Satchel Paige and integrated baseball in North Dakota in the 1930s
I love stories about things like the House of David (and their Jewish counterparts) because they demonstrate that, most often, semi-pro baseball was about competition in some fundamental, Adam Smith's Baker-kind-of-way, fun and money, the story of the Bismarck Churchill's is a great read or even listen, and essential for understanding the complexity of the history of race, ethnicity, segregation, and integration across all of American society. I'm still putting together a post on Japanese baseball in the West in the early 20th Century, which I hope to post soon. One of the most striking things about reading a large number of early newspapers is breaking down how often these different communities and businesses played each other and together on the ball fields. The mostly end, at least legal, of segregation in America was engineered at the 'high' level by Thurgood Marshall and NAACP legal team, working for 30 years to build precedence that would create Brown vs. Board of Education. The rest of it, the real part that made integration stick (and probably, in a paradoxical way, keeps it going), where the true momentum came from, the change that was beyond the law and in the mind of America, was from the ball fields, dance halls and factory floors.
1932 Los Angeles Croatian Athletic Club Baseball Team
Games 6 and 7, April 13, 1924
Some of the great things about reading the sports pages, or anything, of the past are the language and terms used to describe events. This medium has a different message, so to speak. The syntax is formed by the 19th Century newspapers more so than what we read today. Games 6 and 7 of the 1924 season were played in Los Angeles between the Indians and Angels on Sunday, April 13. Typically, PCL teams of the time played a double header every Sunday to end a series, traveled on a Monday, and started a new series on Tuesday. Often, if games were rained out, which we’ll see as we get into the second week of a season, a team could end up playing two or three double headers in a row to close out the often-times 7-game series played in the PCL. If you examine the box score, you’ll see both games of this double header lasted 1 hour 55 minutes. Depending on the time between games, the whole affair was about 5 hours at the most, giving fans something to do between lunch and dinner. When I take my kids to Safeco Field, we’ll get downtown at around a quarter to five, gates open at 5:10, we'll watch BP, get some hot dogs, hope for an autograph, the game starts at 7:10, typically last 2:30 to 2:45, we'll go back to the car, and we’re out of there by 10 pm. I'd rather start with lunch myself. (NOTE: on August 9, 2011, the Rays beat the Royals 4-0 in a game lasting 1:53, the first game of 2011 to be under 2 hours.)
I’ve transcribed the description of the second game. I did it to show several features of the writing. The prosody is not quite as flowery as sports page poems of the time, but take note of how the story is put together. Note the performance in both games of Cedric Durst. He would hit .342 in the PCL that year, and do better the next year with St. Paul in the American Association. Offensively, these would be his best performances in a 25-year playing career, more as a manager, in professional baseball. However, I’m sure the highlight of that career was probably being the weak-hitting reserve outfielder on the 1927 Yankees along with maybe the greatest backup outfielder in history, Ben Paschal, as well as starters Bob Meusel, Earle Combs and Babe Ruth. A hard lineup to break into. Also, note the starter in the second contest, Suds Sutherland. Follow the link if you think Lou Piniella was hard on rookie pitchers.
Furious Hitting In Second Tussle Gives Tribe 20 to 1 Win
Suds Sutherland Tames Seraphs but Vean Gregg Is Beaten Again – Seattle Scores Ten Runs in Ninth – Brady Provides Thriller.
By A STAFF CORRESPONDENT.
LOS ANGELES, Cal. Monday, April 14.- Red Killefer and his Seattle ball club left Los Angeles with only two victories in seven games played but they wound up the final game with a barrage of base hits that the 16,000 fans who attended the game will never forget.
Los Angeles took the first game of the doubleheader by a score of 4 to 1, but the second battle went to the Indians, 20 to 1.
Ground rules were necessary because of the largest crowd that has attended a local game since the Angeles and Vernon Tigers settled the pennant on the last day of the 1919 season. Seattle’s heavy sluggers sent the ball into the crowd time after time. The limit for a hit into the crowd was for two bases. It was announced that 43,000 fans had witnessed the Seattle and Los Angeles clubs in action this week and Wade Killefer took a large sized check out of this city.
