But that was a long time ago.

The initial adoption of player draft language appears well over 130 years ago, in the 1891 National Agreement. The National Agreement was a contract between various baseball leagues, detailing their cooperation regarding contracts, territories, and rules, among other things.

With the demise of the Players League after the 1890 season, a new National Agreement was developed. Included in the document was Article 7 (I), “Purchasing Players’ Releases.” It said that if your league signed the National Agreement and agreed to the draft, any other signatory to the agreement in a higher classification could approach any of your team’s players, negotiate a contract (while the playing season was in progress), and snatch them off your roster for a set fee.1

When the 1891 season started, whenever a National League club would seek to grab a player, the sporting press would label it a draft.2 Denoting it a “draft” made it out as exactly what it appeared to be: a way for major league teams to fill in-season roster holes without the bothersome task of negotiating a market price with a given player’s team.

We don’t know who proposed this idea, although it is not hard to imagine a major-league owner looking for a way to lower the purchase price of a minor- league player. We also don’t know what the majors were paying for minor-league players, but based on very limited data, it appears that a rate of $1,500 was common. And with the majors looking for a bargain, the fee set by the National Board was $1,000 for a player from a Class A league.

Tracing the idea of a draft yields the first mention of the concept in 1887. This was a proposal by Francis Richter, editor of the Sporting Life, called the Millennium Plan.3

Richter was, in the main, a man who sought to make baseball a permanent part of the American sporting scene. As initially described by Richter, the plan was designed to help stabilize the minor leagues and stanch major league practices that caused leagues to lose clubs and ultimately to shut down.4 The details of the plan were published in December 1887.

Francis Richter introduced the concept of the draft in 1887. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)

In his preamble to the completed plan, Richter analyzes the financial situation of the majors and concludes that only about three clubs consistently earn a profit each season, with the rest struggling to cover expenses except for a rare competitive season. His view of the minors was more dire in that he saw very few clubs earning enough to generate any return on their investment. This caused ownership to frequently change in the minors and in non-competitive major league aggregations. This in turn, in Richter’s view, caused the quality of ownership to decline. On this point Richter saw profitable clubs as the path to owners who were not “speculators, gamblers, fly-by-night managers, and irresponsible people…”5

The Millennium Plan had many provisions and included a major-league draft of minor-league players. Richter’s draft proposal would have allowed the majors to claim minor leaguers for a set fee after the close of the season. This would be the only method to bring a player to the majors. The specific fee does not appear in the document but Richter sees it as “a small expense.” The trade-off for the reduced draft monies would be the minor leagues gaining a seat on the Board of Arbitration, the executive decisionmakers under the National Agreement. This proposal would clearly be a non-starter for minor league clubs as offseason sales of players at market rates was one of the few ways clubs had to balance the books most seasons.6

While the Millennium Plan went nowhere, the idea of the draft showed up in the 1891 National Agreement. There is no certain candidate for fatherhood at the major-league level but one candidate is Brooklyn owner Charles Byrne. Back in 1887, Byrne had floated an idea of reassigning players to new teams each year to create a more competitive pennant race. Byrne was an innovative owner for the period and was always involved with league management.7 Richter’s candidates were Chicago magnates Albert Spalding and A.G. Mills, who drafted the 1891 document along with Byrne.8

When the draft went into effect in 1891, it was a bit of a bust. We can identify eight draft attempts during the 1891 season with only four of them being successful. Often the draft foundered on the requirement that the player agree to switch teams and several did not wish to move.9

The minor leagues were bothered by the draft process (they were always bothered by the draft process). In particular they disliked the idea of losing a player during the season, and they also wanted more money. The majors, having not reaped much advantage from the current draft system, agreed to move the draft to the October-to-January period but left the fees the same.

John T. Brush owned both a National League team and a Western League team, and drafted four of his own players. (SABR-Rucker Archive)

The draft grew slowly from that point, totaling 14 picks in 1892 and 13 picks in 1893, many of which were never completed. The majors finally figured out how to use the draft to their advantage, and the counts double in 1894 and 1895 to 32 and 70 respectively.10 The trick was to not draft for the current year’s roster needs alone but to also draft to control as many promising players as you could afford. Since there were limitations on the size of major league rosters, the majors would retain contracts of excess players for use on reserve squads. By the mid-1890s someone developed the idea of lending players to the minor leagues. This evolved into the practice of option agreements. The major league club would agree to assign the contract of an excess player to the minor league club for one season. Within this agreement the major league club retained the right to recall the player to the big-league club with minimal notice, while passing along all other obligations (including salary payment) to the minor league club.

The minors, unsurprisingly, came to resent option contracts. Since the minors also had roster limitations, they were essentially turning over roster slots to the majors, thus limiting the minor league club’s flexibility to use their roster for their own benefit, since the rights to the optioned player reverted to the big-league club at the end of the season. Although many in the minors, and some of the press, abhorred option agreements, many minor league clubs did like filling roster holes with players provided by the majors. Such an arrangement with a big-league club lessened the need for the hiring of scouts or paying for a birddog to dig up new talent or purchasing players from other clubs. This differing attitude toward optioned players would arise again after World War I.

We can see here the ancient beginning of a farm club relationship as the majors flirted with the concept in the 1890s. The first major practitioner was John T. Brush, owner of the NL Cincinnati team in the 1890s. In 1894 Brush acquired the Western League’s Indianapolis franchise in addition to his Cincinnati ownership. Over the course of the next three drafts, Brush selected 13 players for his Cincinnati club. All 13 were from Western League clubs; four from his Indianapolis club to prevent other major league clubs from raiding his minor league club and the rest from other Western League clubs. In the next several seasons, he also moved these players between the Cincinnati and Indianapolis rosters as injuries occurred or improving minor league players earned a spot on the major league roster.11

Brush’s confreres in the Western League were not happy to lose players to an in-league rival. They were particularly rankled when Indianapolis rose from sixth place in 1894 to pennant-winner in 1895. Particularly exercised was Western League President Ban Johnson. The enmity between the two that started in Cincinnati when Johnson was a reporter for the Cincinnati Commercial-Gazette continued in the Western League and certainly contributed to Brush’s hostile attitude toward the American League and his ultimate refusal to play Johnson’s AL champs in a 1904 World Series.

Ban Johnson was not enamored of the way the Western League was treated by the National League, but his solution was to turn the Western League into a major league—the American League. (SABR-Rucker Archive)

Brush’s actions did not go unnoticed by other major league owners. Various clubs developed arrangements, generally under the table, to use specific minor league clubs to stash unneeded players in the minors as a strategy to develop untested players.12

The minor leagues would denounce option agreements loudly and continually into the 1930s. But options worked for the National League, the only major league at the time. They held onto control of an increasing number of players, thus avoiding paying more substantial prices for players who were ready for a place on a major league roster. Such players could also be a revenue source as the majors could sell players they determined had little major league potential back to the growing number of minor league clubs.

By 1896 the draft had run enough years that the various entities involved knew what they liked and didn’t like about the process. As you would expect, virtually all the issues, at their core, were economic ones. The major league liked that they had a source of new players at a price less than what an open market might command. They were also well-pleased with the ability to retain control of players beyond the initial draft year through option agreements. The minors had several things that disturbed them about the draft. They didn’t mind that the draft allowed them to pluck players from lower minor league classifications for a set price. But they called for several changes to the way the majors could claim players from the minors.

Changes were made in the 1896 National Agreement. The major added an explicit rule allowing big-league clubs to option players in the 1896 National Agreement. They called it Assignment of Undeveloped Players. The new language did not usher in the use of option agreements, but merely ratified an existing practice.13

In 1896, the major also cut the draft prices in half. In a move claiming to offset this change, they also cut the price for protection of contracts in half. This meant that each Class A minor league club would save $75 for the coming season while the majors saved $500 for every draft pick. In 1896 this translated to a $600 savings for the Western League teams and a reduction in draft payments by the major to the Western League of $4,000. This was the major league’s definition of “equity.” Other changes included allowing drafting clubs to cancel the draft of a player within 30 days and restructuring the draft periods to give the major exclusive right to draft from October 1 to December 31 and setting the minor league draft period to the ensuing January. Each of these changes was set to give the major more flexibility in drafting minor league players.

From the close of the 1899 season to the following spring, the baseball world was in a constant uproar with new issues exploding on the scene seemingly every month. The NL’s difficulties with the 12-team league came to a head and the league was ready to ditch four teams, wishing to do so as cheaply as possible. At the same time Ban Johnson and his Western League saw the NL’s troubles as an opportunity to gain major league status. In October of 1899, the Western League changed its name to the American League and made no secret of its ultimate goal. As the NL wrestled with eliminating Washington, Baltimore, Cleveland, and Louisville, Johnson forced the NL to accept his move into Chicago. Johnson saw some of the newly abandoned markets as prime territory for his group to invade the east coast. But the American League remained a signatory to the National Agreement, which meant that their players remained subject to the draft by major league clubs, losing seven players in the 1900 draft. When the AL declared themselves an equal to the NL for the 1901 season, a full-fledged shooting war broke out.14‘

In 1900 the minors had won a small battle regarding the draft. They were upset with the major taking first-year players off their rosters before they could be developed into marketable commodities. With the fear of the American League challenging the NL for major league status, the NL was trying to keep the minor leagues content enough not to bolt from the National Agreement. So they allowed Class A Leagues to retain players until they had been on a League’s reserve list twice. They also upped the draft price for Class A players to $1,000.15

But it was to no avail. After the 1900 season, the AL withdrew from the National Agreement and the NL was not willing to handicap themselves in the open recruitment of players so they abrogated the National Agreement after the 1901 season. The remaining minor leagues had to figure out how to survive in the crossfire of the AL-NL War. To protect themselves, the minor leagues formed the National Association of Professional Base Ball Leagues on September 30, 1901, the day before the National Agreement of 1891 terminated. The National Association set up their own draft procedure, thus when the AL-NL War ended with a new National Agreement in 1903, we had two draft procedures on the books.

The majors’ draft language in the 1903 rewritten National Agreement had a process not unlike the earlier draft, but the prices were now even lower; apparently the American League had no objections to claiming a bargain.16 The partial payment at draft time was implemented and the majors could return the player the following June and not pay the rest of the fee. So the majors got a half-season to look at draftees for half the price. The minors’ win of 1900 was gone and now the majors could claim up to any two players from any specific team regardless of reserve status.

These early years of the draft had moved from in-season roster fill-ins to what we would recognize today as a full-fledged draft, with periodic changes in the rules to accommodate political necessities of the moment. However, it continued as a method for the major leagues to acquire talent from the minor leagues at prices set by the major leagues.

The practice of the draft (“Rule 5 Draft”) continues in today’s game. But the battles over the draft with the minor leagues that popped up periodically throughout the twentieth century are a thing of the past, replaced today with internal determinations among the major league clubs.

BOB BAILEY is the author of History of the Junior World Series (Scarecrow Press), a finalist for the 2004 Casey Award and Baseball Burial Sites (St. Johann Press). He has contributed over a dozen articles to various SABR publications on topics ranging from Louisville nineteenth-century baseball history to playing managers to Negro League championships. He is co-chair of SABR’s Nineteenth Century Committee. He resides in Gainesville, Florida.

Notes

1. The 1891 National Agreement can be found in its entirety at: https://archive.org/details/ConstitutionAndPlayingRulesOfTheNationalLeague1891/page/n35/mode/2up.

2. “The First Draft,” Sporting Life, May 30, 1891; “Another Draft,” Sporting Life, June 27, 1891; “Pittsburg Drafts Simon of Syracuse,” Sporting Life, July 4, 1891; “A Draft That Didn’t Draft,” Sporting Life, July 11, 1891; “Philadelphia’s New Pitcher,” Sporting News, August 8, 1891.

3. “The Millenium [sic], Details of The Sporting Life Plan,” Sporting Life, December 7, 1887.

4. “The Millenium! [sic] A Sporting Life Plan,” Sporting Life, September 7, 1887.

5. “The Millenium! [sic] A Sporting Life Plan,” Sporting Life, September 7, 1887.

6. “The Millenium [sic], Details of The Sporting Life Plan,” Sporting Life, December 7, 1887.

7. Ronald G. Shafer, “Charles Byrne,” SABR Biography Project., SABR.org.

8. “The First Draft,” Sporting Life, May 30, 1891

9. “The First Draft,” Sporting Life, May 30, 1891; “A Draft That Didn’t Draft,” Sporting Life, July 11, 1891.

10. Draft selection data from author’s personal research of draft selections from 1891 to 2021.

11. F.E. Goodwin, “The Farming System,” Sporting Life, October 12, 1895.

12. “Said By The Magnates,” Sporting News, October 19, 1895.

13. The 1896 National Agreement can be found in its entirety at: https://archive.org/details/ConstitutionAndPlayingRulesOfTheNationalLeague1896/page/n27/mode/2up. For section relevant to the draft see Articles 10-13.

14. Lee Allen, The American League Story, (New York: Hill & Wang, 1962), 7-10.

15. There were only three A Leagues in 1900: American League, Eastern League and Atlantic League.

16. Draft prices for major league selections in 1903 National Agreement were: Selections from Class A-$750; from Class B-$500; from Class C-$300; from Class D-$200.

Wilbur Rogan, pictured here second from left in the front row, compiled a 20-3 pitching record for Jamestown in 1932, batting .315 and leading the team in RBIs. (SABR-Rucker Archive)

Jamestown, North Dakota, fielded Class D minor-league teams in 1922 and 1923, and again in 1936 and 1937.1 But between those two excursions into affiliated baseball, the game flourished in the city. The Jamestown Baseball Association (JBA) turned the prairie town of 8,000 into a baseball hotbed, treating its patrons to integrated semipro baseball against topflight competition.2 The JBA succeeded by hiring three or four well-known players each year to lure fans from a 50-mile radius, and then adding the best local players to “keep good baseball alive in the community.”3

Among Jamestown’s semipro teams, the 1932 club deserves recognition for its stellar record, famous opponents, and a star player who would later be enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Beyond that, the team merits honor for reversing an unjust racial policy.

Semipro baseball of the 1930s may have equaled top minor league classifications. Minor-league pay was often low, so a ballplayer who could pocket more money with an independent team like Jamestown might jump.4 Another source of talent—Black players—became available even before the 1929 stock market crash because “the fragile structure of the Negro leagues had already collapsed.”5

While the major leagues and all baseball teams affiliated with them remained firmly segregated until after World War II, many small-town, independent teams in the Upper Midwest—starting with Bertha, Minnesota, in 19246—were integrated. Black teams had been touring the area for years, so the talent and character of Black players was widely known. Then as now, strength up the middle was important to winning, so Black players—usually a pitcher and catcher—were recruited for those positions to gain competitive advantage. A winning team gave the citizenry bragging rights over nearby towns, and drew more people to the games—people who bought tickets and concessions, but who also filled-up at a local service station, or purchased something from a local merchant.

Jamestown’s on-field success in 1932 owes much to the pitching and hitting of Bullet Rogan, who had both pitched and played outfield for the Kansas City Monarchs since 1920, when Kansas City became an original member of the Negro National League (NNL). Rogan—who won more league games than any other NNL pitcher—compiled a 20-3 record with Jamestown. When he was not on the mound for Jamestown, Rogan played the outfield or first base, and in 39 games he hit .315 with 11 home runs, and a team-leading 51 runs batted in.

Jamestown first integrated its team in 1929, when manager O.K. Butts obtained the services of catcher Roosevelt “Chappie” Gray and pitcher Fred Sims. One reason Jamestown could integrate its team—and host Black traveling teams—was that the Central Hotel, located near Jamestown’s train depot, was integrated. Over the years, the Central Hotel housed Black ballplayers and musicians, the Harlem Globetrotters, and other Black travelers.7

Gray, who had played one game in the NNL in 1920, soon moved on, but Sims played the entire 1929 season, sharing pitching duties with Swede Risberg of Black Sox infamy. Sims, Risberg, and Joe Johnson, another Black pitcher, were all on Jamestown’s roster in 1930 when it finished 31-16 against a tough schedule.

But on April 9, 1931, the JBA made a stunning announcement. The Jamestown Sun notified the public that Jamestown would have an all-white team, with the notice: “The Jamestown Baseball Association announces that because of the many requests from the fans Jamestown will have an all-white team this year and have secured the services of a white battery….”8

The new players, the paper continued, “have been recommended to the management as being clean cut young men of good habits and exceptional playing ability.”9 That statement implies the “all-white policy” was a response to problems caused by Sims or Johnson. Not so.

There is no evidence of mischief by Sims or Johnson, and Sims was greeted warmly when he returned to Jamestown in 1932 with the Corwith (Iowa) Nighthawks.10 Further, when the “all-white policy” was reversed, Rogan was favorably compared to John- son—a comparison that surely would not have been made if Johnson had left Jamestown under a cloud.

The JBA’s decision cannot be excused by the depressed economy. The integrated 1929 team turned a $522.14 profit.11 No financial information is available for the 1930 team—playing after the Stock Market Crash—but newspaper reports make no mention of waning attendance. The JBA hired White semipros from Canada, Seattle, and Minneapolis for 1931, and must have incurred similar expenses no matter the players’ skin color.

The Sun announcement reveals the absurdity of race relations in 1930s America. Could baseball fans really veto common sense and liberty? The Kansas City Call, a Black-owned newspaper, decried “the damnable outrage of prejudice” in sports.12 The JBA’s action can bear no other label.

On March 16, 1932, the JBA held its first stockholders’ meeting of the new year to elect a board of directors. E.A. Moline and George Staples were elected to replace two men who had moved away, and they joined eight holdovers as directors. The board scheduled another meeting for March 18 to elect officers, and plan for the upcoming season.13

No report of the March 18 board meeting is available, but the “all-white policy” was presumably reversed, and the team re-integrated. The next Sun article details an April 20 JBA meeting at which Butts was retained as manager, Opening Day was set for May 8 against St. Paul Northern Pacific, and the hiring of Rogan to pitch, Charles Hancock to catch, and Marty O’Neil to play shortstop was approved.

The Sun reporter noted Rogan’s Monarchs pedigree, but saved his praise for Hancock and O’Neil. Hancock was described as a “big colored catcher,” familiar to Jamestown fans from his visits with Gilkerson’s Union Giants, and Lone Rock, Illinois. “With him and Rogan there will be a good colored battery that will draw crowds.”14 O’Neil, from Minneapolis, returned from the 1931 team, and readers were reminded that he could “cover short as fast as lightning and everyone will be glad to see him come back.”15

The Sun again listed the JBA board of directors, and some names had changed since March. Three new members—Floyd Mooney, Butts, and W.C. McColloch—replaced previously listed directors, meaning five of the 10 directors from 1931 were gone. Moline was elected president, McColloch vice-president, Staples treasurer, and Mooney Secretary. All the JBA officers for 1932 came from the five new members. Did differences over the “all-white policy” trigger re-organization of the board?

