Minor League Researcher

1900 California League Final Pitching

2006-06-23T07:53:00.000-07:00

Click on Image to Enlarge

1900 California League Final Batting

2006-06-22T19:29:00.000-07:00

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1900 California League Final Standings

2006-06-21T08:36:00.000-07:00

This Week in the California League, November 26-December 2, 1900

2006-06-20T07:53:00.000-07:00

To get a better view of the Standings & Leaders, click on image.

This Week in the California League, November 26—December 2, 1900.

Games this week were scheduled on Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, November 29, and on Saturday and Sunday, December 1—December 2.

After rains swept the Pacific Slope over the past weekend, the league looked forward to finish up the season on a high note.

On Thanksgiving Day there were games in Sacramento and at Rec Park.

At Oak Park in Sacramento, the Gilt Edges won by a 10-3 score over second place San Francisco. Jay Hughes won another game, and Tom Fitzpatrick took the loss. Demon Doyle hit a home run, though almost nobody saw it: “The game merits no description,” wrote the Examiner reporter, “The day was dark and dreary, but several hundred cranks kept warm and staved off pneumonia by yelling at and joshing “Uncle Hank’s” [owner Henry Harris] hirelings as they vainly endeavored to overcome the tide of defeat…”

The game at Rec was battle of two halves: Oakland winning 5-0 contest through five innings, and Stockton scoring seven in the remaining four frames. Unfortunately for Oakland all nine innings had to be counted together, and Stockton prevailed 7-6. Chief Borchers pitched the complete-game loss for Oakland. Youngy Johnson pitched the first part of the game, but was relived by George Babbitt in the sixth, and who picked up the win.

On Saturday, December 1, both games were called early because of darkness, in San Francisco after eight innings, and in Sacramento after seven.

In San Francisco, Oakland and San Francisco faced off, with Ham Iburg and Doc Moskiman pitching, but not a well-pitched game. The final score at dark: 6-6. Abe Arellanes, second baseman for the Dudes, went 3 for 5, including a double and a home run.

At the state capital, Sacramento walloped Stockton 9-1. Demon Doyle beating Manager George Harper.

The final game of the season, had local boy Jay Hughes pitch one of his best outing of the season, giving up but three hits a not a run. Youngy Johnson pitched for the Pirates, and gave up five runs on seven hits.

The last game in Oakland, saw the home club prevail over San Francisco, 6-5, with Chief Borchers and Tom Fitzpatrick facing each other. Borchers gave up five runs on nine hits; Fitzpatrick, six run on only five hits, runs being the more important number.

In the final game of the season, at Rec Park, San Francisco sent former major leaguer Phil Knell out to face Doc Moskiman, who had pitched the day before in that 6-6 tie.

After three innings, the game stood at 3-2 in San Francisco’s favor. Then Moskiman settled down, giving up no more runs the rest of the way. Lefty Knell, on the other hand, gave up three runs in the fourth inning, making the score 5-3 Oakland. At that point, Hienie Krug went in and pitched fine ball until the eighth, when he gave up a pair of runs. Final score 7-3. And that brought the curtain down on the 1900 season.

John Spalding, In Always on Sunday, summed up the 1900 California League season with a quote from the San Francisco Chronicle:

“Base Ball in California has reached a popularity unknown in fully 10 years,” the Chronicle said. “There are thousands of people in San Francisco who delight to witness clean and scientific ball playing.”

The newspaper proclaimed the season the most successful since 1889.

Notice

2006-06-19T10:30:00.000-07:00

Because I will be going away on my yearly research trip, this time to Las Vegas, I will give you the schedule of what I'm planning to post in the next few days:

Tomorrow: I will posted the final recap of the 1900 California League season.

Wednesday: I will begin posting the 1900 California League final league averages, which will include standings, team batting & pitching, plus batting & pitching at each ballpark.

Thursday: Individual batting for the 1900 season.

Friday: Individual pitching for the 1900 season.

That will be the last post until I return. My plans for my trip include attempting to find and copy all the 1903 Pacific National League box scores. This is a league that never has been completely studied, or had complete averages compiled. Additionally, I plan on getting all the box scores out of the Seattle Times for the 1903 PCL. About half of my box scores from games played in Seattle were from the Post-Intelligencer, and in compiling averages for that league, I discovered that the Post-Intelligncer's summaries were very spotty about carring stolen bases, so I believe I will be adding to the 1903 Stolen Bases totals after checking out the Times for stolen bases.