The final inning of the second game witnessed the Indians making ten runs and eight hits off Arnold Crandall, rookie southpaw and a brother of the veteran Ote Crandall. Ote won two ball games from Seattle during the past week and the Indian batters obtained revenge from the young brother.
Here is the record inning. Tobin grounded to the pitcher. Sutherland doubled and took third when McAuley fumbled Lane’s grounder. Lane stole second. Brady hit a grounder to Jacobs, who tried to tag the elusive Lane but missed him, Sutherland scoring. Crane singled to right, putting Lane over. Eldred walked and Bowman followed with a slashing double into the crowd in left field, counting Brady and Crane. Rohwer tripled to right, Eldred and Bowman scoring. Ted Baldwin doubled to left and Rohwer came in. Tobin’s single scored Baldwin. Brady’s two-base hit to left scored Tobin and Lane. Crane ended the inning with an easy grounder to Jacobs.
Sutherland, who pitched the second game, had no trouble in stopping the Angels. He allowed six hits and only one run. Frank Tobin, who worked with Sutherland, also caught the other winning game for Seattle. Oren O’Neal, young right handed pitcher who started for the Angels, was hit hard by the Indians and given poor support by his teammates. Johnny Walters, who succeeded him in the sixth inning, was wild and he was replaced by Arnold Crandall in the eighth inning.
1920 University of Washington baseball team
The Seattle Steelheads
"The bus broke down. It wheezed, coughed, choked, and came to a halt along the highway near Salem, Oregon. They had a game that night. Zell Miles was eager to take the field, as was Mike Berry. They both hopped off the bus exasperated as the vehicle sat idle. Howard Gay clambered down; Herb Simpson, too. Their gear was on the bus—the baseball bats, balls, catcher’s masks. Paul Hardy, the manager, had to think fast as he took off his baseball cap to wipe the sweat from his brow. He looked over at Nap Gulley, Everett Marcel, Joe Spencer—all guys eager to sprint out onto the field in Seattle’s Sick’s Stadium for their home opener. It was to be the first Seattle game of the newly formed Seattle Steelheads, a team in the newly minted West Coast Negro Baseball League." Jonathan Shipley has a really good article on the Harlem Globetrotters, or rather Seattle Steelheads, at Columbia Magazine, Spring 2011: Vol. 25, No. 1.
If you can find it at the Seattle Public Library, Lyle Kenai Wilson wrote an out of print book called Sunday Afternoons at Garfield Park: Seattle Black Baseball Teams, 1911-1951. And...for further reading, check out Powell S. Barnett, a resident of Seattle's Leschi neighborhood way back when. Barnett was one of Seattle's early Black baseball players. Many of these players were the children of miners who had been brought in to replace striking miners in Roslyn. This would eventually become one of the earliest integrated unions and form the core of Seattle's black community. Wilson's book, along with Esther Hall Mumford's Seattle's Black Victorians and The Forging of a Black Community: Seattle's Central District, from 1870 Through the Civil Rights Era by Quintard Taylor, give a nice overview of these communities, and we can glean from small passages in the latter two, the importance of baseball as a community activity. Wilson relates a game at Seattle's Woodland Park between a Japanese team and one of Seattle's earliest known Black teams that attracted 4,000 fans. Taylor mentions baseball exhibitions being held as part of the festivities to celebrate the visits of Marcus Garvey for UNIA rallies in 1919 and 1922. Garvey even mentions baseball in his earliest autobiography. Read about the Rev. James Morris Webb and his influence on Garveyites and Rastafari. And that's how the Roslyn Miners Strike of 1888, baseball and Bob Marley's Exodus album all fit together in the Lipstick Traces of radical history (that reference has no relation to baseball!). One more of baseball's ties to the history of radical politics and the struggle for freedom. I had posted pictures awhile back of some Bulgarian anarchists and articles about Japanese baseball. Still to come: the links between Ivy League educational ideas about athletics and staying fit, the roots of Japanese college baseball, and anarcho-syndicalism via Isoo Abe, who brought two things to Waseda University in Japan when he finished studying at the Hartford Theological Seminary in Connecticut: socialism and baseball.