Butts recruited Ray Mock from St. Paul for second base, and completed the roster with local players after tryouts. Many of those selected had played with the team in past years. Twenty-year-old Al Schauer made the team, and later joined the Northern League’s Wausau (Wisconsin) Lumberjacks from 1936 through 1938.

Uncertainty about the season with the Kansas City Monarchs led Rogan to sign with Jamestown. (SABR-Rucker Archive)

While the door in Jamestown had swung open for Rogan, he would not have spent the summer in North Dakota except for developments in Kansas City. It was unclear if Monarchs’ owner J. Leslie Wilkinson would muster a team in 1932. He had withdrawn Kansas City from the NNL after losing money during the 1930 season.16 In 1931 Wilkinson had launched the Monarchs on a barnstorming tour, using an ingenious portable lighting system to play rare, and lucrative, night games. Now, Wilkinson had leased the lights to the House of David.17 He was attempting to organize a new league, and toying with the idea of moving the Monarchs to Chicago.18

Wilkinson’s indecision left Rogan in the lurch. Rogan had missed most of 1931 with an illness, and was approaching age 39.19 He knew he could still play baseball, but he lacked a team. Hancock, who wintered in Missouri, offered him one.

Hancock informed Rogan of his agreement to catch for Jamestown, and invited Rogan to join him there to pitch.20 Hancock must have been convincing, and the JBA must have met Rogan’s financial demands, because Rogan signed on, and his hiring was announced. He accompanied Hancock to Jamestown in time for a May 1 scrimmage.

Rain canceled Jamestown’s May 8 Opening Day, but the season got underway against Fargo-Moorhead on May 15 with pomp and ceremony. Both teams paraded in uniform down Fifth Avenue to Jamestown’s City Ballpark, led by Jamestown’s City Band. Players from both squads were introduced to the crowd, and JBA president Moline threw out the ceremonial first ball.

Rogan started on the mound, and surrendered an unearned run in the first, and two more unearned runs in the third, when Hancock threw a bunted-ball into right field. But Rogan sailed through the final six innings to win, 5-3, on a six-hitter. He struck out seven, walked no one, and charmed Jamestown’s baseball faithful.

Jamestown won its first seven games before losing, 7-6, to Northern Pacific in a make-up of the rained- out opener. Jamestown’s winning streak included two wins over the House of David during Memorial Day weekend. A big crowd cheered as Rogan homered and pitched Jamestown to victory on Sunday, and a full house on Monday witnessed him stroke two home runs while playing right field. House of David had mauled Jamestown, 20-1, under the lights in 1931.21 So the two wins impressed the Sun, which declared, “Jamestown beat probably the strongest team that the boys will meet this season.” 22

By the end of July, Jamestown had a flattering 28-4 record, but was about to face a formidable foe with an even better record: the Kansas City Monarchs. While Rogan had been endearing himself to Jamestown, Wilkinson used the rental income from his portable lights to finally assemble the Monarchs in early July. Wilkinson found quality ballplayers in mid-summer because the Homestead Grays fell a month behind on payroll, causing eight Grays—including future Hall of Fame inductees “Cool Papa” Bell and Willie Wells—to jump to the Monarchs.23 Despite starting late, the Monarchs played over 150 games in 1932, including an August 1 stop in Jamestown.

Posters around town promoted the game, and the Sun did its part by informing readers of the Monarchs’ championships, and Rogan’s long connection to Kansas City as player and manager. The Sun recognized that several Monarchs would be major-leaguers if eligible, and compared the Monarchs to the New York Yankees for their dominance of the Colored League24

The Monarchs had just swept three games in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and brought a 20-game winning streak to town.25 Rogan had pitched Jamestown past Duluth on Thursday (his 39th birthday), and on Sunday he topped Northern Pacific before a large crowd. For this Monday evening game Rogan—facing the Monarchs for the only time in his long career26— guarded first base.

Jamestown started back-up pitcher Al Cassell, a Jamestown College coach. Butts borrowed Thomas Gallivan, a 20-year-old Northern Pacific hurler, to come to Cassell’s rescue if needed. Birthum Hunter threw for Kansas City.27

Neither team scored until the third, when, with two down, consecutive hits by Bell, Newt Allen, Wells, and Tom Young tallied three Monarchs’ runs. In the fifth, Bell stole home, and Allen scored on a hit by Young, to build the lead to 5-0. In the sixth, the Monarchs scored on a Jamestown throwing error, making it 6-0. Gallivan blanked Kansas City in its final two at-bats.

Jamestown collected only four hits. Schauer and George Deeds both singled in the fourth, but did not score. In the seventh, Hancock singled, and, with one out, and a 2-and-1 count, Rogan slugged one over the fence, cutting the margin to 6-2. That was the final score. Hunter struck out 10 and walked one. In the vernacular of the day, the Monarchs were acclaimed as “One of the fastest teams ever to step on [the] local diamond.”28

On August 14, in the final game on Jamestown’s schedule, Rogan hit a grand slam, drove in six runs, and pitched a six-hitter, defeating the Huron (South Dakota) Boosters, 9-3. It was Rogan’s 20th win, and raised Jamestown’s record to 32-7, including 25-6 at home. Jamestown had won 11 of 12 from intrastate foes, prompting the Sun to crown Jamestown as the 1932 North Dakota champion.29 After the Huron game, JBA director William Hall thanked patrons, and expressed his hope that next year’s team would be as good or better.

As it turned out, the team had one more appointment on the year. Manager Butts announced in September that Jamestown would entertain the Philadelphia Athletics, who would arrive on October 2, do some hunting, and play Jamestown on October 4. Since Rogan had returned to Kansas City immediately after Jamestown’s last game (and would be touring Mexico with the Monarchs30) Butts recruited “Lefty” Brown of the Cuban Stars to pitch. Gilkerson’s Red Haley replaced Mock at second base; the rest of the team was intact.

It was not the Philadelphia Athletics, but the Earle Mack All-Stars—fresh from drubbing Sioux Falls, South Dakota, 16-1—that arrived in town. A crowd of 1,800— paying $1 for reserved seats, and 75¢ for general admission—was entertained by the clowning of Nick Altrock and Al Schacht, and “one of the best exhibitions 31of baseball ever witnessed in the northwest.”

Neither Jamestown’s Brown nor Detroit’s Earle Whitehill allowed a run in the first three innings, but both teams scored in the fourth. Red Kress of the White Sox singled sharply to left, and when the ball rolled through Lloyd Withnell’s fingers, Kress raced to third. The A’s Bing Miller lofted a fly to left, and Kress beat Withnell’s throw home for a short-lived 1-0 lead.

Cleveland’s Clint Brown coaxed two groundouts in Jamestown’s half of the fourth before Hancock singled. Hancock scored ahead of Haley, who shot a liner between Kress and third base, and sped around the basepaths for an inside-the-park home run.

Jamestown lost its 2-1 lead in the seventh. After Washington’s Joe Judge walked, Detroit’s Charlie Gehringer slammed a liner to left field, and Withnell made a spectacular catch, sending Judge scrambling back to first. Heinie Manush’s grounder forced Judge at second, and Cincinnati’s left-handed Babe Herman (who went 4-for-4) rocketed a ball over the right-field fence, over the street, and into the James River, putting Mack’s team ahead, 3-2. In the ninth, Philadelphia’s 25-game-winner Lefty Grove preserved the win, using 11 pitches to strike out Jamestown’s three batters. Mack’s four pitchers totaled 13 strikeouts.

Mack’s team visited a hospitalized teenager the morning of the game, and after the contest posed for pictures and signed autographs. Both teams, along with a champion American Legion team, were feted that evening at a banquet attended by 150.32 The season was complete.

All summer Jamestown’s fans witnessed great baseball, and great baseball players. Rogan was posthumously inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1998, and five other Hall of Fame inductees: Bell, Gehringer, Grove, Manush, and Wells—all in their prime—took the field for the opposition. Years later, Hancock remembered, “Rogan was a grand old man. [Jamestown fans] just fell in love with him. He could really pitch and hit.”33 What a glorious time to come to the ballpark.

THOMAS MERRICK is a retired North Dakota District Court judge, and an Air Force veteran, currently living in Buffalo, Minnesota. He attended his first major league game on July 9, 1961, at Briggs Stadium with his father and brother, and watched his father’s beloved Detroit Tigers sweep a doubleheader from the Los Angeles Angels. He has been a SABR member since 2000 and frequently contributes essays to the SABR Games Project. His article, “Swede Risberg’s journey to Jamestown,” appeared in the June 2019 Black Sox Scandal Research Committee Newsletter. Among his many blessings are his wife Pamela, their three children, and their two granddaughters.

Notes

1. The Jamestown Jimkotans were part of the Dakota League in 1922 and the North Dakota League in 1923, and the Jamestown Jimmies were a Northern League Franchise in 1936-37. The semipro teams did not have a nickname, although after purchasing grey uniforms with red trim, caps, and socks in 1931, some fans referred to them as the Red Sox.

2. The population from the 1930 census was 8,187; the 2020 census 15,849.

3. “Baseball Getting into Full Swing for Season’s Work,” Jamestown Sun, April 19, 1930: 6.

4. Kyle P. McNary, “Double Duty” Radcliffe: 36 Years of Pitching & Catching in Baseball’s Negro Leagues (St. Louis Park, MN: McNary Publishing, 1994).

5. Janet Bruce, The Kansas City Monarchs: Champions of Black Baseball (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1985).

6. Peter Gorton and Steven R. Hoffbeck, “John Donaldson and Black Baseball in Minnesota,” The National Pastime: Baseball in the North Star State (SABR 2012).

7. Bruce Berg and Reggie Aligada, Common Ground: McElroy Park’s Jack Brown Stadium (Jamestown, ND: Common Ground Press, 1996).

8. “Jamestown to Have All White Team this Year,” Jamestown Sun, April 9, 1931: 6.

9. “Jamestown to Have All White Team this Year.”

10. “Jamestown and Corwith Nighthawks Will Play Tie Off Here on Sunday,” Jamestown Sun, July 9, 1932: 6.

11. “Baseball Getting into Full Swing for Season’s Work.” General admission was 50¢ and grandstand seating 10¢.

12. Bruce, 130, citing the Kansas City Call, October 27, 1922.

13. “Jamestown Ball Club Getting Ready for Season’s Work,” Jamestown Sun, March 17, 1932: 6.

14. “Jamestown Baseball Club Will Open Season May 8,” Jamestown Sun, April 21, 1932: 6.

15. “Jamestown Baseball Club Will Open Season May 8.”

16. Bruce, 68.

17. A religious colony from Michigan which sponsored a talented, bearded, traveling team.

18. Bruce, 84. Plans failed due to stadium lease problems.

19. Dixon, 157-8.

20. Dixon, 160.

21. Thomas Merrick, “June 20, 1931: Old Pete brings night baseball to Jamestown,” SABR Games Project, Society for American Baseball Research, https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/june-20-1931-old-pete-brings-nightbaseball-to-jamestown.

22. “Jamestown Club Plays Good Ball to Beat Visitors,” Jamestown Sun, May 31, 1932: 5.

23. Dixon, 161.

24. “Jamestown Took Both Games in Series From Duluth Team: Northern Pacific on Sunday,” Jamestown Sun, July 30, 1932: 6.

25. Dixon, 163.

26. Dixon, 163.

27. Gallivan pitched in the minors for Montgomery (Southeastern League) and Indianapolis (American Association) from 1935-38. His older brother Phil Gallivan was pitching with the Chicago White Sox in 1932.

28. “Monarchs Put Up Very Fine Ball Exhibition,” Jamestown Sun, August 2, 1932: 6.

29. “Team Defeated Only 7 Times in 1932 Season,” Jamestown Sun, August 15, 1932: 6.

30. Bruce, 78.

31. “Jamestown Puts Up Fine Game Here Tuesday,” Jamestown Sun, October 5, 1932: 6.

32. “Jamestown Puts Up Fine Game Here Tuesday.”

33. Dixon, 164.

Barnstorming independent teams and semipro leagues were common in the early twentieth century, often successfully competing with the major leagues for coverage in the newspapers of the day. According to the Black baseball statistics compiled on Seamheads.com, one such independent team, the Brooklyn Royal Giants, put together a 15-1-1 record in 1906. Although not in a formal league, the Brooklyn Royal Giants played both Black and White opponents throughout the northeastern United States.

On August 8 and 9, the Royal Giants played against two Connecticut teams, Rockville and Manchester. In 1906 they had been scheduled to be part of the “Big Four,” a four-team independent league (including Willimantic and Bristol) organized in April.2 Play was to begin on June 23. However, the Bristol team withdrew on June 10, prompting the league to cease operations before a single game had been played.3 The remaining three teams operated independently, scheduling games against a variety of opponents. By August, only Rockville and Manchester were still operating. Indeed, on August 14, Rockville played against a team from the Connecticut Hospital for the Insane at Middletown, winning 5-1.4

Among the players on the Royal Giants squad that faced Rockville on August 9 was Billy Holland. In his first of two seasons with the team, Holland split his time between the mound, third base, and the outfield. His four mound wins were the second most on the team, and he batted .200 (13-for-65). On August 8, he played left field, and had one of his team’s four hits, a double.5 Bill Merritt pitched for the Royal Giants and limited Rockville to two runs, but unfortunately took the 2-1 loss.

A photo of Billy Holland in the uniform of what appears to be a California Winter League team, the Hilldale Giants (not related to the Pennsylvania-based Hilldale club.) (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)

The following day, they played at nearby Manchester, and Holland pitched and batted leadoff. Through seven innings, he allowed only one hit and struck out 10, and his team was leading, 3-0. He had contributed to his own cause with a double and a run scored. But Manchester tied the score in the eighth inning on one hit and some very sloppy fielding by the Royal Giants. The game went into extra innings. The Royal Giants scored in the top of the 11th inning to take a 4-3 lead, but with two out in the bottom of the inning, after Manchester had tied the game on a double by Kelley, Joe Casey singled home the winning run. Holland was tagged with the loss, striking out 16 and walking only one in the process. He had yielded only five hits, three coming in the final inning.6

By the time the Royal Giants next played Rockville, manager Billy Lush of Rockville had acquired three new players to beef up his lineup. They had been playing in the Northern League for Rutland, Vermont. They were identified as pitcher Lou Wiltse, a shortstop named Collins from the University of Vermont, and a third baseman named Sheehan.7

On August 22, Holland took to the mound in relief against Rockville and held the lead as the Royal Giants won, 4-2.8 Merritt had started the game for the Royal Giants and Holland entered the game in the fifth inning with the scored tied, 2-2. The Royal Giants’ offense, bolstered by two squeeze plays, generated two seventh inning runs and garnered the win for Holland.9

Holland then returned to Connecticut in September, but not with the Royal Giants. Manager Breckinridge of the Manchester team had obtained his services.

Black players had been barred from teams affiliated with the American and National Leagues since late in the nineteenth century, and it had been 15 years since a team of any kind had been integrated in Connecticut. On two occasions, Manchester sought to use Holland in a game, and on both occasions, the Rockville team thwarted them. The first came on September 1 in a game at Manchester. Rockville objected to taking the field against Holland and elected not to play, prepared to forfeit the game. After about an hour delay, the Manchester management, so as not to disappoint the fans expecting to see a game, let Rockville have its way. Local favorite Eddie Collins (not the Hall of Famer) pitched in lieu of Holland and Rockville defeated Manchester, 11-2.10

Ironically, the other Eddie Collins also played for Rockville. This Eddie Collins, a shortstop, acquired less than two weeks earlier, would join the Philadelphia Athletics less than two weeks later (playing under an assumed name), and would ultimately be inducted into the Hall of Fame. At the time, he was about to enter his senior year at Columbia University. When it was discovered that he had played with Rockville, and before that in Vermont, he was suspended from the school’s baseball team. (They did not know, at the time, that he had played for the Athletics.11) Shortly after graduation in 1907, he once again joined the Athletics, this time playing under his own name, and played in the major leagues through 1930.12

Two days later, Holland was set to enter a game against Rockville on Monday, September 3. It was the second game of a doubleheader and Manchester was leading, 3-2, after five innings. Rockville refused to put up a batter to face Holland and the game did not continue.13 The ruling by umpire Maro Keeney was that Rockville had forfeited the game, and the contest was ruled a 9-0 win for Manchester. The Hartford Daily Times reported that “Rockville people say it (the insertion of Holland) was a deliberate attempt on the part of Manchester to break up the game, while Manchester asserts that Rockville has not a leg to stand on.”14

The reaction to Rockville’s reluctance to play in a game with a Black man was one of disappointment. A fan calling himself “Hartford Baseball Rooter” wrote, in a letter to the Hartford Times:

In justice to the managers, it would be only fair to say that the Rockville manager should not have been allowed to again designate what pitcher Manchester should use. As Rockville has played against colored players all the season, also in view of the fact that the games in question were no[t] league games, and not for a pennant of any kind, it is hard to understand by the disinterested spectator why they, the Rockvilles, should draw the color line at this time.15

The letter writer’s point that Rockville had not objected to playing against Black teams was bolstered not only by games between Rockville and the Royal Giants, but against the Cuban Giants as well. Rockville had defeated the Cuban Giants, 8-2, on August 16.16 Games between all-Black teams and all-White teams were common. However, the integration of teams, even at the semipro level, was rare, and would remain so as the twentieth century wore on.

We have one other example of a Black player integrating a team in Connecticut. The Hartford Twilight League included a Black player in its ranks as early as 1933: Schoolboy Johnny Taylor, pitching for the Savitt Gems. Taylor, like Holland, was barred from playing in affiliated baseball, and played in the Negro Leagues with the New York Cubans beginning in 1935.

In 1945, Taylor once again broke a barrier. He spent the season with the New York Cubans, but late in September returned to Connecticut to play on an integrated team: the Waterbury Brasscos. One game proved notable. On September 28, the Brasscos hosted the New York Yankees in an exhibition game. Taylor pitched the last three innings, earning a save in a 1-0 Waterbury win.17 It may have been the first time that the Yankees had played against an integrated team.

The fielding of a team containing both Black and White players in affiliated baseball didn’t happen until 1946. By the time integration arrived, Taylor had lost some of the zip in his fastball, but he did join the Hartford Chiefs of the Eastern League in 1949, becoming the first Black player to play on a Hartford-based team affiliated with Major League Baseball—43 years after Billy Holland visited Connecticut.