This Week in the California League, November 19-24, 1900

2006-06-19T08:57:00.000-07:00

To get a better view of the Standings & Leaders, click on image.

This Week in the California League, November 19—November 25, 1900.

Games this week were scheduled on Saturday and Sunday, November 24—November 25.

Rains swept the Pacific Slope over the weekend, and the league managed to only squeeze in one game on Saturday.

At Rec Park on Saturday, Oakland and Sacramento managed to get in seven innings before darkness stopped the game. Demon Doyle started on the mound for the league leaders, and Doc Moskiman pitched for the Oaklands.

Oakland drew first blood with a run in the second frame, and added another in the following inning.

In the fourth, the game turned around, as the Doctor came unglued, with Truck Eagan hitting a three-run homer, to raise his totals for the season to 11. All in all, Moskiman gave up four runs on two hits in the inning, and making the score at that point, 4-2 in favor of Sacramento. Moskiman clamed down after that, but did give up two more tallies in the sixth inning.

Demon Doyle, after yielding up a second run, only gave up a lone hit the rest of the way.

After the seventh inning, George Van Haltren, working the game as umpire, call the rest of the affair off due to darkness.

Water Incident

2006-06-17T08:33:00.000-07:00

We had a pipe burst here, and it has taken a few day to clean up the whole mess, and replace the the connector that broke. We should be up and blogging on Monday.
Carlos

This Week in the California League, November 12-18, 1900

2006-06-12T12:45:00.000-07:00

This Week in the California League, November 12-November 18, 1900

Games scheduled on Saturday and Sunday, November 17 and 18, a Saturday game at San Francisco and at Sacramento, and a doubleheaders and in the Bay Area.

The two front runner remained only two games apart over the weekend.

Because of rain in the interior, only the Stockton-San Francisco game was played on Saturday at Rec Park in San Francisco. The game featured Youngy Johnson and local pride Ham Iburg. Through four innings the game stood at 1-0 in favor of the Stocktons, but in the 5^th the house fell in them, with the Wasps scoring 6 runs. Johnson could only pitch the first inning, because of an injury in the field, and Jimmy Whalen came. Whalen pitched great ball for three inning, but gave up those 6 runs in the 5^th, and George Harper put himself in after that to finish the game.

On Sunday, they got a partial game in at Sacramento, but it had nothing to do with rain. The game was called in the 7^th inning, with one man out and two men on base, after Sacramento had scored nine men in the inning, making the score 25-4. Jay Hughes picked up an easy one, and Chief Borchers took one for the club. Matt Stanley hit a home run for the winners, and Truck Eagan and Big Bill Hanlon each got four hits. Eagan had three doubles.

The San Francisco-Stockton contest in Oakland had Youngy Johnson trying again on the mound, but he gave up seven runs on 15 hits. Tom Fitzpatrick took the win by only giving up three runs on eight hits. First baseman Ed Pabst went 4-5 with a couple of doubles for the winners.

At Rec Park in the afternoon, Stockton turned the tables on the Wasps, as manager George Harper pitched a six-hitter on way to a 12-2 shellacking of San Francisco. Ham Iburg tried to come back on short rest, but only held out for three innings, before giving way to Phil Knell, who took the majority of the abuse. Joe McGuckin, Julie Streib and George Babbitt all collected three hits for the winners.

To get a better view of the Standings & Leaders, click on image.

From Davis Barker Found in TSN, Mar. 25, 1937

2006-06-11T11:14:00.000-07:00

From Davis Barker: Found in The Sporting News, March 25, 1937

Discover Field Laid Out Wrong

Engineers, surveying a new diamond in Tacoma’s Athletic Park, where the Western International League will hold forth, discovered that for 30 years games had been played on a field that was not laid out properly.  Instead of being placed at a 90-degree angle, the field was laid out at 84½ degrees.  The result was that left field foul line, at the fence, was seven feet too far to the left, making the outfield area 15 feet smaller than it should have been at the fence.  Statisticians are attempting to figure how many batted balls, called foul, should have been home runs, instead of headaches.

This reminds me of what happened here in San Diego.  When they tore down Lane Field there was an article in the paper that stated that they had discovered that the distance down to first base was actually 87 feet, rather than the required 90 feet.  Years later I asked Louie Almada about this.  Louie told me that every time you played at a new park, the players would pace off everything, and that the first time the Missions played there just after its opening in 1936, he remembered specifically pace out the first base line, and then continuing out to the right-field pole.  Had it been 87 feet, it would have been around the league in a matter of days.  He explained to me that players, especially during the Great Depression, looked for any edge they could find.