If you can find it at the Seattle Public Library, Lyle Kenai Wilson wrote an out of print book called Sunday Afternoons at Garfield Park: Seattle Black Baseball Teams, 1911-1951. And...for further reading, check out Powell S. Barnett, a resident of Seattle's Leschi neighborhood way back when. Barnett was one of Seattle's early Black baseball players. Many of these players were the children of miners who had been brought in to replace striking miners in Roslyn. This would eventually become one of the earliest integrated unions and form the core of Seattle's black community. Wilson's book, along with Esther Hall Mumford's Seattle's Black Victorians and The Forging of a Black Community: Seattle's Central District, from 1870 Through the Civil Rights Era by Quintard Taylor, give a nice overview of these communities, and we can glean from small passages in the latter two, the importance of baseball as a community activity. Wilson relates a game at Seattle's Woodland Park between a Japanese team and one of Seattle's earliest known Black teams that attracted 4,000 fans. Taylor mentions baseball exhibitions being held as part of the festivities to celebrate the visits of Marcus Garvey for UNIA rallies in 1919 and 1922. Garvey even mentions baseball in his earliest autobiography. Read about the Rev. James Morris Webb and his influence on Garveyites and Rastafari. And that's how the Roslyn Miners Strike of 1888, baseball and Bob Marley's Exodus album all fit together in the Lipstick Traces of radical history (that reference has no relation to baseball!). One more of baseball's ties to the history of radical politics and the struggle for freedom. I had posted pictures awhile back of some Bulgarian anarchists and articles about Japanese baseball. Still to come: the links between Ivy League educational ideas about athletics and staying fit, the roots of Japanese college baseball, and anarcho-syndicalism via Isoo Abe, who brought two things to Waseda University in Japan when he finished studying at the Hartford Theological Seminary in Connecticut: socialism and baseball.
Issei Baseball Team, Fresno Athletic Club
Game 5, Saturday, April 12, 1924
In their 5th game of 1924, the Seattle Indians dropped to a 1-4 start after losing to 37-year old former Major Leaguer James Otis 'Doc' Crandall. For his biggest career win, take a look at the box score for game 5 of the 1911 World Series between the New York Giants and the Philadelphia Athletics. Jim Bagby started the game for the Indians. Bagby, a former Cleveland Indian, achieved the rare distinction of winning more than 30 games in a season for a 1920 Cleveland team managed by Tris Speaker (the infield featured Bill Wambsganss and Ray Chapman). Unlike Crandall who won one game but lost every Series despite getting three separate trips with the Giants, Bagby's Cleveland team won in 1920, and he went 1-1. However, Bagby was done after pitching 30 complete games that year. He would win 21 games between 1921 and 1923, his Major League career over. He spent 1923 in Pittsburgh and Seattle, and then 1924 with Seattle. He would pitch in the minors until 1930, retiring at the age of 40 after spending parts of the that year pitching for the Monroe, LA Drillers and the York, PA White Roses. His son, Jim Bagby, would pitch for 10 years in the majors, including being on the losing Red Sox side of the 1946 World Series.
American Indian Members of Baseball Team in Uniform with Bat andBall; Carlisle School Building in Background 1879
From the Smithsonian Institution Research Information System
Watch Corbally's Kuay Team
In a drawing featured on the front sports page of the Seattle Daily Times for April 13, 1924, staff illustrator Parker McCallister shows his mastery of caricature and portaiture. The Kuays were the team from Queen Anne High School in Seattle, later to be named the Grizzlies. Queen Anne would produce one of Seattle's greatest baseball luminaries, Edo Vanni, in the 1930s. Vanni graduated from Queen Anne and went to the University of Washington for one year before quitting to play for the Seattle Rainiers. At the same time, Hank Ketchum graduated from Queen Anne, was a Husky for one year, and then quit to go south, eventually creating Dennis the Menace, but I digress...for in 1924, he was only six. The Kuay team of 1924 was coached by John E. Corbally. Corbally also coached at Broadway High School, and by 1927 would leave the coaching ranks to become superintendent/principal of schools in South Bend, Pacific County, Washington (he had moved to Seattle from there, his son being born in South Bend in 1924). Corbally would be in South Bend long enough for Pat Paulsen to be born, but he may not have known that, nor may have Paulsen. Corbally ended up going back to the UW, eventually rising to Associate Dean of the College of Education. One of his sons, the one born in 1924, the year of our concern, also John E. Corbally, would resign as President of the University of Illinois system in 1979 to become President of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The younger Corbally would transform the MacArthur Foundation during its first decade into one of the premier genius granting money dispensers in the world. Interestingly, the younger Corbally resigned at the same time as the Illinois Urbana-Champaign Chancellor working underneath him, William Gerberding. Gerberding would transform the University of Washington through a focus on the medical school, sciences, and growing an endowment, among other things. By the time he left, each was a national powerhouse, similar to the football team he decimated by not standing up for Don James. Perhaps, these are just observations, not statements of fact. I, knownothings. He says he tried, maybe he did.