ALAN COHEN has been a SABR member since 2010. He chairs the SABR BioProject fact-checking committee, serves as Vice President-Treasurer of the Connecticut Smoky Joe Wood Chapter of SABR, and is a datacaster (MiLB stringer) with the Hartford Yard Goats, the Class AA Eastern League affiliate of the Colorado Rockies.

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to express gratitude to the Connecticut Historical Society for allowing access to the Hartford Times.

Sources

In addition to the sources shown in the notes, the author used Baseball- Reference.com and Seamheads.com.

Notes

1. Out and Was Beaten,” Hartford Courant, September 3, 1906: 2.

2. “Big Four is Organized,” Meriden (Connecticut) Morning Record, April 16, 1906: 2.

3. “Big Four League Will Disband,” Hartford Courant, June 14, 1906: 9.

4. “Independent Baseball: Rockville Defeated Hospital for Insane at Middletown,” Hartford Daily Times, August 15, 1906: 17.

5. “Rockville 2, Royal Giants 1,” Hartford Courant, August 9, 1906: 8, and Rockville Defeats Brooklyn Giants,” Hartford Daily Times, August 9, 1906: 11.

6. “Manchester Trimmed the Royal Giants,” Hartford Courant, August 10, 1906: 2, and “Victory for Manchester: In Late-Coming Batting Rallies Beat Royal Giants 5 to 4,” Hartford Daily Times, August 10, 1906: 11.

7. “Trio of Stars for Lush,” Hartford Courant, August 22, 1906: 13, and “Baseball Notes,” Hartford Dally Times, August 22, 1906: 11. The player identified as Sheehan was Dave Shean.

8. “Royal Giants 4, Rockville 2: New York Colored ‘Champs’ Trimmed Rockville,” Hartford Courant, August 23, 1906: 13.

9. “Colored Teams Victorious: Royal Giants Beat Rockville, and the Cubans Downed Middlesex,” Hartford Daily Times, August 23, 1906: 11.

10. “Objected to Colored Player.”

11. Peter Mittermeyer, “Eddie Collins” SABR Bio-Project.

12. The person who recommended Collins to Philadelphia manager Connie Mack was Athletics pitcher Andy Coakley. 15 years later Coakley was coaching at Columbia (Collins’ College). The irony is that one of his players spent about the same time in Hartford as Collins had in Rockville. Lou Gehrig also received a suspension from the university.

13. “Manager Lush Draws Color Line,” Meriden (Connecticut) Daily Journal, September 4, 1906: 8.

14. “Rockville Beat Manchester: Cost of Whitewash in the Morning-Balked at Negro Pitcher,” Hartford Daily Times, September 4, 1906: 11.

15. “From a Spectator,” Hartford Daily Times, September 4, 1906: 11.

16. “Rockville Defeated Cuban Stars,” Hartford Daily Times, August 17, 1906: 19.

17. “Yankees Defeated in Exhibition, 1-0,” New York Daily News, September 29, 1945: 25.

A game at Minneapolis’ Nicollet Park in 1954, the most hitter-friendly park of its era. (Courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society)

Contrary to what you might read elsewhere, Forbes Field was not the first modern ballpark made of steel and concrete. That honor belongs to a minor-league stadium that now, like so many historic baseball sites, is a parking lot.1 Neil Park in my hometown of Columbus, Ohio, was by no means the first—or only—significant minor-league ballpark to have thrived, only to meet an ignominious fate at the hands of those who didn’t fully appreciate what they had.

You might be familiar with the names of some of them: Nicollet Park, Rickwood Field, Seals Stadium, Wrigley Field, Gilmore Field, Engel Field, Offermann Stadium, Sulphur Dell. Whole books have been written about some of these places, and a few have even appeared in a movie or two that you might have seen, such as the Rockpile in Buffalo (The Natural), Bush Stadium in Indianapolis (Eight Men Out), and the old Durham Athletic Park (Bull Durham, of course).

Lots of stories and memories exist of these stadiums, but with a few notable exceptions, we don’t have a concrete idea of how these parks played. Sure, most people who know anything about minor- league baseball know that Nicollet Park and Sulphur Dell, with their short right-field fences, were great homer havens, but what about Seals Stadium in San Francisco? Was it a hitters park? A pitchers park? I believe it was a tough park for home runs and a bit of a hitters park otherwise, but we don’t really know because of a dearth of information on park effects for minor-league stadiums. Unless you’re willing to go through box scores and assemble them yourself, home-road splits for minor-league ballparks before 2005 don’t exist in the public eye.

A quick-and-dirty way to assess park effects is to take the total of team runs scored and allowed and divide that by the league average. It works better for assessing individual players than it does ballparks, but for the most part, this method shows which parks helped batters and which helped pitchers.

I developed another quick-and-dirty subjective assessment along those lines for ballparks, assigning or subtracting points on the following system:

Add 1 point if

• A team led its league in home runs.
• A team led its league in runs scored.
• A team led its league in runs allowed.
• A team led its league in home runs allowed.
• A team’s lineup included the league leader in home runs.

Add 2 points if

• A team led its league in run context, which is runs scored + runs allowed.

Add 1.5 points if

• A team led its league in home run context, or home runs + home runs allowed.

Subtract the same amount if

• A team finished last in its league in those respective categories.

Team homers, runs, and runs allowed are mostly available across the board after 1918. Because homers allowed weren’t tracked at all until the 1950s and not universally until the 1970s, I split minor-league parks into two groups, with the dividing line being 1963. The ballparks that were in use for more of their seasons before that year were put in Group A, the rest in Group B.

By this method, Table 1 shows the 10 most hitter-friendly ballparks in minor-league history.

Table 1: The Ten Most Hitter-Friendly Ballparks in the Minor Leagues

You can’t compare the point totals in Group A with those in Group B because more data are included in Group B, of course. That said, I’d bet that if a vote were taken among experts as to which minor-league ballpark was the best hitters park of all time, Nicollet Park would be at the top of the heap. Its legendary 279-foot right-field wall helped dozens if not hundreds of hitters. It seems hard to believe that when it opened, Nicollet was actually a canyon compared with the Millers’ previous park, Athletic Park, which helped Perry Werden hit an incredible 43 and 45 homers in 1894 and 1895. (Werden dropped to 18 the first year he played half his games in Nicollet.)

Sulphur Dell, shown here in the 1950s, was known as a hitter haven. (Tennessee State Government Archives)

One more note: Obviously, my ratings are based on totals. One could argue that a better way to evaluate ballparks is by points per season. I wouldn’t disagree, but completing the research necessary for such a thorough evaluation is beyond my bandwidth. That said, if one wanted to perform the research, I’d go double or nothing that with the possible exception of a ballpark that was used for just a single year, he or she would find that the two ballparks at the top of that list are Bonneville Park/Derks Field and Hughes Stadium.

Bonneville Park, later renamed Derks Field, was home to the Salt Lake City Bees from 1915 to 1946. It operated only 19 seasons during that time, but it racked up 61 points, or an average of 3.21 per season. That’s the highest of any ballpark that I evaluated that was open for at least 10 seasons (that didn’t include full home runs data). Almost all of that was accumulated when Bonneville Park was the hitters paradise of the Pacific Coast League from 1915 to 1925. Back then, the Bees led the PCL in run context every season—11 for 11. The Bees led every season in runs allowed (estimated) and in runs scored in eight out of 11. Of course, the reason for this was that Salt Lake City is about 4,000 feet farther above sea level than any of the other PCL cities at the time.

That said, the best hitters park of any minor-league stadium that lasted more than a year (that we can evaluate properly) has to be Hughes Stadium in Sacramento. Hughes Stadium is a track and football stadium at Sacramento City College, and in 1974 it was called into service as a baseball stadium for the Sacramento Solons, returning after a 14-year absence. Shoehorning a baseball diamond into the space resulted in a farce, with a left- field fence that was 235 feet from home plate.

The Solons used Hughes Stadium for three years before the team moved to San Jose (a culture shock to be sure for the hitters), and during those three years, the Solons led the PCL in every possible hitters category that my method uses except runs in 1976, when the Solons finished as runners-up by 24 (and a Solon player did not lead the league that year in homers). That’s 24 points out of a possible 26 in three seasons, or an 8.00 average.

As you might imagine, the home-run numbers are ridiculous. In 1974, the Solons hit a minor-league record 305 home runs. (The previous mark was 271 by the 1947 Las Vegas Stars.) They allowed what also has to be a minor-league record 301 home runs. That’s 606 home runs in 144 games that the Solons played. The league hit 1,107 homers for the whole season, so, yes, more than half were hit during Solons games alone!

That year, the Solons had a run context that was 22 percent better than the league average. That’s impressive, but it isn’t a record. The home-run context was—are you ready for this?—118 percent better than the league average. If that isn’t a record, it should be.

So Hughes Stadium is the greatest hitters park in minor-league history, unless it’s Bonneville Park, unless… as noted above, Nicollett Park went from being a decent hitters park relative to the league (based on incomplete data) to a launching pad after World War I. From 1919 to when Nicollet closed after 1955, the Millers racked up 125 points in 37 years, or an average of 3.38 per season. During that time, the Millers led the AA in homers 27 times, runs 21 times and run context 25 times. And that’s without any help from altitude.

On the flip side of the coin, parks that were pitcher- friendly tend to be less well-known. That isn’t surprising when you consider that most fans prefer offense, so they’re more likely to remember ballparks where runs were plentiful.

Here are the five best pitchers parks in minor- league history, according to my method:

1. NAT BAILEY STADIUM

• City: Vancouver, B.C., Canada
• Years in operation: 58, 1951-54, 1956-62, 1965-69, 1978-2019
• Points: minus-116.5
• Average team run context: 0.92
• Average team home-run context: 0.80

2. SAN JOSE MUNICIPAL STADIUM / EXCITE PARK

• City: San Jose, California
• Years in operation: 69, 1942, 1947-58, 1962-present
• Points: minus-111
• Average team run context: 0.93
• Average team home-run context: 0.83

3. PARQUE CENTENARIO 27 DE FEBRERO

• City: Villahermosa, Tabasco, Mexico
• Years in operation: 51, 1964-70, 1975, 1977-present
• Points: minus-109
• Average team run context: 0.88
• Average team home-run context: 0.72

4. BILLY HEBERT FIELD

• City: Stockton, California
• Years in operation: 47, 1953-72, 1978-2004
• Points: minus-99
• Average team run context: 0.91
• Average team home-run context: 0.83

5. DUNN FIELD

• City: Elmira, New York
• Years in operation: 65, 1939-55, 1957-2005
• Points: minus-93.5
• Average team run context: 0.97
• Average team home-run context: 0.86

Yes, that’s correct: Every one of the five best pitchers parks are old parks that survived. Three of the top five were in use in 2017, and all of the top five saw action as recently as 2004. I have no explanation for that other than perhaps older ballparks, when all other things are equal, play more as pitchers parks relative to new parks, perhaps because of shorter, closer fences in newer parks built to promote action.

One thing that you’ll note about pitchers parks is that you don’t see atmospheric anomalies, or ballparks from places where the ball didn’t travel well relative to the league, as you did with hitters parks, such as Bonneville Park in the PCL. In other words, you can’t find a situation where all of the parks are, say, above 3,000 feet in elevation except for one that’s 50 feet, so the negative totals generally aren’t as high as are the positive totals.

That said, I have no doubt that had Stockton and San Jose not been in the same league at mostly the same time, either one of those parks (and perhaps both) likely not only would be atop the list of pitchers paradises but might also have accumulated more points than any of the hitters havens.

For what it’s worth, I believe that the pitchers’ best friend with respect to preventing the home run relative to the league was Damaschke Field in Oneonta, New York. Used between 1939 and 2009, Damaschke just missed being included among the top five pitchers parks by a half-point. Of its -86 points accumulated in 43 seasons, 66 were the result of home run categories. Oneonta teams led their respective leagues (primarily the New York-Penn League) in fewest home runs eight times, fewest home runs allowed 23, and lowest home- run context 22 (the latter two in 34 seasons). The dimensions were nothing special, 335 feet to the corners and 401 to center, but the ball might as well have been made of pewter as far as how it traveled.

A final note: Some parks are hitters parks or pitchers parks only because of the league that they’re in at the time. In other words, they’re extraordinary compared with the rest of one league, but they might be absolutely ordinary when they’re in a different league, with different teams, parks, and locales.

Take the Dudley Dome, for example. It played as slightly pitcher-friendly until El Paso joined the Texas League. Instantly, the Dome became a launching pad. Conversely, Dunn Field was a desert when Elmira was in the Eastern League. As soon as it moved to the NYPL, it became primarily a hitters park, then reverted to a pitchers paradise after Elmira teams went independent.

As time goes on, it will be interesting to see what happens to Adelanto Stadium. Based on points per season, a case exists that it’s the greatest hitters park in minor-league history. It racked up 120 points in only 26 seasons in the California League. However, when the High Desert Mavericks closed shop in 2016 and the High Desert Yardbirds opened in the independent Pecos League in 2017, Adelanto Stadium played like a pitchers park in the pinball PecL.

It turns out that ballpark factors, like player performance, can be relative.

To complete the story, Neil Park closed in 1932 when the renamed Redbirds moved to Redbird Stadium. According to my analysis, Neil Park was dead neutral.

WILL CHRISTENSEN is a professional journalist, avid researcher, and minor-league baseball nut. He has been a member of SABR since 1986 and finally is paying back all the benefits he’s received over the years by copyediting bios for the SABR BioProject.

Notes

1. Philip Lowry, et. al., Green Cathedrals (Fifth Edition). Page 104 of the recent SABR edition states that “in 1905, [Neil Park II] was the only steel-and-concrete stadium used for a major league game until Forbes Field opened in 1909.”

APPENDIX

Presented here are the fully compiled numbers for some of the ballparks discussed in the article. Two tables are included for each park, one for runs, and one for home runs. The home run table for each park contains only the seasons for which home run totals were published.

For each season, the following stats are included:

G: Team games (entire season, not just at the park)

R: Team runs

RA: Team runs allowed

LgR: League average runs per team

LGm: League average games played per team

HR: Team home runs

HRA: Team home runs allowed

T Cxt: Team context. This is the runs context for the team for the season, or the percentage of runs scored in games played by played by the team compared with the league average, calculated as:

(team runs + team runs allowed divided by 2 * league average) * (team games / league average games).

For example, in 1953, the Stockton Ports scored 679 runs and allowed 593 in 141 games. The average California League that season scored and allowed 747 runs (rounded) in 140.75 games, so the context formula is:

((679 + 593) / (2 * 747)) * (141 / 140.75) = (1,272 / 1,494) * (141 / 140.75) = 0.85

In 1953, Ports games had an average of 15 percent fewer runs than the league average.

(Click image to enlarge)

In the minor leagues, we always prided ourselves on our abilities to steal. No, not like Rickey Henderson, more like the TV networks each attempting their own version of “Real Housewives of…” We would hear about a promotion, gate attraction, or ad campaign that was clever and successful, and our first thought was “Will it work in my town?” (Our second generally was “Who can we get to pay for this?” but that’s another story.) Stealing from one another was (and still is, I’m sure) common and encouraged openly. But in my two years as Amarillo’s assistant general manager (1979 and 1980, when we were San Diego’s Texas League affiliate), we had a nightly feature that, to my knowledge, has never been duplicated and, in all probability, never will be.

Like most minor league teams, the Gold Sox had a booster club. It wasn’t very large, befitting our fan base, but they were all good folks who cared about the team and those of us who were trying, much like Quixote, to make a success of the venture. And two of our most active boosters were Bob and LaDean Halinski.

Bob was a short but powerfully built man, a native New Yorker whose accent had long since disappeared into the West Texas wind. LaDean was tall and thin, the owner of one of the world’s great lasagna recipes, which was proven and re-proven on numerous occasions. They were both always available if we needed help, either at the ballpark or at home. And they both had a fabulous sense of humor. Bob, especially, could tell a story like no other-his eyes would get a certain gleam as he launched into the joke, his expressive face would play all the parts as he led you to the inevitably uproarious punchline, and then he would laugh right along with you.

LaDean frequently helped us in the office, occasionally in the concession stand. Their son, Herb, spent one full season working the scoreboard, and I mean that literally. It was an old board, with only balls, strikes and outs operated electronically. The inning-by-inning totals, as well as the accumulated runs, hits, and errors, had to be dropped in by hand, so Herb sat inside the scoreboard night after night with a bird’s-eye view of 90 percent of the ballpark, excluding, of course, anything hit beyond the warning track. Meanwhile Bob would set up shop just a few feet inside the main gate and hawk our programs, using his ready good humor and natural effusiveness to sell more than we could have rightly expected. Then around the fifth or sixth inning, he would join LaDean in their box seats along the third base line.

I don’t recall exactly when or how we began what was to become a nightly routine—probably a chance remark on a cool night when the crowd was sparse. Sitting up in the press box as public address announcer, I had the grandstands, bleachers, and entire playing field laid out before me like a mosaic, and I could plainly see Bob take his seat next to LaDean. I’d wait for a natural break—generally an inning change, though occasionally when a new pitcher was coming into the game—and launch into my spiel:

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a special guest in the ballpark tonight. You’ve seen him in numerous movies, like “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and “Chinatown,” he’s here tonight watching the Gold Sox, please welcome MR. JACK NICHOLSON!

And Bob would stand up, wave to the crowd (most of whom were friends and acquaintances of his), and sit down.

We did this every night, the only variation being the name of the personality. It could be anyone, alive or dead, from any profession. I rarely told Bob what name I planned on dropping that night; often I didn’t know myself until the words started to come. Sometimes we would add some spice to this stew, like when I introduced him as Charles de Gaulle (deceased nearly a decade), and then played the French national anthem on the kazoo while Bob waved.

One night we introduced him as Walter Alston, the former manager of the Dodgers. Our owner and general manager, John Dittrich, had been in the office or concession stand when the announcement was made, and wandered into the stands just a moment later. A woman rushed up to him. “Oh, Mr. Dittrich,” she said with great excitement, “Where is Walter Alston?” “Somewhere in Ohio,” John accurately replied. “Oh, no, he’s here in the ballpark tonight!” she responded, and raced off to find her hero.

The night we introduced Bob as Jack Nicholson, a woman asked for an autograph. Bob tried to explain to her about the gag, but she wouldn’t listen. Even her husband tried to dissuade her, saying “They do this every night out here.” She would not be swayed. “I’ve seen all of your pictures!” she exclaimed. Must not have been looking too closely, because Bob did not resemble the great actor at all. Finally, to get her off his back so he could quietly watch at least a couple of innings, Bob signed. “See, I knew it was you!” she said triumphantly. Bob didn’t even spell it right, he later told me. And then some fellow sitting a row or two behind him bought the pencil he used to sign!

