon Meet at Poncey Today,” Atlanta Journal, April 13, 1918: 9.

37 “Ex-Lieutenant Bowden Joins Up as Private,” Atlanta Journal, August 23, 1942: 16.

38 “Interesting Letter from Lieut. Timon Bowden,” Henry County Weekly, August 9, 1918: 1.

39 “What Our Soldiers Are Doing ‘Over There’ When Off Duty,” Manufacturers Record: An Exponent of Americanism,” (Baltimore, Maryland), Volume 74, Issue 8, August 22, 1918: 56.

40 “What Our Soldiers Are Doing ‘Over There’ When Off Duty.”

41 “Timon Bowden Writes from France,” Henry County Weekly, October 25, 1918: 8.

42 “Pitching Problem Bothers Coleman,” Birmingham Post-Herald, March 21, 1919: 7.

43 “Bankers Are Downed by Camp Jesup,” Atlanta Journal, September 14, 1919: 22.

44 “Bowden, Claimed by Bears, Bought Outright by Rome,” Atlanta Constitution, June 11, 1920: 12.

45 “Tim Bowden Success as Rome Manager,” Chattanooga Daily Times, September 15, 1920: 12.

46 “Ex-Lieutenant Bowden Joins Up as Private.”

47 “Corporal, 52, in Second War as Volunteer,” Stewart County Times (Dover, Tennessee), February 4, 1913: 1.

48 “D. Timon Bowden Dies at Home,” Atlanta Journal, October 26, 1949: 37; “D.T. Bowden, Ex-Athlete, Found Dead,” Atlanta Constitution, October 26, 1949: 22.

49 David Timon Bowden death certificate from Bowden’s Hall of Fame player file.