As to Athletic Park in Tacoma, located at 14th and Sprague, I take the above note with a large grain of sand.  Athletic Park opened in 1907.

Bill Fleming Died in Reno

2006-06-10T10:34:00.000-07:00

Click on Career Record to Enlarge

Gary Fink just emailed me that Coast League pitcher Bill Fleming passed away on June 4, 2006 in Reno, Nevada. Fleming led the league in saves on two occasions. In 1948, Portland manager Jim Turner converted him from a starter to a relief specialist, and for the next several seasons expierenced a good deal of success out of the bullpen.

This Week in the California League, November 5-11, 1900

2006-06-09T10:42:00.000-07:00

This Week in the California League, November 5-November 11, 1900

Games scheduled on Saturday and Sunday, November 10 and 11, a Saturday game at San Francisco, and doubleheaders at Stockton and in the Bay Area.

Just when the pennant race looked over, the race tightened up, with the San Francisco Wasps closing with in two games of the league leading Sacramento club.

On Saturday, Sacramento played at Rec Park in San Francisco, with Ham Iburg facing off against Demon Doyle. Iburg’s slow ball was working to perfection as he pitched a 2-hit shutout. Final score 4-0.

Sunday morning at Oakland found Tom Fitzpatrick facing Brick Devereaux of Gilt Edge. The game was lost in the first inning, as San Francisco scored 3 runs, and cruised to an 8-0 outcome. Old Rube Levy hit a home run in the contest.

In the afternoon contest at Rec Park, former Pittsburgh Pirate Phil Knell battled Jay Hughes, with Knell coming out on top, 5-3, and capping the Wasps three-game sweep of Sacramento. Hughes was in trouble almost in every inning, and was lucky to have only give up 5 runs.

In the interior, Oakland swept the doubleheader over Stockton, and bringing them within a game of the third place Pirates. Veteran Red Held hit a homer to lead the Dudes to 6-5 victory. Chief Borchers prevailed over Youngy Johnson, who gave up 10 hits and 5 walks.

The nightcap was called after five innings because of darkness. Oakland led 6-2 at the time. The game was over in the first as George Harper gave up all 6 runs in that inning. Doc Moskiman coasted to the five-inning victory.

To get a better view of the Standings & Leaders, click on image.

ReReading from Always on Sunday

2006-06-08T10:05:00.000-07:00

Re-Reading from Always on Sunday

John Spalding’s book on the California League, Always on Sunday, is a classic in baseball research.  And because I’m in the middle of recreating the statistical record of that league, as readers of this blog know, I decided to take his book off the shelf, and read what he wrote about the 1900 season, which I am currently working on.  I think the season you are following on this blog will be helped understating the season by Spalding putting into context.

John Spalding on 1900 the California League:

Two straight years of poor financial results had convinced California League officials that the mix of teams had to be altered, so they restructured the circuit in 1900 in an attempt to strengthen its fragile financial base.

In the previous two seasons, the league had consisted of the ever-present San Francisco and Oakland clubs plus four of six teams from Northern California’s smaller interior towns.  This format had proved unsuccessful both years, with Fresno folding in 18987 and San Jose and Watsonville being dropped in 1899.

In 1900, the league returned to a four-team format, the same number that had worked so well during most of the first eight years between 1886-1893. More importantly, the teams which joined the two Bay Area clubs were from two of the region’s other largest cities, Sacramento and Stockton.

The 1900 schedule was similar to the one played out in 1899.  Teams met the same opponent on Saturday and Sunday.  Continuous baseball was played in San Francisco, with either manager Henry Harris’ team at home or J. Cal Ewing’s Oakland club playing at Recreation Park diamond.  There was a game every Sunday morning at Freeman’s Park.

Following the 1900 season, the league dropped Stockton, and moved south to Los Angeles, where the league picked up James Morely’s club that had played in the Southern California League in 1899, and in 1900 until that league folded.  The team played as an independent club after railway service between San Diego and Los Angeles was cut on Sundays, forcing the league out of business.

I’m not sure if he has any books left, but you might want to contact him to find out if you don’t have a copy of this wonderful book.

John Spalding’s e-mail address: jespalding@earthlink.net

Changing the History of the Game

2006-06-06T08:38:00.000-07:00

Changing the History of the Game

While this blog is dedicated to minor league research, if I stumble upon something that that will change major league history, I will present it here.  And so is the case of an item that I found while reading The Sporting News.