Occasionally Bob made suggestions to me. One time he found a huge Stetson hat, and I introduced him as Hoss Cartwright, then played the Bonanza theme on the kazoo. Another time he put a paper bag on his head and was announced as the Unknown Fan. (At the time, a comedian was appearing on TV with a bag on his head, telling jokes as “The Unknown Comedian.”) Later, LaDean also donned a bag and, along with their friend Sarge Baker, they were introduced as the Unknown Fan and his Family. I should point out that Sarge, ostensibly the sibling, was a good foot taller than Bob. When we had the Famous Chicken, LaDean worked for a week or more on a very specific costume, and at an appropriate time we introduced a very special guest… Colonel Sanders! Looked just like him, too, complete with an empty bucket, and a cleaver to help fill that bucket. Teddy Giannoulas, the Chicken, had not been told in advance about this addition to his act, but he played along perfectly, feigning fear for his life and then running off and hiding in the bullpen.

And sometimes life would imitate art. One afternoon, just hours before we were to begin a homestand against El Paso, the great Warren Spahn walked into our office. He was a roving pitching coach for the Angels that year, and he was in town to watch some of his young charges. That night he sat up high in the grandstand behind home plate to get a good view of what they were throwing, and how. I introduced him as a Hall of Famer, winner of 363 games, etc. Spahn obligingly stood up and waved to the crowd, but from my perch in the press box I could see that no one was looking at him, they were all turned towards the third base side, looking at Bob! I grabbed the mike and said, “No, people, look behind home plate, Warren Spahn really is here tonight!” Only then did people see him; poor Spahnie had to be filled in later on why people had responded like they did.

After two years I left Amarillo to take over as GM in Waterloo, Iowa. We didn’t do this promotion there; we didn’t have a Bob Halinski. But Bob and LaDean and I always stayed in touch, and when we moved to Durham, North Carolina, they came to visit a couple of times. We rehashed all the old stories, and he told some new ones with his usual panache, and my face would ache for days from all the smiling and laughing I’d done.

One summer night, out of the blue, LaDean called to say that Bob had passed away. He’d contracted a disease so rare it generally only strikes children, and then very few of those. He was in a great deal of pain at the end, so much so that death was a relief. He was not even 60 years old.

As you probably can tell, I think of him often and miss him a lot, and wonder why he died so young. While writing this, I think I now understand. I’m not an especially religious person by nature, but I think it’s likely God needed someone who could tell a good joke, or carry on a great running gag. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a special guest in heaven tonight…”

Rest easy, pardner.

MARSHALL ADESMAN spent a dozen years as an assistant general manager, general manager and business manager for teams located in Florida, Texas, Iowa, New York, Virginia, and North Carolina. He also worked for 21 years at Duke University as an administrator in such diverse departments as Public Policy, Development, Medical Center Administration, and Integrative Medicine. Now happily retired in Northeast Tennessee, he has also co-authored one book about baseball, contributed to two others, served as an associate editor on a third, and written an (as yet) unpublished historical novel about integrating the minor leagues in the early 1950s.

Among the players headed to the Sacramento suburb was Sal Fucile, Pittsburg’s eighteen-year-old catcher. During Roseville’s brief stint in minor league baseball, Fucile would slam five home runs in a six- game stretch, yet at the end of the year his official record would show zero home runs for the season. Why? Well, it’s not too long a story—and the title of this article provides a clue.

Former big-leaguer Babe Herman suggested to Press-Tribune sports editor Chic Courter that Roseville could have a baseball team. (SABR-Rucker Archive)

To understand the genesis of Roseville’s blink in time as a minor league baseball town, we have to go back one year, to a tryout staged there by the Pittsburgh Pirates in July 1947. The five-day camp for prospective players ages sixteen to twenty-two held the promise of contract offers to the most promising prospects, and featured among its instructors the colorful Babe Herman, a former big-league hitting star who had been Gary Cooper’s stunt double in Pride of the Yankees.2 Two months after the camp, Herman popped into the Press-Tribune office and casually dropped a bomb, asking sports editor Chic Courter, “Do you think a Class D club would go in Roseville?”3

A couple of weeks after that, Cleveland Indians scout Tony Governor arrived in town to evaluate Roseville as a potential site for a farm club.4 Governor addressed the local Lions Club about the possibility, but warned that the high school stadium would be adequate to host a team for only a year, at which point further improvements would have to be made.5 This ignited a debate among local fans, but before any real action could be taken, Roseville lost out to Vallejo, which was willing to commit $25,000 to upgrading its ballpark.6

The lost opportunity roused civic leaders, who met at the Roseville Athletic Club and agreed to formulate a plan for a new baseball plant in time for the 1948 season.7 Art Hadler, who had recently sponsored a team in the Sacramento Winter League, addressed the Roseville Exchange Club and vowed to pursue a Far West League franchise if the city committed to a new stadium8.

In December 1947, there was a glimmer of hope— the Boston Red Sox had secured the league’s final franchise, with the choice of location narrowed to either Oroville or Roseville.9 But Oroville already boasted a finished facility, and at a league meeting held three days before Christmas, Roseville fell short again.10

Eight months later—thanks to Art Hadler’s purchasing Pittsburg’s franchise and fulfilling his earlier promise by relocating the team—Roseville had its chance. The arrival of professional baseball was hailed by the business community as a sign of progress, although a lack of hotels resulted in a plea for residents to open their homes in order to avoid the embarrassment of players being forced to bivouac in the park.11 While Hadler commissioned plans for a more permanent facility, the newly minted Roseville Diamonds took up residence at Roseville High School’s all-dirt playing field, which had been constructed in 1934 as a Works Progress Administration project on land donated by rancher William Kaseberg.12 Local contractor John Piches was hired to expand seating at the facility, which was spruced up as best as could be expected given the four days available for renovations.13 Hadler even rolled up his sleeves and pitched in.14

Despite the venue being considered inferior to the one just vacated, the high school ballpark had its selling points, including outfield dimensions equivalent to other teams in the league and, most important, lighting adequate for night baseball, a vital feature the Pittsburg ballpark had lacked. Hadler, who had accumulated his “fortune” through his Sacramento-based wholesale egg business, hoped to draw fans from the state capital twenty miles to neighboring Placer County, since Sacramento’s Pacific Coast League franchise had become a full-time road team for the remainder of the 1948 season after its home, Edmonds Field, burned to the ground on July 12 in spectacular fashion.15

Chic Courter was unsure whether pro baseball would succeed in Roseville, coming out of the blue as it were. While acknowledging local excitement over the prospect, the Press-Tribune editor alluded to the local tradition of semipro baseball and warned, “It is, at least, like serving English wild boar to people who have been raised on common everyday pork. Maybe they will like it, maybe they won’t.”16

The newly-minted Far West League was attempting to capitalize on a post-war sports boom, minor league baseball having entertained more than forty million spectators in 1947. The circuit was in the first season of its eventual four-year existence and fielded eight teams; Klamath Falls and Medford in Oregon, plus Redding, Willows, Santa Rosa, Oroville, Marysville, and now Roseville, in California. Classified as “D” level, the lowest rung on the baseball ladder, most players were either professional neophytes or marginal talents, although rosters were dotted with interesting names. Future Cy Young Award winner Vernon Law pitched for Santa Rosa, former San Francisco Seals star Ray Perry was player-manager for Redding, and future major league pitching coach and manager Larry Shepard was player-manager for Medford. The father of future Texas Rangers slugger Pete Incaviglia was Medford’s shortstop.

The league’s newest team had actually debuted the previous week with ex-Sacramento Solons outfielder Bill Shewey as manager.17 On July 31, the Roseville Diamonds played their first contest, in Oroville, and lost. Then lost again. They went to Redding and lost three more. Thankfully, the day before arriving at their new home, Roseville swept a doubleheader.18 Nevertheless, the Diamonds were in last place with a record of 33-53, including a 2-5 mark during the first week representing their new city. The team was to play eleven games over the next nine days in Roseville, beginning August 5 against the Santa Rosa Pirates.

Despite Hadler’s boast of his “five thousand dollars per month payroll,” the Diamonds roster was weak— unlike the circuit’s other seven members, they were independent, having no connection to a major league club. A few of Roseville’s players were property of other organizations—overflow from more talented rosters. The remainder were generally those who had failed to catch on elsewhere. One of them, a pitcher, was Hadler’s son, Art Jr. Another was outfielder Vincent DiMaggio—said to be a nineteen-year-old cousin of the famous baseball brothers, not one of them.19

In order to juice local interest, Art Hadler signed popular local semipro star Sammy Piches, a promising infielder who had been released late in spring training by the California League’s Bakersfield Indians, managed by Harry Griswold. Hadler also signed Gene McNulty, whose brother Ray was playing in the Western International League, and whose nephew, Bill McNulty, would star for Sacramento in the minor leagues during the 1970s and appear briefly in the majors.20 Added to the pitching staff were recent Roseville High graduates Jack Hartman and Moe Martin who, like Piches and McNulty, had been playing for the Roseville Athletic Club in the semipro Sacramento County League.

A booster club was formed, with dues of one dollar and the motto, “Win, Lose, or Draw, We’re For the Diamonds.”21 Sammy Piches’s brother John, the contractor who had helped ready the ballpark for game use, was named Boosters president.22

One thousand enthusiastic fans lined up three hours before game time for the Diamonds’ home debut, and they were rewarded with something historic—a no-hitter against their new heroes thrown by Santa Rosa’s Bill LaThorpe. Not only that, LaThorpe allowed only two balls hit out of the infield and struck out seventeen batters—all in the final seven innings—defeating Jack Hartman, who was making his professional debut.23

LaThorpe, a close friend and classmate of Olympic gold medalist Bob Mathias, was no veteran himself, having appeared in his first pro game six weeks earlier after finishing his college season at Fresno State—the win was already LaThorpe’s tenth.24 It was the second time the Diamonds had been no-hit that season; Marysville right-hander Herb Hamilt had done it first when the team was in Pittsburg, an inartistic 14-1 win in which Hamilt walked nine batters and allowed the Diamonds’ only run on a wild pitch that scored a runner from second base.25

The new team’s second home date proved little better than its first, with Roseville scoring six runs while allowing 16 in a game the Diamonds trailed, 9-2, by the bottom of the third inning.26

Roseville finally won its first home contest in five tries, a 12-0 victory in the nightcap of a doubleheader on August 8. But losing quickly resumed, despite catcher Sal Fucile’s home-run streak, encompassing a half-dozen games, all of them defeats. Fucile’s first home run, against the Oroville Red Sox, was controversial—the Red Sox claimed the ball had cleared the fence on a bounce. But when Roseville lost, Oroville dropped the protest and the home run stood.27

Fucile—who had spent spring training with his hometown San Francisco Seals, managed by the legendary Lefty O’Doul—punished Oroville the next day, hitting three home runs in a doubleheader.28 Two of them were off Jules Verne Hudson, arguably the league’s liveliest arm (he struck out 237 batters in 167 innings). Fucile then added another circuit blast to close out the home stand, against Redding.29 These home runs were not the result of friendly home-field dimensions; only one other Diamonds player, Alvin Kruk, hit more than one at the high school ballpark. (He hit two.) Curiously, those five home runs represented Sal Fucile’s entire output for the season in that category, in more than three hundred at bats. It was an unusual power display for a young ballplayer best- known to that point for his spot-on imitations of popular singers.30

(Santa Rosa Press-Democrat)

As Roseville languished in the Far West League cellar, Art Hadler began looking to the future. He was determined to negotiate a working agreement with the Cleveland Indians or New York Yankees and vowed, “…the fans can look for and expect the kind of a ball club they are entitled to come 1949.”31 Other measures included construction of a new home for the Diamonds on a far corner of the Placer County Fairgrounds, including a grandstand, which Roseville High lacked.32

Unfortunately for Hadler, the 1948 schedule was not yet complete. Complaints multiplied. Beer could not be sold on the high school grounds.33 The local newspaper published only twice a week, hampering promotional efforts. The dirt playing surface was far from ideal, especially when the wind kicked up. Not only that, Hadler had to pay a fine to the league for utilizing a field lacking sod.34

Attendance dropped precipitously after the opener. Even a night saluting Sammy Piches, who had played well as the team’s lead-off hitter and second baseman, failed to check the decline.35 At one point Hadler announced he was going to move a home game to Dixieanne Field in North Sacramento, concerned that competition from the Placer County Fair would prove too stiff.36

After losing to Medford, 5-3, on August 19—exactly two weeks after the team’s debut in Roseville—Art Hadler abandoned the remainder of the home schedule and the Diamonds hit the road for the final three weeks of the season, winning only four of their final twenty-one games.37 One particularly painful loss was to the Medford Dodgers, 15-14, after having led by nine runs in the seventh inning. The winning tally was the result of Roseville’s third baseman protesting a close play and then arguing with the umpire without calling time out. Seeing an opening, the Medford runner took off for home and scored the clinching run while the dispute continued unabated.38

Roseville’s season ended with a six-game sweep at the hands of the Willows Cardinals, leaving the team with a final record of 42-84, including an 11-36 mark as the Roseville Diamonds39. Overall attendance for Pittsburg/Roseville was a league-worst 11,054—less than two hundred per game—and less than one-third that of the Far West League’s top draw, Klamath Falls.40

To add to the indignity, none of the Diamonds’ home games made it into the official record. Apparently the box scores were never forwarded to the league office.41 As a result, there is a notation in the 1949 Sporting News Baseball Guide that twenty games of the Far West League’s 1948 season were not reflected in the final statistics or standings because the official scoresheets were lost.42 Sal Fucile’s impressive home stand is among those missing records. In the nine games he played at Roseville High, Fucile hit two doubles, two triples, and five home runs, compiling a batting average of .382 and a slugging average of 1.000. Meanwhile, his official record shows him with zero home runs in 1948, and zero triples as well. Bob LaThorpe’s no-hitter also went unrecorded.

The only career home run for Sammy Piches, against Redding on August 13, is also missing, and roughly half of his at bats for the Diamonds are not included in his final statistics—games during which he batted a solid .275, on top of the .268 average he carried in the nineteen games which were recorded.43

The Roseville Diamonds did not return in 1949. A plan to combine a War Memorial with a baseball stadium at the fairgrounds collapsed, as some locals did not want a ballpark there and others did not want a memorial.44 No one wanted both.

Hadler first announced he was moving the team to Santa Rosa, that city having lost its franchise. Then, citing health issues, he decided to divest instead.45 He offered the team to groups in both Santa Rosa and Roseburg, Oregon, ultimately selling to the Santa Rosa interests.46 Sal Fucile and Alvin Kruk were the only Roseville players making significant contributions to the team-christened the Santa Rosa Cats—before that franchise folded during the 1949 season.47

Hadler returned to the Far West League in 1950, establishing a new franchise in Eugene, Oregon. He built a ballpark there and operated the team for two seasons until the league went out of business, a victim of the military draft, television’s rapid rise in popularity, and cities ultimately too small to support minor league baseball.48 Hadler ran a supermarket chain in Sacramento before moving an hour away to Grass Valley in 1962, where he operated a newspaper distributorship for nearly two decades prior to his death in 1986, at the age of 85.49

Vincent DiMaggio, whose strong arm—eleven assists in forty-four games as an outfielder in 1948—led to him taking the mound on occasion for Roseville, became a full-time pitcher. Interestingly enough, he faced his namesake in 1949 and 1950 when the more famous Vince DiMaggio became a player-manager in the Far West League for Pittsburg which, after finally agreeing to install lights, had received another team after losing its first to Roseville.

As noted, Sal Fucile stayed with the Roseville franchise when it moved to Santa Rosa, and was considered one of the league’s best prospects. He hit three home runs in 1949, all of which were properly recorded in the official statistics, and was then purchased by the New York Giants, who assigned him to Idaho Falls and then Erie in 1950.50 The Giants tried to send him to Knoxville the next year, but National Guard commitments prevented his leaving California. As a result, Fucile played semipro ball on weekends in San Francisco for the Bartenders Union team.51 He then laced up his spikes for Sioux City in 1952 before being drafted into the Army.52 Stationed at the Presidio in San Francisco, Fucile managed the baseball team there but lost nearly two years of his athletic career.53 Before his days in baseball came to an end, he was briefly a member of the San Francisco Seals in 1954, although he never appeared in a game for them.54 Fucile then followed in his father’s footsteps as a bartender in San Francisco before retiring to Concord, where he died in 2003.55 His family had no knowledge of his playing for Roseville, or his impressive home run streak in August 1948.

Sammy Piches was sent a contract to play for Santa Rosa in 1949, but the military draft intervened and he instead joined the Air Force.56 Later, Art Hadler wanted to bring Piches to Eugene, but by the time of Sammy’s military discharge, the Far West League was defunct. Therefore, Piches’s only (incomplete) record in professional baseball came during his month as the starting second baseman for the Roseville Diamonds. He starred for years with Roseville in the amateur Placer Valley League, remaining one of the city’s most popular athletes. Although he never had children of his own, he never missed his niece’s softball games and usually helped her during warm-ups.57 Like Sal Fucile, he became a popular bartender, working in the family businesses in Roseville, including the Rose Room, before his death in 1999.58

After that two-week sojourn in August 1948, minor league baseball never returned to Roseville. None of the Roseville Diamonds ever made it to the major leagues, and the team was forgotten (until now).

DENNIS SNELLING is a three-time Casey Award finalist, including for The Greatest Minor League and Lefty O’Doul: Baseball’s Forgotten Ambassador. He was a 2015 Seymour Medal Finalist for his biography of Johnny Evers, which was also a Casey finalist. He is recently retired as the Chief Business Official for a school district in Roseville, California, has been a Certified Fraud Examiner since 2005, and is beginning his 49th year as public address announcer for Downey High School in Modesto, proud alma mater of George Lucas and Joe Rudi. He is an active member in both the Lefty O’Doul and Dusty Baker SABR chapters in Northern California.

Notes

1. Roseville Press-Tribune, June 30 and August 4, 1948; Santa Rosa Press-Democrat, June 24, 1948, 6. The old US 40 route now runs along Interstate 80.

2. Roseville Press-Tribune, July 11, 1947, 6. Herman batted .381 and .393 in back-to-back seasons for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Other instructors included former Washington Nationals star Heine Manush—a lifetime .330 batter inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1964—PCL legend Herm Pillette, and Pirates chief scout Ted McGrew, who discovered both Pee Wee Reese and Alvin Dark.