Parker McAllister was a staff illustrator at the Seattle Times for 30 years, working from 1924-1965. He was born in Massachusetts in 1903, and died in Arizona in 1970. This drawing is one of the first he did for the Times, maybe the first, not quite sure about that. McAllister painted more than 1,000 covers for the weekly Seattle Times Magazine, mostly concentrating in the later years, after World War II, on historical scenes. At that time, the Seattle Daily Times was one of the first papers to employ regular color sections and covers. These were done in four-color process, with McAllister preparing his own plates from photographs he would take at various locations around the state of Washington. These images were combined with content from staff writer Lucile McDonald, who was a groundbreaking journalist/historian. She wrote 20 or more books, but a good one to start with is her own story. The reproductions of McAllister watercolors and oils were meant to highlight Washington on the 100th anniversary of becoming a territory. Eventually, the series was called "100 Years Ago" and grew to cover nearly every square inch of the State, with some being combined into a book called "Washington's Yesterdays". More to come on McAllister's artwork. He was a master and deserves greater recognition.
Parker McAllister was a staff illustrator at the Seattle Times for 30 years, working from 1924-1965. He was born in Massachusetts in 1903, and died in Arizona in 1970. This drawing is one of the first he did for the Times, maybe the first, not quite sure about that. McAllister painted more than 1,000 covers for the weekly Seattle Times Magazine, mostly concentrating in the later years, after World War II, on historical scenes. At that time, the Seattle Daily Times was one of the first papers to employ regular color sections and covers. These were done in four-color process, with McAllister preparing his own plates from photographs he would take at various locations around the state of Washington. These images were combined with content from staff writer Lucile McDonald, who was a groundbreaking journalist/historian. She wrote 20 or more books, but a good one to start with is her own story. The reproductions of McAllister watercolors and oils were meant to highlight Washington on the 100th anniversary of becoming a territory. Eventually, the series was called "100 Years Ago" and grew to cover nearly every square inch of the State, with some being combined into a book called "Washington's Yesterdays". More to come on McAllister's artwork. He was a master and deserves greater recognition.
Game 4, Friday, April 11, 1924
Reported in the Seattle Daily Times, Saturday, April 12, 1924
The Seattle Indians picked up their first win of the 1924 season, beating the Angels 9-5 thanks to the hitting of "Henry" known as Ted "Baldy" Baldwin and the pitching of Bill Plummer. I'm sure he'll end up with more nick-names as the season moves along. Plummer, father of a Johnny Bench backup and one-time Mariner manager, had two full seasons of PCL ball in 1924 and 1925, both marred by a consistently sore arm. Otherwise records indicate he played for either Portland in 1921, or Seattle, 1923-27, from the ages of 17 to 25. Apparently, Plummer would marry the sister of Indian teammate Red Baldwin, who would be the uncle of the future Piniella predecessor. Bill Plummer would pitch his last game on August 16, 1927, being pulled in the sixth inning for a tired arm against the San Francisco Seals. 1927 would also be the year Ted Baldwin got his cup of coffee with the Phillies, the highlight of an athletic career that saw him start by playing college baseball at Swarthmore and end up playing baseball for Portland of the New England League. Red Baldwin never got a cup of coffee. His career consisted of spending at least15 years catching in the minors. One of the things I've found when researching old-time players is that they often played semi-pro ball or some type of amateur organized baseball into their 40s. Especially those who were capable of playing in the high minors to major league levels. This often missing history is usually hinted at in small press papers or community records, with notifications of games played at summer festivals or in some local league that lasts maybe a year.