The Dickson Baseball Dictionary has the following note on the first use of the term “scout”:

1ST    1905 (Sporting Life, September 2; EJN)

In reading the July 5, 1902 issue of  The Sporting News, I found the following reprint of a note by Sam Crane in The New York Press:

“Chief of Scouts” Horace Fogel is on the road again after promising youngsters to fill up the ranks of the Giants.

While this only pushes the term “scout” back three years, it sounds, from the above note, that the term, in fact, had been in use for some time, meaning that somebody might come up with a much earlier use.

This Week in the California League, October 28-November 4, 190

2006-06-05T11:46:00.000-07:00

This Week in the California League, October 29-November 4, 1900

Games scheduled on Saturday and Sunday, November 3 and 4.

With the season quickly coming to an end, Sacramento extended its lead in the pennant race to five games by sweeping the series from the second place San Francisco Wasps. It looked to many as if the Sacramento club was about to wrap it all up.

On Saturday, at Oak Park in Sacramento, Jay Hughes added another win to his record, making him 21-9 on the season. Hughes also helped his cause with a 4^th inning homer. Ham Iburg lost the 5-4 decision in the 7^th inning, when he gave a pair of runs. That brought his record to 21-21.

At Rec Park in San Francisco, Youngy Johnson and Doc Moskiman faced off, with Moskiman outlasting Johnson 7-5. Second baseman Ernie Courtney hit his second home run of the season for the losers.

On Sunday, Demon Doyle and Phil Knell faced off in the state capital. Doyle showed that old spark of years past, as he shut out the Wasps on 4 hits, 3-0. Old Pittsburgher Phil Knell only gave up 5 hits, but three of them came in the last frame to turn a 1-0 game into a 3-0 loss.

At Golden Gate Park (Freeman’s) in Oakland on Sunday morning, the home club absolutely crushed the invaders from Stockton by a 14-5 score. George Babbitt gave up 14 hits, with Pete Lohman and Jack Drennan both hammering out three apiece. Lohman also socked one over the leftfield fence. Chief Borchers picked up his 13^th win as he yielded 5 runs on 12 hits.

After the two clubs took the ferry back across San Francisco Bay, the two clubs put on a low scoring contest at Rec Park. The Stockton Pirates turned the tables on the last place Dudes with a 4-2 victory. Doc Moskiman lost to George Harper. Stockton scored once in the third, then scored twice in the sixth, and added a final tally in the ninth. Oakland score runs in the sixth and seventh innings.

To get a better view of the Standings & Leaders, click on image.

Books Ive Read Over the Winter, and Into the Spring, Part Three

2006-06-04T14:17:00.000-07:00

Books I’ve Read Over the Winter, and Into the Spring, Part Three

Sometimes books come to a person, and they turn out better than one expects.  I had heard about a newsletter on the American Association put out by some guy in Minnesota, but never gave it more than a passing thought.  (Here I have to admit that even though I’m a child of the Midwest, born and partially raised there, I had never had much of an interest in the Association.  I like the Midwest League a whole lot, but never the Association).  Nevertheless, a month or two ago Rex Hamann sent me an issue, and I have to admit with all the things I have been doing, it got set on a pile of publication that I want to get to.

But I finally did, and what a excellent piece of work Rex has done.  The latest issue, corresponding to Spring 2006, was a marvelous surprise.  In this issue— the second of a two-parter— deals with 20 game win season by pitchers on the Milwaukee Brewers and Toledo Mud Hens during the 1902-1911 deadball period.  In separate sections, he analyses each pitcher in depth, using Strikeout to walk ratios, WHIP, and solid new research using primary sources.  This takes up nearly 32 pages.

To give the read an example, I’ll reprint one of the shorter pitcher essays:

Cliff Curtis, 1906, 22-14  .611

After an off-year in 1905, Cliff Curtis came bounding back in ’06 with a splendid season which saw him lead the team in wins (22), winning percentage (.611) and innings pitched (323) on his way to his second career 20-game season.  A hallmark of his season was his strikeouts (158) to walks (108) ratio of 1.975, good for fourth in the American Association.  He placed fifth in both SO/In (.489) and BB/IN (.248).  While he did not own a pitch called the “Curtis Cracker,” his WHIP of 1.124 could easily have become dubbed with such a nickname; the mark was good for fourth place (Columbus’ Heinie Berger took the top spot with a .957).