3. Roseville Press-Tribune, September 10, 1947, 10.

4. Roseville Press-Tribune, September 24, 1947, 6.

5. Roseville Press-Tribune, October 1, 1947, 6.

6. Roseville Press-Tribune, October 17, 1947, 6. Vallejo ultimately lost out as well. In order to bring their facility up to standard, land adjacent to the stadium had to be purchased in order to expand, and the parties could not reach agreement. The franchise was then awarded to Pittsburg. (Sacramento Bee, January 9, 1948, 24; Santa Rosa Press-Democrat, February 10, 1948, 10.).

7. Roseville Press-Tribune, October 24, 1947, 1.

8. Roseville Press-Tribune, November 7, 1947, 1.

9. Roseville Press-Tribune, December 3, 1947, 1.

10. Roseville Press-Tribune, December 26, 1947, 1.

11. Roseville Press-Tribune, August 4, 1948, 1.

12. Roseville Press-Tribune, February 28, 1934, 1.

13. Roseville Press-Tribune, July 28, 1948, 1.

14. Roseville Press-Tribune, August 6, 1948, 4 and August 27, 1948, 6.

15. Sacramento Bee, July 12, 1948, 1.

16. Roseville Press-Tribune, August 4, 1948, 6.

17. Santa Rosa Press-Democrat, July 30, 1948, 10.

18. Santa Rosa Press-Democrat, August 5, 1948, 6.

19. Roseville Press-Tribune, August 4, 1948, 6. This Vincent DiMaggio’s middle name was Salvatore, while the more famous Vince DiMaggio had the middle name Paul.

20. Bakersfield Californian, April 9, 1948, 18; Piches, along with another local star, Leo Clark, was originally signed by Governor for Bakersfield and spent spring training there. (Roseville Press-Tribune, November 12, 1947, 6; Bakersfield Californian, February 14, 1948, 11.)

21. Roseville Press-Tribune, August 6, 1948, 4.

22. Roseville Press-Tribune, August 13, 1948, 6. John Piches became a prominent residential developer in Roseville, designed the city’s storm drains, established its first savings and loan, and later founded or led nearly every civic committee in Roseville at one time or another. A city park in Roseville is named in his honor.

23. Santa Rosa Press Democrat, August 6, 1948, 6; Roseville Press-Tribune, August 11, 1948, 6.

24. Fresno Bee, June 19, 1948, 6; Santa Rosa Press Democrat, June 22, 1948, 8. Santa Rosa shortstop Vic Solari went five for five. Two nights later, LaThorpe entered in relief in the ninth inning and struck out the side, giving him twenty strikeouts in an eight-inning stretch against Roseville.

25. Yuba City Independent-Herald, May 6, 1948, 7. Hamilt struck out 11.

26. Santa Rosa Press Democrat, August 7, 1948, 6.

27. Roseville Press-Tribune, August 11, 1948, 6.

28. San Francisco Examiner, March 1, 1948, 22.

29. Roseville Press-Tribune, August 13, 1948, 6.

30. Idaho Post Register, April 26, 1950, 13.

31. Roseville Press-Tribune, August 11, 1948, 6.

32. Roseville Press-Tribune, September 15, 1948, 6.

33. Roseville Press-Tribune, August 25, 1948, 6.

34. Roseville Press-Tribune, August 13, 1948, 6.

35. Roseville Press-Tribune, August 18, 1948, 6.

36. Roseville Press-Tribune, August 18, 1948, 6. The game was ultimately played in Roseville.

37. Roseville Press-Tribune, August 27, 1948, 6.

38. Medford Mail Tribune, August 25, 1948, 6.

39. Minus the missing box scores, Pittsburg/Roseville’s official record is listed as 38-71. (Sporting News Official Baseball Guide, 1949, 408.).

40. The Sporting News, November 10, 1948, 13.

41. Roseville Press-Tribune, September 15, 1948, 6.

42. Sporting News Official Baseball Guide, 1949, 408.

43. Roseville Press-Tribune, August 18, 1948, 6. In the eleven missing home games in which he appeared, Piches collected eleven hits in forty at bats with two doubles, a triple, a home run and three stolen bases.

44. Roseville Press-Tribune, October 20, 1948, 1.

45. Santa Rosa Press Democrat, January 2, 1949, 14; Roseville Press- Tribune, February 23, 1949, 6.

46. Santa Rosa Press Democrat, February 19, 1949, 1.

47. Santa Rosa Press Democrat, August 4, 1949, 1. Santa Rosa folded on August 4 with a record of 43-49, four days after Vallejo went out of business.

48. Eugene Leader, May 11, 1950, 10C, 11C.

49. Sacramento Bee, October 22, 1986, B2.

50. Idaho Post Register, March 21, 1950, 13.

51. San Francisco Examiner, July 3, 1951, 24. Sal’s brother Louis also played for the Bartenders over the years.

52. Knoxville News-Sentinel, April 3, 1951, 17.

53. Correspondence with Nina Fucile, June 27, 2020.

54. San Francisco Examiner, August 11, 1954, 35.

55. San Francisco Chronicle, April 26, 2003, A20.

56. Santa Rosa Press Democrat, February 27, 1949, 1; Roseville Press-Tribune, December 21, 1949, 5.

57. Interview with Patti Kostakis, August 22, 2020.

58. Roseville Press-Tribune, January 24, 1999, A5.

The crash—the second involving a minor-league team in two years—stunned minor-league baseball and the communities of Duluth, Minnesota, and St. Louis. Two of the fatalities had ties to Duluth while two of the fatalities and two injured survivors had connections to St. Louis. The Sporting News described the crash as “…next to the worst tragedy in the history of the game.”1

THE CRASH

On the morning of July 24, following a Friday night doubleheader in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, the Dukes’ 18-passenger bus, driven by Treadwell, left Eau Claire on the approximate 150-mile trip to St. Cloud, Minnesota, for a night game against the Rox.

Around midday, the bus was traveling westbound just north of St. Paul on Highway 36 between Dale Street and Western Avenue. A truck loaded with dry ice was eastbound. Witnesses told the Associated Press that the truck hit a rough spot in the road, bounced out of control, and crossed the center line to collide head-on with bus, which was smashed onto its side and went into the ditch. Both the truck and bus burst into flames from ruptured gas tanks.2

Witnesses working in a field next to the highway and passing motorists pulled all but three of the players from the bus.

All five of the fatalities included close ties to either Duluth or St. Louis: Treadwell, who lived in Duluth’s neighboring city of Superior, Wisconsin; Gerald Peterson, who lived in the Duluth suburb of Proctor; Don Schuchman and Gil Krirdla (who played under the name of Gil Trible), both of St. Louis, and the driver of the truck, James Grealish, of St. Paul. Dukes infielder Steve Lazar, of Olyphant, Pennsylvania, died two days later.

The injured were taken to two St. Paul hospitals— Ancker Hospital and Bethesda Hospital. Among the survivors were Joe Becker of St. Louis, future major league manager Mel McGaha, and Elmer Schoendienst, from Germantown, Missouri—the brother of St. Louis Cardinals second baseman (and future manager) Red Schoendienst. It was Elmer Schoendienst who pulled critically injured Don Vanderwier from the burning bus.

The crash dominated the front page of the Minneapolis Sunday Tribune. (Author’s collection)

SUPPORT

In the wake of the tragedy, The Sporting News quoted Duluth Dukes owner Frank Wade: “It is best that we go on.”3

“I can’t tell you what a shock this accident is to my father and myself,” Dick Wade told the Minneapolis Sunday Tribune. “They were the finest bunch of kids— ranged in ages from 19 to 25—I have seen in baseball. We hope to rebuild our team immediately so that we can finish the schedule. We already have had offers from all Northern League teams. The St. Louis Cardinals have promised to get replacements here immediately.”4

Offers of assistance poured in from the other seven Northern League clubs and the Cardinals. George Sisler, Jr., assistant to the president of the Cardinals, was sent to St. Paul, “to see the boys get the best possible medical treatment.”5

Within four days, Sisler and Joe Mathes, the Cardinals farm director, and the Northern League had a plan for the team to resume its schedule. The seven Northern League teams loaned a dozen players to Duluth and the Cardinals sent nine players. The Minneapolis Millers of the Triple-A American Association also loaned a player. Ted Madjeski, who was catching for Houston in the Texas League and had served as the interim player/manager of Fort Lauderdale of the Class C Florida International League earlier in the season, was named manager.

Minor-league teams around the country played benefit games to raise money for the injured players and the families of the players who died in the accident. By September 1948, contributions from around the country to the families of those involved in the crash reached $64,090 ($709,166 in 2022 dollars).

George Sisler Jr. was dispatched from the Cardinals to convey condolences. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)

JOINING THE DUKES

One of the Cardinal farmhands assigned to Duluth was 20-year old Lou Branca. “I had just signed with the Cardinals,” said Branca, who had spent two years in the Navy after graduating from South St. Paul High School. “I was playing amateur baseball for South St. Paul and threw a no-hitter against Cannon Falls.

“The next day, the Cardinals, New York Giants, and Brooklyn Dodgers all called. I talked to all three teams and the Cardinals sounded the best. After I signed, I had a train ticket for Johnson City, Tennessee (home of the Cardinals farm team in the Class D Appalachian League). I got a call from the Cardinals and they said, ‘Hold on. Go to Duluth’ When I got to Duluth, we worked out. Nobody knew anybody. Everyone was still in shock. I roomed with a kid (Harley Beavers) from St. Louis.”

On July 31, one week after the crash, the Dukes resumed play. They lost to their neighbor, the Superior (Wisconsin) Blues, 5-3. The next night, the teams played again in Superior, with the Dukes scoring three runs in the ninth inning to rally for a 6-5 victory.

Proceeds from the two games contributed $10,000 to a fund to benefit the crash victims and their families.

“That first game in Superior was something,” said Branca. “I’ll never forget it. The stands were completely full.”

After that game, the Dukes embarked on a road trip.

“When we took our first road trip we went through St. Paul [en route to Sioux Falls, South Dakota],” said Branca. “We stopped at Ancker Hospital and visited the guys.”

The Dukes, who were 40-34 before the crash, went 13-27 over the rest of the season. Despite falling out of contention for a playoff spot, the Dukes led the Northern League in attendance (97,527).

AFTERMATH

Only one player under contract to the Dukes was not injured in the crash. Sam Hunter, who had been signed by the team the week before accident, intended to join the team in Eau Claire for the trip to St. Cloud. But by the time Hunter’s train from Chicago arrived in Eau Claire, the Dukes had already departed.

The Ramsey County Attorney’s office announced a week after the crash that no criminal action would be brought as a result of the crash. Assistant Ramsey County Attorney Robert Flynn said the county would meet with the Minnesota Highway Department, “to correlate conflicting reports as to the cause of the accident.”6 The initial investigation of the Dukes crash, onducted by the state highway department, indicated “the condition of the road was not a factor. A wavy or ‘washboard section,’ blamed by some observers, was 100 feet from the point of impact.”7

According to a news report, “The highway department contends that the truck’s steering apparatus may have been faulty. Investigation of the wreckage shows the apparatus was worn, according to a highway official.”8

Branca played for the Dukes again in 1949, but shoulder problems forced him to retire after the season. He went on to become a high school baseball coach, including 20 years as the head coach at Rochester (Minnesota) John Marshall High School. He was elected to the Minnesota High School Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2007.

Dukes owner Frank Wade, who resurrected the Northern League name through his involvement in a new league in 1933—there was no Northern League 1918-32—sold the Dukes in 1951. He died in January of 1953 at the age of 80. An Associated Press story said, “Wade’s health began to fail after the accident.”9

A relative of Wade’s told a newspaper columnist, “He never was the same after that highway accident in 1948.”10

McGaha, who had been a three-sport letterman at the University of Arkansas, recovered from his injuries to resume his career in 1949. In 1954, he began his managing career at the age of 27 as the player-manager of Shreveport of the Class AA Texas League. He stopped playing in 1958 and managed two more seasons in the minors before becoming the Cleveland Indians manager in 1962. He also managed the Kansas City Athletics in 1964 and 1965. He retired from baseball after the 1970 season. After baseball he worked as director of Parks and Recreation in Shreveport and Bossier City, Louisiana. He died in 2002.

Bernie Gerl, who was pulled out of the burning bus by a passerby, recovered from his injuries to resume his career in 1950. Gerl, who along with teammates Schoendienst and Bob Vogeltanz, was named to the Northern League All-Star team in 1948, then sat out the 1951 season before playing for the Dukes in 1952 and 1953. Gerl died on November 7, 2020, at the age of 94. He was the last living survivor of the crash.

Joe Svetlick was the second-longest survivor of the crash. Svetlick, who was 18 in 1948, returned to the Dukes in 1949. After the 1949 season, he joined the Air Force. He died in 2009 at the age of 80.

Just over two years earlier—on June 24, 1946—a chartered bus carrying the Spokane team of the Class B Western International League had crashed on a mountain pass east of Seattle. Nine players died in the accident. One survivor of the crash was former major- leaguer Ben Geraghty. The injuries Geraghty suffered in the crash may have hastened the end of his playing career. He began his managing career by taking on duties as player-manager in 1946 after the crash. He spent the following season with Spokane and then finished his playing career in 1948 with the Meridian Peps of the Southeastern League. He eventually managed Jacksonville in the Class A South Atlantic League. In 1953, Jacksonville—with Henry Aaron—won the league’s regular-season title with a 93-44 record before losing to Columbia in the league’s playoff finals.

After the Dukes accident, one national sports writer wrote that minor league baseball teams needed to consider hiring full-time drivers. “It is about time.. .that all minor league teams using buses be forced to hire full-time drivers instead of using players as chauffeurs. On many minor-league teams expenses are held down by getting players with drivers licenses to pilot the buses. .[This] is an invitation to accident. That’s why there should be a full-time chauffeur.”11

JOEL RIPPEL, a Minnesota native and graduate of the University of Minnesota, has contributed as an editor or writer to two dozen books published by SABR. He is the author or co-author of 11 books on Minnesota sports history and has worked for newspapers for more than 50 years.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author conducted a phone interview with Lou Branca in January 2022, and also consulted Baseball-Reference.com, Newspapers.com, and Retrosheet.org.

Notes

1. Sid Peterson, “Aid Rushed to Tragedy-Riddled Duluth Club,” The Sporting News, August 4, 1948: 9.

2. Associated Press, “5 Duluth Ball Players Perish in Crash,” St. Cloud Times, July 24, 1948: 1.

3. Peterson.

4. Frank Diamond, “Duluth Fans Grief Stricken over Tragedy,” Minneapolis Sunday Tribune, July 25, 1948: 32.

5. Associated Press, “Duluth Crash Toll at 5; Many Offer Aid,” Winona (Minnesota) Daily News, July 26, 1948: 13.

6. “State to Take No Court Action in Truck-Bus Crash,” Minneapolis Star, July 30, 1948: 10.

7. Associated Press, “Duluth Dukes Bus Crash is Under Inquiry,” Winona (Minnesota) Daily News, July 27, 1984: 1.

8. Ibid.

9. Associated Press, “Mr. Baseball of Duluth Dies,” St. Cloud Times, January 13, 1953: 12.

10. Frank Farrington, “Another Close Friend of St. Cloud Baseball is Gone,” St. Cloud Times, Jan. 14, 1953: 12.

11. Oscar Fraley, “Full time Drivers urged for Baseball,” St. Louis Star and Times, July 27, 1948: 21.

A Kekionga Base Ball Club collectible card from 1871. (SABR-Rucker Archive)

The National Association of Professional Baseball players was formed in 1871 in New York City leading to the first all-professional baseball organization. While many of the founding clubs were no surprise, one addition might raise eyebrows: the Kekiongas of Fort Wayne. Compared to the cities of the other clubs—New York, Washington DC, Philadelphia, and Boston—Fort Wayne was small, only around 17,000 people at the time.1

FORMATION OF THE TEAM

The Kekiongas were the champion club of Indiana.2 George Mayer—a wealthy local businessman and a member of the Kekiongas amateur team—had a vision to bring professional baseball to Fort Wayne. The only thing standing in the way was a lack of players. So it must have been fate when the Maryland Baseball Club was stranded while on a tour through the Midwest. The ballclub ran out of money, leaving them with no way to get back to Baltimore. Mayer, being a savvy businessman, offered the players contracts to play for the Kekiongas and most of them agreed.3

The acquisitions included Baltimore’s best player, Bobby Mathews. A short pitcher at 5’5″, he won 297 games spanning fifteen years in the NA and major leagues. Mathews and Candy Cummings were credited as the first professionals to master the curveball, and was one of the first to throw the spitball.4 Following Matthews to Indiana were William Lennon, Thomas Carey, Frank Sellman, Ed Mincher, and Wally Goldsmith. Mayer also recruited players from other clubs: Jim Foran, James McDermott, Bill Kelly, and Pete Donnelly. Lennon would serve as captain for the club.5

OPENING THE SEASON AT HOME

On May 4, 1871, all attention was fixed on Fort Wayne as the Kekiongas hosted the Forest Citys of Cleveland for the first professional baseball game in the new organization. Although professional baseball teams existed prior to 1871, most notably the Cincinnati Red Stockings, there had been no professional baseball league. The predecessor organization, the National Association of Base Ball Players (baseball was spelled with two words), was an amateur organization that eventually allowed teams to pay players. In response, several teams broke away to form the National Association, consisting of all professional baseball teams, while the amateur teams formed their own organization.6

This game was without precedent as it was the first time two professional teams in an all-professional organization faced one another. The threat of bad weather kept the attendance at around 200 people. Truth be told, the citizens of Fort Wayne didn’t give the Kekiongas much of a chance. A reporter admitted, “Our citizens had been of the opinion that our boys would be badly beaten.” The Kekiongas won the coin toss and elected to have the Forest City’s bat first.7

Mathews was in the pitcher’s box for the Kekiongas and James “Deacon” White, future Hall of Famer, led off for Forest City. After taking a ball on the first pitch, White made good on the next pitch with a standup double. With the next batter, shortstop Carey made a fine defensive play, catching a pop-up and tagging White out at second for an unassisted double play. A strikeout ended the inning for Forest City with no runs. With Al Pratt pitching for the Forest Citys, the Kekiongas answered with a single but couldn’t advance the runner.8

Kekiongas scored first in the second inning, plating a run by Lennon on McDermott’s single to first base. After that, both teams failed to register a base hit until Bill Kelly hit a single in the bottom of the fifth inning. He reached third on passed balls and eventually scored on a fielder’s choice getting Williams out at first. The crowd was cheering with excitement as the Kekiongas took a 2-0 lead.9