The Seattle Indians picked up their first win of the 1924 season, beating the Angels 9-5 thanks to the hitting of "Henry" known as Ted "Baldy" Baldwin and the pitching of Bill Plummer. I'm sure he'll end up with more nick-names as the season moves along. Plummer, father of a Johnny Bench backup and one-time Mariner manager, had two full seasons of PCL ball in 1924 and 1925, both marred by a consistently sore arm. Otherwise records indicate he played for either Portland in 1921, or Seattle, 1923-27, from the ages of 17 to 25. Apparently, Plummer would marry the sister of Indian teammate Red Baldwin, who would be the uncle of the future Piniella predecessor. Bill Plummer would pitch his last game on August 16, 1927, being pulled in the sixth inning for a tired arm against the San Francisco Seals. 1927 would also be the year Ted Baldwin got his cup of coffee with the Phillies, the highlight of an athletic career that saw him start by playing college baseball at Swarthmore and end up playing baseball for Portland of the New England League. Red Baldwin never got a cup of coffee. His career consisted of spending at least15 years catching in the minors. One of the things I've found when researching old-time players is that they often played semi-pro ball or some type of amateur organized baseball into their 40s. Especially those who were capable of playing in the high minors to major league levels. This often missing history is usually hinted at in small press papers or community records, with notifications of games played at summer festivals or in some local league that lasts maybe a year.
Supply Laundry leads Semi Pro League
The photo above is from the Special Collections at the University of Washington. It lists the photo as undated. More research needed, but Tommy Sullivan might be the same Tom Sullivan who played with Seattle in 1928. Bud Davis was 21 years old in 1924, and had two partial seasons in the PCL. Louis and Elmer Tesreau both starred in football at the University of Washington. Louis lettered in 1925-26-27, Elmer in 1923-24-25. Louis was an all-American fullback in 1927. Most interesting is Tiny Leonard. I think this may be the same E. E. 'Tiny' Leonard who played for the Portland Beavers in 1915. There was also an E. E. 'Tiny' Leonard who moved to Seaside, Oregon in 1923 and set up a taffy shop. I believe that is the same one who played for the Beavers. Floyd Borderude did play with the Longview Cannibals but I can find no actual information he was on the Chicago Cubs. Monroe Dean kept going and ended playing 8 years in the minors.
Game 3, Thursday, April 10, 1924
The Los Angeles Angels picked up their third straight win to start the 1924 season, beating the Seattle nine, well twelve including two pinch hitters and a reliever, 8-3. Wheezer Dell started for the Indians, opposed by Charley "Chinski" Root. Root would win 312 professional games, 201 for the Chicago Cubs to go with 40 career saves, in a playing career that lasted 27 years. Wheezer Dell had a lifetime major league ERA of 2.55, and was playing for Seattle in 1924 alongside George Cutshaw. Both were teammates on the 1916 Brooklyn Robins team that lost the World Series to the Boston Red Sox. The Robins couldn't compete with the brilliant pitching of Babe Ruth, Ernie Shore, Dutch Leonard and Carl Mays, even though they had a lineup of dead ball names like Casey Stengel, Hi Myers, Zack Wheat, Rube Marquard, Jeff Pfeffer, and Fred Merkle. Dell had also played with the 1913 and 1914 Seattle Giants of the Northwest League.
First Pictures of Opening Day
"The first pictures of the opening day scenes at the Los Angeles ball park Tuesday were received this morning. The picture at the top shows a part of the opening day ceremony prior to the start of the game. Left to right, the figures are: Bruce Guerin, Los Angeles mascot; Marty Krug, Angel manager; Jack Dempsey, world's heavyweight champion; "Red" Killefer, Seattle pilot; Sherrif Traeger of Los Angeles; Mayor Cryer of Los Angeles; Agnes Ayres, motion picture star, who was honorary umpire. The lower view shows Cliff Brady, Seattle second baseman, being tagged off first base in the third inning. George Cutshaw is on the coaching line. Old Doc Crandall is the pitcher who has just heaved the ball to Golvin." Seattle Daily Times, reported Friday, April 11, 1924. Game was on Tuesday.
Spring is Here
Game 2, April 9, 1924
In game 2, the Angels manager Marty Krug slapped out a couple of hits, 2 of 2050 he hit in a 16-year minor league career. He had two stints in the majors as well, a cup of coffee with the 1912 Boston Red Sox (where he played in a brand new Fenway Park, which opened that year on Adolph Hitler's 23rd birthday, just five days after the Titanic sank) and most of the 1922 season with the Chicago Cubs. The Cubs were managed at that time by Bill Killefer, brother of Seattle Indians manager Wade Killefer. Krug, one of 27 major league players to have been born in Germany (nearly all played before 1920), got his start at the age of 20 in the Class D Blue Grass League with the 1909 Richmond Pioneers. Reported in the April 10 edition of the Seattle Daily Times Sports Section, Robert W. Boyce, Editor.
Game 1, April 8, 1924
The 1924 campaign for the Pacific Coast League crown started for the Seattle Indians at Washington Park in Los Angeles against the Angels. The Indians had been in Los Angeles to complete spring training. Washington Park was the home for the Angels until they moved to LA's Wrigley Field in 1925. The field sat next to Chutes Park, an amusement park on Main between Washington and 21rst. The game was described in the Wednesday, April 9, 1924, edition of the Seattle Daily Times. For fans, the game was displayed 'live' on an automatic 'player' outside of the Times' offices in Seattle's Times Square (facing 5th Avenue at Stewart).
University of Washington Baseball Team tours Japan, 1908
The UW was the first American university team to tour Japan. Japan's Waseda University baseball team had visited Seattle in 1904, playing a local club, as well as the UW. More info and source here.
Bulgarian Anarchy, March 12, 1924
No Major League player has ever come from Bulgaria, but they do play baseball there. Articles like this make me think the presence of anarchy is often overstated.
Spring Training Begins, Monday, March 10, 1924
A few things to note above. One is obvious, Tony Lazzeri and his SLC teammates playing against a Japanese athletic club team. I've always maintained that the separation or desegregation present in the Majors or even high minors didn't reflect what was really going on in society, its the interactions you would see below the majors, with company teams, college teams, semi-pro teams, etc. At the semi-pro and barnstorming levels, baseball was where different communities came together, interacted, and, most importantly, played together. As far back as baseball being reported on, we see these other stories in the fringes, written or implied, and we see them because the information would have been demanded by the news consumer. Its not that there wasn't segregation, of course there was. It's about where it was and how it was manifest and what all that means that is capable of elucidating the past and how it impacts today. These Bees were playing the Fresno Athletic Club and their great second baseman, Kenichi Zenimura. Fresno was one of the better semi-pro baseball teams.
Tony Lazzeri was a 20-year-old second baseman from San Francisco who would soon star in New York with the Yankees, along with a fellow San Franciscan, 19-year-old Mark Koenig, who was playing short stop that season in St. Paul, and a 21-year-old Eastern League star by the name of Lou Gehrig. Koenig was the first Yankee to wear #2 (although when he joined, he mostly hit leadoff, switching to 2nd in the order in 1927, with Combs hitting leadoff, the numbers themselves didn't make it onto uniforms until 1929, when Gene Robertson actually hit 2nd more), a number we will have to assume gets retired soon for Jeter. Tangent: I'm not much of a Yankees fan, by why doesn't Billy Martin 'share' his retired number with Earle Combs? Anyway, Lazzeri would hit 60 home runs in 1925 in 197 games for SLC (512 total bases!!!), and in 1926, he was a rookie and the leading home run hitter in the Yankee infield, with 18, since 1927 is really when Gehrig found his Major League home run stroke.
Two other names of quick note: Mickey Cochrane and Jack Quinn. Cochrane was still a month away from turning 21 on April 6 when he caught Portland's game against the Ambler's Athletic Club of Stockton (their hall is still for rent if you need a meeting space in Stockton). Jack Quinn? He's not listed above, but he pitched to Cochrane for the Athletics, played twice for the Yankees, and died the same year as Tony Lazzeri, although Lazzeri was 42 and Quinn was 62. One of four Major Leaguers, and the only one of note, born in Austria-Hungary. He would lose a World Series in 1921 with the Yankees and win two in 1929 and 1930 with the Athletics. Here are some webcams from where he was born, which is now part of Slovakia. Actually, Elmer Valo was also from an area that is now part of Slovakia, but that was in 1921, by which time the Empire had fallen. Oddly enough, he also played for the Yankees and Athletics!