For the rest of the game, neither team could get farther than second base. The Kekiongas were about to start the bottom of the ninth (a full nine innings were played regardless if the home team was winning) when the rain started to come down. After two hours of play, the game was called. The Kekiongas won the first game in the NA. Superb pitching by Mathews and Pratt along with numerous defensive plays contributed to the low-scoring game. That was highly unusual in an era where scores regularly reached double digits.10

The Kekiongas were still enjoying their first win when the Chicago White Stockings club came to town a week later on May 13. The Kekiongas struck first, scoring two runs in the first inning. But in the second inning, Chicago scored five runs and never looked back. Chicago walked away with the victory, 14-5, handing the Kekiongas their first loss.11

The Kekiongas didn’t have much time to sulk as they hosted the Olympics of Washington two days later. The clubs were considered evenly matched, although the pitching of Mathews was far superior to the Olympics’ hitting ability. Although the Olympics scored first, with three runs in the second, they could not match the Kekiongas. The Olympics had two players out with illness but they conceded that even if they’d had their full nine, they couldn’t beat Mathews.12 The Kekiongas notched a win, 12-6, before a crowd of a thousand people.13

Before the Kekiongas embarked on their first road trip, they hosted the Forest Citys of Rockford. The game was mired in controversy before it began. One of the members of the Forest Citys, Scott Hastings, was ineligible to play. According to NA rules, a player had to be with the organization for sixty days prior to playing in a game. Hastings had played a game on April 16 with the Lone Star Club in New Orleans before joining the Forest Citys. The Kekiongas played the game under protest.14

For the first time, the Kekiongas lost the coin toss and had to bat first. They led off the game with three runs, but Forest City answered with four. Kekionga dominated the game, putting up runs in every inning except the third and fifth. As the game entered the eighth inning, Kekionga was up, 13-6. The Forest Citys added five runs in the bottom of the eighth and two more in the ninth to tie the game, making it the first extra-inning game in National Association history. Forest City scored four more runs in the tenth to win the game, 17-13.15

The Fort Wayne Daily Gazette gave a stinging critique of the Kekiongas’ losing performance, asserting that their playing was inferior to past games. Although the pitching was good, the batting and fielding were weak, with the play marred by errors and an increase in wild throws. The only way to get better would be through “systematic practice;” the Gazette opined that the only way to avoid throwing the ball fifteen feet over the head of another player would be to “go out on the field and spend the whole day throwing.”16

Not only that, Lennon had dislocated his finger in the first inning. The injury was possibly the result of catching barehanded as catchers did not universally adopt gloves until years later. Although he finished the game, he was not expected to play in the next game, which would be on the road.17

FIRST ROAD TRIP

The Kekiongas’ first road game was a rematch against the Cleveland Forest Citys. Two thousand people turned out to see the showdown between the two clubs. Despite his injury, Lennon did start the game against Forest City but was pulled in the first inning. He was replaced by Sellman. The Forest Citys saw this as a great opportunity, but Sellman rose to the occasion and Forest City was no match for the Kekiongas. Kekionga won the game, 16-7.18

The Kekiongas were then set to leave for a nearly month-long road trip on June 14. The first scheduled game was June 19 against the Haymakers in Troy, New York. The Kekiongas arrived at the grounds at 2:00 pm for their sixth championship game of the season. This game would end in a most unusual way. At the end of the sixth inning, the Kekiongas were winning, 6-3. But at the start of the seventh inning, the captain for the Haymakers, Bill Carver, objected to the ball being used. He claimed that it was ripped and the Kekiongas were responsible for replacing it. It was common during this time that teams only had one ball to get through a game. (On more than one occasion, the Kekiongas had to fish balls out of the St. Mary’s River that flowed beside the ballpark.) The Kekiongas, along with spectators, inspected the ball but could not find any rip. The umpire, who was from Troy, sided with the Haymakers and ordered the Kekiongas to furnish a new ball. They refused, and the game was called in favor of the Haymakers, 9-0.19

The Kekiongas refused to substitute the ball because they viewed it as an attempt for the Haymakers to gain an advantage. The Haymakers had supplied the ball for the game and since they couldn’t hit the ball, they were hoping to change their luck with a new ball. Even the home crowd was embarrassed and believed the Kekiongas were in the right. The Chicago Tribune was quick to report on the Kekiongas’ misfortune. While they reported that the Kekiongas did not have a reputation for fairness, the “Troy mob” was considered the worst in the country. The Kekiongas’ only solution was to take it before the judiciary committee of the association.20

Boston was the next stop. The Red Stockings were the best team in the organization. The team was managed by Harry Wright, who had assembled and managed the first openly all-professional baseball team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings. When they failed to join the NA, he was invited to manage the Boston Red Stockings. Charles Bierman was starting in his only game for the Kekiongas due to Mincher being injured. Mathews did not pitch with his usual vigor and the Kekiongas suffered their first shut-out loss, 21-0.

After Boston, the next stop was Brooklyn to face the Mutuals of New York. The Kekiongas met the Mutuals on the Union Grounds in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn. The Kekiongas weren’t given much of a chance to win based on their previous games and how well the Mutuals had been playing. The home crowd of 1,200 spectators were in shock from the first inning. Mathews was back to his old form, and the Mutuals were kept scoreless until the eighth inning. When the game was over, the Kekiongas walked away victorious, 5-3. The crowd trolled the team as they chanted “Kikankarogers.”21 A rematch was scheduled two days hence.

Nearly 4,000 people showed up to the Union Grounds to watch the rematch. The Kekiongas kept the same nine from the first game. This time not only was Mathews’s pitching ineffective, but the Kekiongas’ batting was worse. They managed only three baserunners and were blanked, 13-0. The only highlight of the game came from Lennon who didn’t have a single passed ball.22

The “City of Brotherly Love” was the next stop. The Athletics of Philadelphia and the Kekiongas met at the Jefferson Street Grounds for their championship game. The Athletics and White Stockings had racked up the second-most wins in championship games, behind the Mutuals. The Kekiongas had only played ten championship games while the other teams had played at least twelve. About 2,000 people came out to watch the game under an overcast sky. Although the Kekiongas scored first in the first inning, they couldn’t match the power hitting of the Athletics and lost, 20-3.23

The Kekiongas stopped in Baltimore to play the amateur club, Pastimes, before going to Washington, DC, to play the Olympics. This was the first time that the Maryland players had returned home, and it was a time to catch up with old friends. But that didn’t mean that the Kekiongas were going to take it easy on them, and the Kekiongas picked up the win, 14-6.24 Since they had played an amateur club, this win didn’t affect their NA standing.

The Olympics had just returned from a road trip out west. The Kekiongas were not in the best shape when they arrived at Olympic Grounds. Lennon was still suffering from a sore hand and was unable to play. At the beginning of the game, Mincher, who was playing in left field, was injured so badly that he had to leave the game and was replaced with Donnelly. The Kekiongas questioned the calls of the umpire during the sixth inning. The Olympics went on to score 18 runs in the sixth inning en route to a 32-12 win. That was the largest number of runs scored in one inning so far that year.25

The second game between the two clubs moved to Baltimore in hopes of increasing paid attendance. Mathews was still the favorite son of Baltimore and over 1,000 people turned out. The game was held at the Madison Avenue Grounds, Baltimore’s first fenced ballpark. Baltimore was still sore at the Kekiongas for what they perceived as the team that was stolen from them.26

The Kekiongas were depleted from injuries and they had to add Bill Barrett from the Pastime Club to replace Mincher. The game was tied at 7 at the end of the sixth, but errors doomed the Kekiongas. Carey had three of the team’s twelve errors that helped push across seven runs. The only highlight for the Kekiongas was an unassisted double play by Goldsmith. The Olympics defeated the Kekiongas, 15-7.27

TROUBLE BREWING

The Kekiongas headed back to Indiana after 24 days on the road missing some of their roster. Ed Mincher ended his career with the Kekiongas when he decided to stay in Baltimore. Although Mincher was from Baltimore, the reason given—that he was getting married—didn’t seem plausible.28 Some news outlets reported that he had been expelled from the club. Donnelly decided to stay in Philadelphia. Dissension was brewing within the Kekionga ballclub and the real reason for Mincher’s and Donnelly’s defections would soon be revealed.

The first home game in almost a month was against the Bostons. Lennon was still not able to play, but he continued to perform his managerial duties. The Kekiongas were unprepared for the dominant Red Stockings and they suffered a 30-9 loss.29

Attendance had hit a season low when the Athletics arrived on July 20 with only 300 people in attendance. The weather was beautiful with cool temperatures, so the Kekiongas’ poor performance had to be the cause for the decline. Lennon was selected as umpire and it was unclear if he would ever return to the lineup. The Kekiongas added two new players, Henry Kohler and Harry Deane, from Indianapolis, to play right field.30 During the second inning, Goldsmith, filling in as catcher, dislocated his finger. (He had dislocated the same finger during a previous game.) Sellman filled in behind the bat until the next inning, but the Kekionga nine was being depleted by injuries. Lennon was out, Sellman was also injured, and Goldsmith was banged up. The Kekiongas seemed rattled from the start, while the Athletics played a flawless game en route to a 26-7 win.31

That was the Kekiongas’ sixth straight loss. Since they started their eastern tour on June 14, they had only managed one win—against the Mutuals. Attendance was waning, injuries were rampant, and there was growing discord between the players and management. Frank Sellman and Bill Lennon then left Fort Wayne unexpectedly, without any notice to the management. It was assumed that they headed back to Baltimore. The club alleged that they left behind unsettled debts and had overdrawn their pay.32

The Kekiongas were falling apart right when they were due to play a championship game in two days against the Mutuals. Without Lennon, the team lacked a manager. The vice-president of the club, Max Nirdlinger, went to Chicago to recruit Paddy Quinn and Jimmy Hallinan of the amateur Chicago Aetnas.33 Harry Deane was named the team’s new catcher and captain.34

At the same time that Nirdlinger was in Chicago, the rest of the team’s management had a meeting to formally expel Ed Mincher and Pete Donnelly, the two players who had bolted during the road trip. Mincher and Donnelly were accused of violating their contracts by leaving the team without permission. They were not allowed to play for any other team that was part of the professional organization.35 They denied the accusations by the team’s management and instead claimed that the club still owed them money.36

Quinn and Hallinan’s first game with the Kekiongas was against the Mutuals. The game was not very exciting and attendance was sparse. The Kekiongas tied the game in the sixth inning but eventually lost, 12-9. The only drama came in the fourth inning when the umpire had to be replaced. Both teams objected to the calls by J. Stophlet of the Keystone Baseball Club and he was replaced with F. Walker of the Summit City Baseball Club of Fort Wayne.37

The day before the game with the Mutuals, the Kekionga management leveled specific charges against Lennon and Sellman leading to their expulsion. The first charge: Lennon had deserted the team on June 23 when they were playing the Atlantics of Brooklyn. The next day, at the Earl’s Hotel in New York City where the team was staying, Lennon violated all rules of decency when he refused to obey orders from team management. He was also accused of being intoxicated on four separate occasions at the beginning of July and for refusing to practice. The final charge was that he violated his contract when he left Fort Wayne without any notice to the club. The same accusations were leveled against Sellman, except for the desertion charge.38

The timing was suspicious. If management knew about these offenses that occurred at the beginning of July, why wait until after Lennon and Sellman left Fort Wayne to charge them? The same was true with Mincher and Donnelly, with management waiting weeks to expel them from the club.39

Bill Lennon responded to the charges because his reputation as a ballplayer and his personal character had been called into question. As to the first accusation, Lennon claimed he had been told by the management that he didn’t have to play because of his hand. He still went to the ballpark with Sellman filling in as catcher. After the game started, he went to the Union Grounds to watch the Mutuals play. Upon returning to the hotel, he learned of the Kekiongas’ defeat. The management found fault with Lennon for not being there to direct the team. Lennon’s defense was that no club would allow the captain of a team who wasn’t playing to direct the team. He was just following the rules.40

The management was not specific about the orders Lennon refused to obey. On the day in question they played the Eckfords of Brooklyn. The night before, George Mayer had approached Lennon and stated he didn’t have to play due to his injured hand. However, an hour before the game, Mayer asked Lennon if he was going to play and was told no. There was no further conversation. Lennon didn’t refuse an order because no order had been given. Lennon refuted the entire charge of being intoxicated in Fort Wayne or in any city that they had traveled through.41

The Kekiongas management accused Lennon of violating the contract by leaving without permission, but according to Lennon, it was the club that violated the contract. When the players signed with the team, they were to receive $75 a month ($1,708 in 2022 dollars). They would receive $7 a week and the remainder would be paid at the end of the month. Lennon claimed that he was never given his full pay and the club owed him $70. When the team returned home from their eastern tour, the management still had not paid the players their weekly salary. Failing to pay the players’ salaries violated the contract and Lennon felt he was therefore not obligated to abide by it.42

While Lennon took issue with the Kekionga management, he did express his gratitude to the president of the club, Charles Dawson, stating that Dawson always treated the men with kindness and respect. Had the club been managed more closely by him instead of Nirdlinger and Mayer, perhaps they might have been more successful. Even the Chicago Tribune, which had always been critical of the Kekiongas, referred to Dawson as a gentleman.43

The Tribune’s opinion of Nirdlinger and Mayer was far different, feeling that they viewed ballplayers like cattle, “having some of the characteristics of men, but not enough to entitle them to humane treatment.” This was evident by the ridiculously low salaries given to the players and further enhanced by the fact that the men still had not been paid.44

The club took away the men’s dignity; they were not even able to purchase basic necessities. They had no money to buy clothes, but instead had to resort to buying on credit, if the merchant allowed. Instead of giving the men money to pay their rent, they were forced to make the landlord get it from Mayer on credit. The men had to beg Mayer just to get a shave. Their boarding fees were $6, leaving them with $1 if they were fortunate enough to get paid. There was a joke that the players couldn’t get drunk, because you couldn’t buy alcohol on credit.45

Mayer accompanied the team on their trip east and more accusations were leveled against him. The men claimed that food was withheld from them from morning until late at night. They didn’t have any money or friends to help them. Mayer refused to pay for lodging for two of the players and they were forced to sleep in chairs on the hotel porch. On their return trip to Fort Wayne, Mayer tried to get Lennon and Sellman kicked off the train when he refused to pay their fare.46

There was credible evidence to these claims from the players. James McDermott played in two games for the Kekiongas but was so “disgusted” from his time in Fort Wayne that players with his old club, the Eckfords, sent money to get him back home to New York.47 Riley, who originally played with the Railway Unions baseball club in Cleveland, played a few non-professional games with the Kekiongas. When the team got to Troy, he was discharged and given only $2.15 to get back to Cleveland, not nearly enough. Ironically, the Haymakers took up a collection to get him the rest of the money to get back home.48 Bonker, who originally played for the Troy Putnams, had been recruited at the beginning of the season. He was named as one of the original nine, but after a couple of weeks in Fort Wayne, couldn’t wait to get back to New York.49 Charles Bier- man played in one game with the Kekiongas against Boston when Mincher was hurt. He received no compensation.50 Nealy Phelps played two games for the Kekiongas, but only one at the professional level. He joined the team when they were in Philadelphia and he had the winning run in a non-championship game against the Olympics. When the team headed to Baltimore, he also wasted no time returning to New York.51

Mincher and Donnelly used the eastern tour to return to their hometowns at the Kekiongas’ expense. Sellman borrowed money from a friend to get back to Baltimore. He claimed the club still owed him $200. Lennon decided that he would rather leave the $75 he was owed than spend another night in Fort Wayne.52

Lennon’s explanations of the charges against him infuriated the management of the Kekionga club. They viewed Lennon’s explanations as slanderous statements and condemned the Tribune for printing it. They were compelled to get a list of citizens and business leaders who would attest to the character of their club. They even furnished a statement signed by all nine members of the club attesting that they are paid regularly and are treated humanely.53 However, by that point only four members of the original nine remained, with most of the players added just a week before.

Meanwhile, as the players were struggling to get paid, the stock in the Kekionga Base Ball Club had reached $10,000 and the management had begun planning for next season. Management was benefiting handsomely at the expense of the players.

As the teams entered August, the Athletics had won the most games, followed by Chicago and Boston. There were still a number of legal challenges that the championship committee would have to rule on at the end of the season, mostly stemming from the use of ineligible players. All the expulsions and desertions from the Kekiongas resulted in players being added to the roster that had not been with the club for sixty days. Any future games the Kekiongas played most certainly would result in a forfeit.54

THE FINAL ROAD TRIP

The Kekiongas began August on the road. They traveled to Rockford, Illinois, to take on the Forest Citys. Rockford was the only team worse than the Kekiongas. Even a bad team wasn’t enough to change their luck and they were shut out by the worst team in the NA, 4-0.

The next stop was Chicago to take on the White Stockings at Lake Shore Park. The game was poorly played by both teams. The White Stockings had one home run which accounted for the only earned run in the game. All of the other runs by both teams were from errors. Some of the Chicagoans were rooting for the Kekiongas because Hallinan and Quinn were in the game. The Kekiongas committed more errors than Chicago which led to another defeat, 13-10.55

The Kekiongas returned to Fort Wayne to take on the Cleveland Forest Citys on August 11. A lot had changed since the Kekiongas beat Cleveland on May 4. But after losing to Chicago, they had the worst record of all the NA teams. The Kekiongas beat Forest City, 15-3, winning their first championship series, sweeping Forest City in all three games played. But Forest City was sure that the win would not count when the teams met at the National Association meeting at the end of the season.56

The last game of the season for the Kekiongas was against the Haymakers. Both teams played well, committing ten errors combined, which at that time was considered a great game. Deane was sick and unable to play, being replaced by Henry Kohler. Instead, he was chosen as umpire. The Haymakers tried to argue the calls but were unsuccessful and the Kekiongas ended up victorious, 6-4. Attendance was around 300 people and the weather was blamed, but a team in last place with no chance to win the championship was the more likely explanation for low turnout.57

THE END OF THE KEKIONGAS

The next day the Kekiongas’ season came to an abrupt end. Their star player and pitcher, Bobby Mathews, along with Tom Carey, left the team with no notice, just like so many previous players.58 It was assumed they returned to Baltimore. Management tried desperately to replace the loss, but soon realized that with only two months left in the season, it was impossible. Mathews was not only their pitcher but their best player. Their season officially came to an end on September 5. The remaining players went to find new teams or returned to their homes.

The Kekiongas’ record stood at 6 wins and 13 losses. By the end of the season, that win-loss record wasn’t even included in the NA standings since it was assumed that most of their wins would be forfeited when the championship committee met the following month.59 This was a sad end for the Fort Wayne Kekiongas.

There didn’t seem to be much of a future for the ballclub. By the end of the month, management had taken out ads to sell off the ballpark, the fence, and any and all improvements.60 Two days after the end-of- season meeting in Philadelphia, the grandstand burned to the ground. The fire broke out at 8:00 pm and the fire department showed up with everything they had, but it was too late: the fire had consumed it.61

The Athletics filed a protest against the Rockford Forest Citys because their catcher, Scott Hastings, was not a legal member of the team. A player had to be with the team for sixty days and not have played with another team during that time. The committee found him to be ineligible and all of the games played prior to June 15 were forfeited. That benefited the Kekiongas, whose record improved to 7-12.62 But then the break-up of the Kekiongas was brought up. The matter was referred to the championship committee, who ruled that the Kekiongas would forfeit nine games that would have been played, bringing the team’s record to 7-21.63

As an underdog in a league of giants, the Kekiongas’ season couldn’t have started off any better. Management put together a team mostly composed of the best players from Baltimore, but the talent couldn’t overcome the liabilities. Their overall record was better than the standing reflected, because of the number of games against amateur clubs they played which didn’t count for the championship. But those games caused their players to be fatigued and injured when they played other National Association teams. Ultimately, poor treatment of the players by management contributed to the demise of what could have been a promising season and a long future as a professional club.

ROBERT BOWLING is a lifelong Baltimore Orioles fan. As a local historian, he has written history articles for various publications and the local newspaper. He is a contributing writer for Officer Magazine focusing on law enforcement history and serves as an historical researcher for the Officer Down Memorial Page. Bowling has recently authored the book Wicked Fishers. A retired police officer, he now teaches high school in Indianapolis. His website is robbowling.com.

Notes

1. “Fort Wayne, Indiana Population History,” https://www.biggestuscities.com/city/fort-wayneindiana.

2. “Complimentary,” Fort Wayne Daily Gazette, September 6, 1867.

3. “Baltimore’s Many Ballparks,” The Baltimore Sun, April 9, 1981, 52.

4. Brian McKenna, “Bobby Mathews” SABR, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/bobby-mathews.

5. “Baseball Notes,” New York Daily Herald, April 18, 1871, 11. As team captain, Lennon was expected to both play and direct the team akin to a field manager today.

6. The National Association lasted until 1875; the National League was formed the following year. In 1968, MLB’s Special Records Committee ruled that the NA was not one of the major leagues of baseball. The committee did consider the NA to be the first all-professional baseball organization, the organization that paved the way for the formation of Major League Baseball. The exclusion of the NA as a major league was due to its erratic schedule, procedures, and widespread gambling. Therefore, MLB established the formation of the National League in 1876 as the beginning of the major leagues. While many players competed in both the NA and the NL, only their statistics from the NL are recognized by Major League Baseball. See John Thorn, “Why Is the National Association Not a Major League.. .and Other Records Issues.” https://ourgame.mlblogs.com/why-is-the-national-association-not-a-major-league-and-other-records-issues-7507e1683b66.

7. “Sports and Pastimes,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 8, 1871, 2.

8. “Sports and Pastimes,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 8, 1871, 2

9. “Sports and Pastimes,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 8, 1871, 2

10. “Sports and Pastimes,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 8, 1871, 2.

11. “Games and Pastimes,” Chicago Tribune, May 16, 1871, 1.

12. “Championship Base Ball Game,” Philadelphia Inquirer, May 16, 1871, 1.

13. “Games and Pastimes,” Chicago Tribune, May 16, 1871, 1.

14. “The Ball and Bat,” Fort Wayne Daily Gazette, May 24, 1871, 4.

15. “The Ball and Bat,” Fort Wayne Daily Gazette, May 24, 1871, 4.

16. “The Ball and Bat,” Fort Wayne Daily Gazette, May 24, 1871, 4.

17. “Ball and Bat.” Fort Wayne Daily Gazette, May 27, 1871, 4.

18. “Ball and Bat,” Fort Wayne Daily Gazette, May 27, 1871, 4.

19. “Games and Pastimes,” Chicago Tribune, June 20, 1871, 4.

20. “Games and Pastimes,” Chicago Tribune, June 20, 1871, 4.

21. “The National Game,” New York Daily Herald, June 27, 1871, 4.

22. “Sporting Items,” Times Union, June 29, 1871, 3.

23. “Baseball,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 3, 1871, 2.

24. “The Ball and Bat,” Fort Wayne Daily Gazette, July 6, 1871, 4.

25. “Baseball,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 8, 1871, 1.

26. “That was our Team,” Baltimore Sun, April 17, 1960, 29.

27. “Local Matters,” Baltimore Sun, July 10, 1871, 4.

28. “Fort Wayne, Ind,” Pittsburgh Daily Commercial, July 12, 1871, 1.

29. “Indiana,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 13, 1871.

30. “The Kekiongas,” Chicago Tribune, July 16, 1871, 1.

31. “The Ball and Bat,” Fort Wayne Daily Gazette, July 21, 1871, 4.

32. “Chance for Another Kekionga Reorganization,” Chicago Tribune, July 23, 1871, 1.

33. “Personal,” Chicago Tribune, July 24, 1871.

34. “Fort Wayne,” Cincinnati Enquirer, July 25, 1871, 1.

35. “Two Revolvers Expelled,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 24, 1871, 3.

36. “Notes,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 28, 1871, 3.

37. “Baseball,” Chicago Tribune, July 27, 1871.

38. “The Ball Club,” Fort Wayne Daily Gazette, July 26, 1871, 4.

39. “Card From Mr. Lennon,” Chicago Tribune, July 28, 1871, 4.

40. “Card From Mr. Lennon,” Chicago Tribune, July 28, 1871, 4.

41. “Card From Mr. Lennon,” Chicago Tribune, July 28, 1871, 4.

42. “Card From Mr. Lennon,” Chicago Tribune, July 28, 1871, 4.

43. “Card From Mr. Lennon,” Chicago Tribune, July 28, 1871, 4.

44. “Card From Mr. Lennon,” Chicago Tribune, July 28, 1871, 4.

45. “Card From Mr. Lennon,” Chicago Tribune, July 28, 1871, 4.

46. “Card From Mr. Lennon,” Chicago Tribune, July 28, 1871, 4.

47. “Card From Mr. Lennon,” Chicago Tribune, July 28, 1871, 4.

48. “Card From Mr. Lennon,” Chicago Tribune, July 28, 1871, 4.

49. “Card From Mr. Lennon,” Chicago Tribune, July 28, 1871, 4.

50. “Card From Mr. Lennon,” Chicago Tribune, July 28, 1871, 4.

51. “Card From Mr. Lennon,” Chicago Tribune, July 28, 1871, 4.

52. “Card From Mr. Lennon,” Chicago Tribune, July 28, 1871, 4.

53. “Base Ball,” Cincinnati Enquirer, July 31, 1871, 1.

54. “Sporting Matters,” Buffalo Morning Express and Illustrated Buffalo Express, August 3, 1871, 4.

55. “The National Game,” Chicago Tribune, August 7, 1871, 4.

56. “Sporting Items,” Times Union, August 12, 1871, 3.

57. “Games and Pastimes,” Chicago Tribune, August 30, 1871, 1.

58. “Kekionga Complications.” Chicago Tribune, September 1, 1871, 4.

59. “Sporting Matters,” Buffalo Morning Express and Illustrated Buffalo Express, September 28, 1871, 4.

60. “The City in Brief,” Fort Wayne Daily Gazette, September 27, 1871, 4.

61. “Personal,” Fort Wayne Sentinel, November 6, 1871, 4.

62. “Sports and Pastimes,” Brooklyn Dally Eagle, November 7, 1871, 7.

63. “Sports and Pastimes,” Brooklyn Dally Eagle, November 7, 1871, 7.

The majors then had 24 teams …
The minors’ top level a trio of leagues;
Recalling all American Association, Pacific Coast, and International clubs
Requires thought, good memory, and expertise.

Two teams called Indians, in less sensitive times,
Played in Indianapolis and Spokane;
While the 89ers, Royals, Oilers, and Aeros
Settled in a regional span.

There were Cubs and Bears, and Beavers and Braves,
Even some Emeralds and Oaks,
Toros and Tides, Charlies and Chiefs,
And Islanders that seldom got soaked.

There were Angels, featuring no Red Wings,
And Giants residing in Phoenix;
Colonels from Louisville played against Whips,
With the Colonels landing more licks!

Triplets and Mud Hens complete this verse,
Though no phrase cleverly links the pair;
So let’s proceed to matching nicknames and cities—
Read on and the answers are there.

FRANCIS KINLAW has contributed to 20 SABR convention publications and has attended 25 SABR national conventions. A member of SABR since 1983, he resides in Greensboro, North Carolina, and writes extensively about the history of baseball, football, and college basketball.

Class AAA teams (1971)

Indianapolis Indians (Reds), Spokane Indians (Dodgers), Oklahoma City 89ers (Astros), Omaha Royals (Kansas City Royals), Tulsa Oilers (Cardinals), Wichita Aeros (Cleveland Indians), Tacoma Cubs (Chicago Cubs), Denver Bears (Senators), Portland Beavers (Twins), Richmond Braves (Atlanta Braves), Eugene Emeralds (Phillies), Iowa Oaks (Athletics), Tucson Toros (White Sox), Tidewater Tides (Mets), Charleston Charlies (Pirates), Syracuse Chiefs (Yankees), Hawaii Islanders (Padres), Salt Lake City Angels (California Angels), Rochester Red Wings (Orioles), Phoenix Giants (San Francisco Giants), Louisville Colonels (Red Sox), Winnipeg Whips (Expos), Evansville Triplets (Brewers), Toledo Mud Hens (Tigers)

THE IDEA

In answer, someone came up with the idea of a Charity Baseball Game Writ Large. Perhaps it came from Matthews or Butler, or might it have been Billy Kelly, Sports Editor of the Courier-Express? Or maybe Dick Young, he who commandeered sports at the Evening News? Here was an American idea: Americans loved helping the underdog; Americans loved baseball. Let’s put these two together and raise some necessary money for a good cause. All the ticket revenue would go to the newspaper funds.2

The next step was determining who would play whom and where and when, but this was a no-brainer. Publishers Butler and Matthews could turn to a fellow publisher; Kelly and Young could turn to a man who loved baseball. All of them targeted the same individual—Frank J. Offermann, president of the Buffalo Bisons Baseball Club and newly elected (1933) Sheriff of Erie County.3

Offermann had made his fortune in Buffalo as the owner of F.J. Offermann Art Works, publishing advertisements and calendars. In 1928 he assumed the presidency of the baseball club. A true lover of the game and the people, Offermann enthusiastically donated the use of Bison Stadium at Michigan and E. Ferry Streets, the wages of staff required to manage the event, and the baseballs and any other required equipment. He even pledged to take out advertising space in the newspapers.4 Ray Schalk, his ballclub’s manager, would pitch the idea to the players. August 22 was found as an open date in the Bisons’ schedule and dedicated to the charity game.

The Bisons had represented the city in formal professional leagues since 1879.5 The team felt they owed something to the people who had supported them over the years. The ballplayers had a long, grueling season to play but they were aware they were lucky. They had jobs. They would give up a free day without too much grumbling.

Bisons fans could probably be counted on to attend, but the team would need a staunch opponent in order to make it worth their while to pay to see a non-league game. Who else in the area had an established fan base? And who could mount a worthy opposition?

The city’s Municipal League (Muny) baseball association was suggested. Non-professional baseball was big in Buffalo. The city and region boasted numerous “amateur” ball clubs sponsored by local companies, but even the best of these individual nines would never be strong enough to make it a contest against the pros. Look at what had happened back in 1914. The Federal League Buf-Feds had taken on the Simon Pures in an exhibition and had whomped them, 15-3.6

But what about a Muny All-Star team? A number of men playing in the Munys had already played pro ball. Others certainly looked like they were headed that way. The Municipal League directorship, the club managers, and especially the players bought into the idea. For the seasoned athletes, here was the opportunity to show up the baseball people who had dismissed them. For the younger men it was a chance to see what it was like to compete at the professional level. Dreams would drive the “amateurs,” while professional pride would motivate the Bisons.

To drum up excitement, it was decided that the fans themselves would choose the Muny combatants.7 Newspaper Voting Ballots for the Charity Baseball Game featuring the Bisons and their semipro All-Star opponents started to appear.8 Fans were encouraged to “select three pitchers, two catchers and one player for the other positions [infield and outfield].” Completed ballots were to be mailed to the Baseball Vote Editors at the newspapers with a submission deadline of midnight Sunday, August 19.

The 24 highest vote getters, based on the positions allocated, were chosen:9

PITCHERS (6)

• Emerson Dickman (Simon Pures, top overall vote getter with 18,992 nominations)

• Bill Pryor (Blue Coals)

• Eddie Majkowski (St. John Kanty)

• Art Weiss (Zoladz)

• Nick DiGiacomo (Wells)

• Eddie Retzer (Huff-Haskins)

CATCHERS (4):

• Tom Kenney (St. Casimir)*

• Lou DePoe (Blue Coals)

• Randolph “Murph” Mineo (GLF)

• Johnny Kull (Simon Pures)

FIRST BASEMEN (2):

• Ray Egner (Simon Pures)

• Lou Benzin (Blue Coals)

SECOND BASEMEN (2):

• Jerry Cristina (Simon Pures)

• Ted Prorok (St. John Kanty)*

SHORTSTOPS (2):

• Jack Collins (Simon Pures)

• Gene Geary (Leonards)

THIRD BASEMEN (2):

• Augie Mecca (Simon Pures)

• Mike Youra (Zoladz)

OUTFIELDERS (6):

• Eddie Crowe (Simon Pures)

• Joe Gallagher (Blue Coals)

• Adam Pasierb (St. John Kanty)

• Mike Shedler (Kronsons)

• Reg Bliss (Union Printers)

• Wilbur Bergstrom (Huff-Haskins)

* Tom Kenney topped all catchers in the fan voting but did not play and the game accounts do not say why. Tom Prorok (second base) did not play either due to a spike wound he had suffered on the Sunday before, August 19.

Dick McCabe managed the “Munys” in the charity game. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)

Managing the Munys was ex-Bison (and Boston Red Sox and Chicago White Sox) pitcher Dick McCabe, who that same year had led the Simon Pures to the Class AA pennant. His coaches would be Chester Tomczak, manager of the pennant-winning St. John Kanty club in the Jefferson League, and Frank Wagner Sr., who had kept his Zoladz club in the thick of the pennant race. Chief of Umpires for the Municipal League Thomas Mercer, Jr. selected four of his veterans to work the game: Millard Jeffrey behind the plate, Walter Talskey at first base, Edwin Harlow at second, and William Stutz at third.10

Bison regulars would suit up for the August 22 game, but not the pitchers. Schalk insisted that his hurlers needed a day off. The team was shooting for a fourth place finish and a spot in the postseason Shaughnessy Playoffs. Playoffs meant money. A local prospect the team had been considering would pitch for the Herd.

A newspaper voting ballot for fans to submit their favorites. (Author’s collection)

THE GAME

Game time was set for 9:00 PM, allowing fans to put in a day of work and still make their way to the ballpark. The Bisons would have the day to recover from their International League contest the night before. Muny players, who would take the diamond following the August 21 night contest so they could get a feel for playing under the lights, would also have the day to rest.

Tickets went on sale at the Matthias Cigar Store at 331 Main Street and the Bison stadium ticket office: a seat in the left field bleachers cost 25 cents, unreserved grandstand seats could be had for 50 cents, reserved grandstand went for 75 cents, and boxes cost $1.00. Women and children were admitted to unreserved grandstand seats for 25 cents.11

On Wednesday, August 22, a crowd of 9,543 turned out to watch an exciting come-from-behind victory by the Bisons over the determined Munys.12 Parks Commissioner Frank Coon threw out the first ball to Link Wasem, the Bisons’ catcher for the evening. Schalk had decided that the Herd’s regular receiver, Roy Spencer, also needed time off to rest his weary legs.

Hall of Fame catcher Ray Schalk as a coach with the Bisons. (SABR-Rucker Archive)

On Tuesday night the Bisons had lost, 7-1, to Albany, managing only two base hits and striking out 13 times.13 Against the Munys they jumped out to a two-run lead in the bottom of the first inning. Marve Olson led off by working a base on balls from Muny starter Emmy Dickman. Number two hitter Greg Mulleavy’s sharp ground ball to short took a freak hop over the glove of Jack Collins and Olson sped on to third base. On center fielder Eddie Crowe’s throw to third, Mulleavy took second. Dickman fanned Beauty McGowan for the first out, but Bison slugger Ollie Carnegie choked off the cheers from the stands with a sharp single to center to score both runners. Crowe’s fumble of the ball in center sent Carnegie to second base, whereupon second baseman Jerry Cristina mis- played the throw from the outfield and Carnegie scrambled over to third. A base hit, two runs scored, two errors and a new man on third, all in one play, all in the first inning. Dickman struck out the next two Bisons on wide-sweeping curves.

The two runs were the total offense for the first four innings. Dickman retired the Bisons hitters in order in the second. Bud Clancy’s bunt was neatly fielded by Muny third baseman Augie Mecca, whose throw to Ray Egner at first caught the runner by a step. University of Buffalo graduate Bill (Monk) Pryor replaced Emerson and kept the Bisons scoreless in his two innings.

John Wilson, Herd righthander, started the game for the Bisons, trying to work himself back into effectiveness. He had been out several games and on Monday he had lasted only two thirds of an inning against Albany, giving up four runs and taking the loss. This evening he was sharp through four frames, allowing only a single and a double, both to Muny right fielder Adam (Chief) Pasierb.

The amateurs broke through against Wilson in the fifth. Jack Collins rifled a single over second base leading off. With one out Murph Mineo drew Wilson’s first walk of the night to put two runners aboard. Wilson fanned Pryor for the second out but couldn’t fool Cristina. The second baseman’s Texas-Leaguer just over Gyselman’s head at third put the Munys on the scoreboard. They took the lead in the sixth in dramatic fashion.

Lou Benzin ripped a double down the third base line, but then got caught in a rundown on Mike Shedler’s ground ball to short. Benzin was eventually tagged out but Shedler hustled into second. A Wilbur Bergstrom groundout moved him to third. Huck Geary made it two on the basepaths after drawing a walk from a disgruntled Wilson. He was not happy with the calls he was getting from umpire Jeffrey.

Mike Youra, Augie Mecca’s replacement at third base, stepped in against Wilson for his first at-bat of the night. The former Muny home-run king cracked a high line drive that carried over the left field fence for a three-run home run and suddenly the amateurs had jumped out in front. The stands erupted. Wilson erupted.14 The pros answered back immediately.

Ed Majkowski had taken the mound for the Munys in the fifth and had held the Bisons scoreless. Such was not to be the case in the sixth. Wasem drew a walk. Ollie Tucker, pinch hitting for Wilson, was retired only after his slicing drive to right was speared by Reg Bliss on a fine running catch. Marve Olson, the next batter, slammed a Majkowski offering to the base of the scoreboard for a triple, scoring Wasem. Greg Mulleavy’s smash carried to almost the same spot as Olson’s. Olson scored and Mulleavy was windmilled home by Schalk from the third base coaching box. Muny catcher Johnny Kull’s sweeping tag was late by only inches and the Herd had retaken the lead, 5 to 4, on a two-run, inside-the-park homer.

Williamsville’s Eddie Honeck, the pitching prospect Schalk was so keen to look at, replaced Wilson. He shut down the Munys in order over the last three innings, fanning three. Schalk was elated.15

The Bisons scored no more. Muny pitcher Art Weiss was reached for a walk and a single in his two innings of work but the threats were easily handled. Carnegie, who had walked, was doubled up when Youra speared Fitzgerald’s sharp liner to third and whipped the ball over to first baseman Benzin. Catcher Kull made a difficult grab at the screen on Wasem’s foul pop. The pro-Muny crowd appreciated every outstanding play.16

The event had gone well; the contest was close, as the box score revealed.17 The Bisons had come out on top as was expected. However, the All-Stars had shown mettle and the game had accomplished its goal by raising more than $3,300 of needed charitable dollars.18 Fans helped the cause by throwing foul balls back onto the field for later use.

Box score of the August 22, 1934 game

THE AFTERMATH

The Bisons missed the 1934 playoffs but manager Schalk guided them to a third place finish in 1935 and to the pennant in 1936. They lost to the Milwaukee Brewers in the Little World Series.19

Eddie Honeck pitched one exceedingly difficult inning for the Herd on September 2, 1934. His professional career ended after four appearances in 1935 with the Elmira Pioneers of the New York-Pennsylvania League.20 He continued his mound work thereafter in semipro ball in the Buffalo area.

Link Wasem, called up from the New York-Pennsylvania League Wilkes-Barre Barons, batted .323 in 12 games and earned a Buffalo roster spot for 1935. He was back with the Barons again in 1936 but that year he fashioned a .322 batting average and earned a quick look by the National League Boston Bees in 1937. He was hitless in one at-bat. He finished his career with Scranton in 1937.21

John Wilson finished his 1934 season with an 11-11 record. He won 3 and lost 1 in 1935 for Buffalo and then contributed a 14-7 mark for the 1936 pennant winners.22

Parks Commissioner Coon and Bison President Offermann were lavish in their postgame praise of the event and vowed it would become an annual affair.23 Tragically, Offermann died unexpectedly in February 1935. The Bisons-Muny game was played only once more, on August 23, 1935, before a crowd of 3,500. The Bisons were victorious by a score of 10-7 and receipts again went to the newspaper Christmas funds, but without the promotional zeal of Frank J. Offermann to support it the series faded away.24

The Muny All-Star lineup boasted considerably talented athletes:

Lou Benzin (first base), a South Park and Syracuse University batting star, continued in Muny ball into the mid-1950s as player and manager. He later coached the Hamburg Juniors baseball club in the Lake Shore Junior League and was a notable bowler.25

Wilbur Bergstrom (center field), a member of the Cortland State Hall of Fame, taught and coached football in the Buffalo Public School system, winning a number of city championships including four in a row, 1947-50.26

Reg Bliss (right field), a three-sport star at St. Joseph’s Collegiate Institute, tried out with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1935 at Greensboro, North Carolina. He was a fearsome softball hurler.27

Jack Collins (shortstop) quarterbacked and was team captain for his Canisius College football squad. He was an assistant coach at Canisius in the 1930s and is a member of the college’s Hall of Fame.28

Jerry Cristina (second base) was a slick second baseman as well as captain of the 1929 Canisius Prep basketball squad. The St. Bonaventure University graduate’s glove work found praise from Schalk after the game.29

Ed Crowe (center field), an outstanding football halfback and baseball outfielder, was signed out of Canisius High School by the St. Louis Browns. He played part of two seasons with the professional Elmira ballclub. A feared cleanup hitter, he is a member of the Western New York Baseball Hall of Fame.30

Lou DePoe (catcher) played for and managed the Simon Pures ball club, served as chief of Western New York Umpires Associated and served as president of the Muny League. The “Lou DePoe Muny Catcher of the Year” award was named in his honor. He is a member of the Western New York Baseball Hall of Fame.31

Emmy Dickman (pitcher), also praised by Schalk, compiled a 22-15 record as a member of the Boston Red Sox from 1936 to 1941. He then coached at Princeton University for three years. He is a member of the Washington & Lee University Athletic Hall of Fame.32

Ray Egner (first base) was named East High School Most Valuable Player on the baseball squad in 1930. The lefty swinger had a solid career in the Munys playing for the Simon Pures, Houde, Zoladz and the Seven-Ups, as well as for the Curtiss Aircraft club.33

Joe Gallagher (left field), a South Park ace and Manhattan College football star, played with the New York Yankees and St. Louis Browns in 1939 and with the Browns and Brooklyn Dodgers in 1940. A military veteran (1941-45), he became head baseball coach for Stephen F. Austin State College and Rice University.34

“Huck” Geary (shortstop) began a 10-year professional baseball career by getting into two games with the 1935 Buffalo Bisons. By 1942 he was wearing a Pittsburgh uniform. In 1943 he stole home in the bottom of the 14th inning to win a game for the Pirates.35

John Kull (catcher) was competitive both behind the plate and as a winning basketball guard and forward for the YMCA Downtown League championship 101’s, the Tru-Penn’s and other local squads.36

Ed Majkowski (pitcher) played professionally for Elmira and Hazelton in the New York-Penn League and hurled two no-hitters in Muny League ball, the second a perfect game in 1934. A member of the Western New York Baseball Hall of Fame, he also played for the 1939 Polish Union national basketball champions.37

Augie Mecca (third base) was a football star and captain of his Bennett High School baseball team. On July 29, 1934, he homered over the newly elevated 22-foot, left field fence at the Bison ballpark. In 1931 he had signed to play with the Terre Haute (Three-I League) club.38

Randolph (Murph) Mineo (catcher), caught one game for the Bisons in 1933. He was a World War II Navy veteran, a high school and American Legion coach, a legislator (three term member of the Erie County Board of Supervisors) and an administrator (Director of War Memorial Stadium and Memorial Auditorium).39

Adam (Chief) Pasierb (right field) was awarded the Muny League MVP medal by the Buffalo Evening News in 1932 and was the last player cut by the Bisons in spring training 1933. The powerful 5-foot 6-inch lefthander belongs to the Western New York Baseball Hall of Fame and also the Softball Hall of Fame.40

Bill (Monk) Pryor (pitcher) threw a number of nasty knuckle balls to the Bisons that called for Schalk’s admiration in his postgame remarks. A 1931 University of Buffalo graduate, Pryor’s basketball ability was his ticket into the University’s Athletic Hall of Fame.41

Mike Shedler (outfield) was a 1929 Buffalo Evening News second team All-High outfielder for Tech High School. He was inducted into the Western New York Softball Hall of Fame on October 19, 1972.42

Art Weiss (pitcher) hurled his Corpus Christi team to the senior title in the Muny Class AA league in 1932. On August 4, 1933, he threw a no-hitter for the Houdes in an Electric Twilight victory over Crystal Beach, fanning 21 men in the 13-0 shutout.43

Mike Youra (third base) was Buffalo’s “Babe Ruth.” In 1926 he hit 14 home runs in 17 games for the Muny champion Gibas’ Dairy and, as of 1937, had accumulated the most home runs in Muny history. A .308 batter for the 1932 Dayton (OH) Ducks, he is a member of the Western New York Baseball Hall of Fame.44

HOWARD HENRY is a lifelong fan of ’50s baseball and ’40s music, a retired Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Credentialed Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Counselor, a retired adjunct faculty professor (SUNY University at Buffalo; SUNY Buffalo State), and an active and ongoing church choir member (bass/baritone), opera supernumerary (one paid chorus gig) and actor, volunteer peace and justice advocate and international educator (including 30+ years in southern border mission work) and author.

Sources

In addition to those sources listed in the Notes, the author spoke with Vic Baron, a member of the Western New York Baseball Hall of Fame at his home. Old Fulton New York Post Cards was also a resource used for this research.

Notes

1. Unemployment Rate by Year Since 1929 Compared to Inflation and GDP. Unemployment Rate History. Updated March 9, 2022 by Kimberly Amadeo, reviewed by Somer G. Anderson, Fact Checked by Ariana Chávez https://www.thebalance.com/unemployment-rate-by-year-3305506.

2. Billy Kelly, “Before and After,” Buffalo Courier-Express, August 22, 1934, 14.

3. Joseph M. Overfield, The 100 Seasons of Buffalo Baseball (Kenmore, NY: Partners’ Press, 1985), 159; Also, Erie County Sheriff’s Office https://www2.erie.gov/sheriff/index.php?q=history.

4. The History of Buffalo, New York https://buffaloah.eom/h/offF/offF.html.

5. Joseph M. Overfield, 19.

6. “Buf-Feds Defeat Simon Pures,” Buffalo Enquirer, October 12, 1914, 7.

7. “Fans Believe Muny All-Stars Will Give Herd Real Tussle,” Buffalo Evening News, August 21, 1934, 18.

8. “VOTING BALLOT-Charity Baseball Game-BUFFALO BISONS vs. ALL-STAR MUNY TEAM,” Buffalo Courier-Express, August 12, 1934, 7.

9. “Grand Total Vote,” Buffalo Evening News, August 21, 1934, 18.

10. “Fans Believe Muny All-Stars Will Give Herd Real Tussle”; “All-Stars Await Big Chance Against Bisons Tonight,” Buffalo Evening News, August 22, 26.

11. “All-Stars Await Big Chance Against Bisons Tonight.”

12. Ray Ryan, “HERD NIPS MUNY ALL-STARS BY SINGLE MARKER,” Buffalo Courier-Express, August 23, 1934, 1, 14; Frank Wakefield, “Muny Stars Bow to Bisons By 5-4 After Great Battle,” Buffalo Evening News, August 23, 1934, 28. The game description is taken from these two newspaper accounts.

13. W.S. Coughlin, “Albany Ace Hurls Senators To Second Straight Win; Ken Ash Is Pounded Out,” Buffalo Courier-Express, August 22, 1934, 14.

14. Nate Silberberg, “Pryor’s Pitching Lauded by Schalk,” Buffalo Evening News, August 23, 1934, 28.

15. Ray Ryan, “HERD NIPS MUNY ALL-STARS BY SINGLE MARKER.”

16. Cy Kritzer, “Fickle Fans cheer Stars, Boo Bisons,” Buffalo Evening News, August 23, 1934, 28.

17. Box score recreated by author from the box scores appearing in the Buffalo Courier-Express, August 23, 1936, 14, and the Buffalo Evening News, August 23, 1934, 28.

18. “9543 Fans Pay $3300 To Watch Muny Aces,” Buffalo Evening News, August 23, 1934, 28.

19. Joseph M. Overfield, 75-77.

20. W.S. Coughlin, “Herd Hammers Out Victory Behind Ken Ash in First; Fails to Hit in Nightcap,” Buffalo Courier-Express, September 3, 1934, 19; Baseball-Reference.com (https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=honeck001edw).

21. Baseball-Reference.com (https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/w/wasemli01.shtml).

22. Joseph M. Overfield, 216-17.

23. “Offermann and Coon Give Their Approval,” Buffalo Evening News, August 23, 1934, 28.

24. Ray Ryan, “All-Stars’ Rally in Fifth Provides Thrill for 3,500 Spectators at Charity Tilt,” Buffalo Courier-Express, August 24, 1935, 13.

25. Jerry Wilker, “Sports Briefs,” Hamburg Sun and Erie County Independent, August 4, 1949, 12; “Nationals Defeated By Coals; Sectional Title Series Is Now Deadlocked,” Tmes Herald (Olean, New York), September 19, 1935, 17; “Seven-Run Splurge With Walters’ Four-Run Homer In Vain; Quakers Coming,” Times Herald (Olean, New York), July 16, 1936, 14; “Politi Misses Single Strike, 300-Game and About $1500,” Buffalo Evening News, April 23, 1957, 41.

26. Bob Stedler, “Sport Comment,” Buffalo Evening News, August 21, 1935, 23; Mike Calandra, “5000 Watch Kensington’s Eleven Wreck McKinley by 19-6 Score,” Buffalo Evening News, September 29, 1951; Norm Warner, “Bill Bergstrom, Veteran Kensington Coach, Retires,” Buffalo Courier Express, September 8, 1972, 20.

27. “Reg Bliss Signed,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, March 16, 1935, 15; Paul Shanklin, “Buffalo Baffler for Tarzana Club,” The VanNuys News, July 10, 1947, 21; “Foodmart Clinches Finale; Bestow Thompson Awards,” Van Nuys News and Valley Green Sheet, September 15, 1947, 15.

28. Obituary of Jack W. Collins, Buffalo Evening News, February 28, 1972, 16; Obituary of J.W. Collins (“J.W. Collins, Top Canisius Athlete, Dies”), Buffalo Courier-Express, February 28, 1972, 26.

29. Nate Silberberg, “Pryor’s Pitching Lauded by Schalk”; “Death Listings,” (Jerome A., suddenly) Buffalo Evening News, March 12, 1971, 20; “Deaths,” (CRISTINA, Jerome A., in Buffalo, suddenly), Buffalo Courier- Express, March 12, 1971, 46.

30. Western New York Baseball Hall of Fame (Awards Brochure, 2009); Baseball-Reference.com (https://www.baseballreference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=crowe-001edw).

31. Dick Johnson, “Amateur Sports,” Buffalo Evening News, June 17, 1948, 36; Western New York Baseball Hall of Fame (Awards Brochure, 2009).

32. Jon Daly, “Emerson Dickman,” SABR Baseball Biography Project, accessed March 12, 2022. https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/emerson-dickman/; Buffalo Evening News, April 30, 1981, 48; Buffalo Courier-Express, April 30, 1981, 30.

33. “Technical and East Honor 134 Athletes,” Buffalo Evening News, June 3, 1930, 29; “Eddie Kazmierczak Limits Sanders to Five Whallops, Opener Decided in Tenth,” Buffalo Courier-Express, May 27, 1940, 17; “Houde Team Upsets J.H. Williams, 4-2,” Buffalo Evening News, August 23, 1943, 8.

34. Obituary of Joseph E. Gallagher (“Joseph E. Gallagher, major league baseball player”), Buffalo Evening News, March 2, 1998, A-6; (Baseball- Reference.com (https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/ Joe_Gallagher); Western New York Baseball Hall of Fame (Awards Brochure, 2009)

35. Howell Stevens, “Boston Sees Stardom This Year For Braves Big ‘Jaye,’ Who Won Six Straight Tilts in Last August’s Heat Wave,” The Sporting News, June 10, 1943, 3; Baseball-Reference.com (https://baseball-reference.com/players/g/gearyhu01.shtml); Obituary of Eugene Geary (“’Huck’ Geary, Baseball Player”), Buffalo Evening News, January 29, 1981, 38.

36. “Steffans Challenge,” Buffalo Courier-Express, March 1, 1932, 14; “Y.M.C.A. Cagers Play for W.N.Y. Title Saturday,” Jamestown (New York) Evening Journal, March 22, 1934, 19; “Defeated Cycle Quint 42-26 In Game Last Evening,” The Evening News (Tonawanda/North Tonawanda), March 24, 1938, 7.

37. “Majkowski Pitches Perfect Game for Kantys,” Buffalo Courier-Express, May 14, 1934 15; Western New York Baseball Hall of Fame (Awards Brochure, 2009).

38. “Mecca, All High Star, Signs To Play Professional Ball,” Buffalo Evening News, July 31, 1931, 20; “Simon Pures Must Defeat Zoladz Team Twice to Capture Crown,” Buffalo Evening News, July 30, 1934, 22; “Bison Advance Guard Leaves For Ft. Lauderdale on Tuesday,” Buffalo Evening News, March 7, 1932, 23.

39. Obituary of Randolph Mineo (“Randolph Mineo Dies; Former Stadium Head”), Buffalo Evening News, August 9, 1975, B-10.

40. W.S. Coughlin, “Schalk Seeks New Men for League Chase,” Buffalo Courier-Express, March 28, 1933, 12; Obituary of Adam J. Pasierb (died February 2, 1970), Buffalo Evening News, February 13, 1970, 16; Western New York Baseball Hall of Fame (Awards Brochure, 2009).

41. Nate Silberberg, “Pryor’s Pitching Lauded by Schalk”; https://ubbulls.com/honors/dr-and-mrs-edmond-j-gicewicz-family-ubathletics-hall-of-fame-inductees/william-t-pryor/184.

42. Frank Wakefield, “South Park Awarded 3 Diamond Positions,” Buffalo Evening News, June 6, 1929, 38; “Twirling of Bob Walbridge Keeps Buffalo Blue Coals in U.S. Diamond Tourney,” Buffalo Evening News, August 16, 1935, 16; “Softball Stars To Be Honored,” Buffalo Courier- Express, October 19, 1972, 24.

43. Ray Ryan, “Ben Wanda Cracks Homer In Ninth to Help Weiss Win Tight Pitching Duel,” Buffalo Courier-Express, September 12, 1932, 11; “Art Weiss Twirls Hitless Shutout,” Buffalo Evening News, August 5, 1933, 7.

44. Gregory Witul, “Gibas’ Dairy was top notch on the field and with milk from the field,” Am-Pol Eagle, November 15 (https://ampoleagle.com/gibas-dairy-was-top-notch-on-the-field-and-with-milk-from-the-field-p12753-202.htm); Dick Johnson, “Muny Mike Still Going Strong at 46,” Buffalo Evening News, June 18, 1952, 69; Obituary of Michael B. Youra (“Michael B. Youra Dies at 68; Was ‘Babe Ruth’ of Amateurs”), Buffalo Evening News, January 27, 1976, 36; Western New York Baseball Hall of Fame (Awards Brochure, 2009).