Curtis was now sharing battery duties with Frank Roth and Monte Beville, both of whom had a few more years of seasoning  than the 25-year-old product of central Ohio.  Roth had been in the majors for a few seasons and was three years Curtis’ senior.  Beville was a full six years older and had also been active at the major league level before joining the Brewers in 1905.  This tandem likely aided the youngster as he continued piling up precious victories for yet another run at the elusive pennant.  Joe Cantillion’s Brew Boys wound up eight games in back of Columbus for the second straight year; their 1906 record, however, showed a decline of 48 percentage points, from a 91-59 record in 1905 to an 85-67 record.

Curtis remained a Brewer through the 1909 season when he went 7-11 during a time when they needed him to step up in a tight pennant race.  He wound up in the National League, pitching for Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia and Brooklyn from 1909-13, inserting two seasons with the Newark Indians under Harry Smith from 1913-14 (going 16-12 in ’14).  He returned to the American Association to wind up a solid pitching career, working closer to home as a Columbus Senator from 1915-18 when he won 29 while losing 40.  During his 10-year A. A. career, Curtis put up 129 wins against 144 losses (.473) in 331 games and 2,365 innings.  His 977 strikeouts against 811 free passes bore a healthy SO/BB ratio of 1.205.

Born Clifton Garfield Curtis on July 3, 1881 at Delaware, Ohio, Curtis became a well-know amateur bowler in the Utica/Mt. Vernon, Ohio area east-northeast of Columbus during his years after baseball. For 20 years he managed a Ford dealership in Utica there on Highway 13.  He died of a heart attack on April 23, 1943.  His grave is located at Oak Grove Cemetery in Delaware, Ohio.

The pamphlet (as it should be called, and not a newsletter), has a detailed section of obits of Association players who have recently passed away, and contained a listing of players celebrating birthdays, plus some short American Association historical news items.

I have not seen other issues, but if they are anything like this issues, it is well worth the money Rex charges per year, a miniscule $15 for three yearly issues.  There are also discounts for multi-year subscriptions.

To find out more, and to subscribe:

www.AmericanAssociationAlmanac.com

July 9 1903 Western League Rosters

2006-06-03T13:09:00.000-07:00

July 9, 1903 Western League Rosters

Special to the Sporting News:
Omaha, July 9— With all the clubs of the Western League represented except at St. Joseph at the meeting, the magnates decided by unanimous vote to reduce each club’s roster to 13 players.

I would assume that the Western League only reduced the roster by one player, though two is a possibility.  The Coast League had a 15 or 16 player roster limit at that time. But let’s look at what a 13-player roster would mean in the 1903 Western League: Eight position players, a change catcher, a utility player of some sort, the infielder-outfielder type, which would leave a pitching staff of only three pitchers.  I suppose your reserve could also be a catcher-infielder-outfielder to get to a four-pitcher staff.  And, of course, the pitchers who were not pitching that day would be inserted as need in outfield positions.  A good hitting pitcher often would play the outfield on off days, so that would be another solution to a 13-man roster.

The clubs in the Western League played between 126 and 131 games that season.  They would have played more but the season was terminated early because of horrible storms that swept the Midwest that September.  The league threw in the towel on a Thursday (September 17), rather than tough it out until Sunday, September 20, which would have been a normal occurrence.  Teams always tried to bank that Sunday money before going belly up.

The Western League that season was not some lower classification circuit.  It stood at the pinnacle of minor league ball, being one of the four league classified at the highest Class A leagues.  The Coast League was an Outlaw League in 1903.

This Week in the California League, October 22-27, 1900

2006-06-02T10:08:00.000-07:00

To get a better view of the Standings & Leaders, click on image.

This Week in the California League, October 22—October 28, 1900

Games this week were played on Saturday and Sunday, October 27 and 28.

Russ Pace finally dropped off the leaders’ boards this week. Pace, who jumped to Montana State League, had been leading the league in hitting since September. In the pennant race, San Francisco inched back against league leading Sacramento to finish the week 3 games back.

Saturday saw a full complement of games, with Oakland taking on San Francisco at Rec Park, and Sacramento playing Stockton in the state capital.

At San Francisco on Saturday, Chief Borchers faced off against Ham Iburg. Both teams scored in the first two innings, and remained that way until the fifth, when Oakland went ahead 3-2. Then the following inning, with men on 2^nd and 3^rd, Jimmy Sullivan went up bat and hit a clean single, bringing the two runners, and that made the score 4-3. Borchers didn’t give up a hit the rest of the game, but the damage was done, and his record fell to 11-14.

At Sacramento, Youngy Johnson could not find the plate for Stockton, issuing nine passes to first base, and couple that with a home run to catcher Matt Stanley, and the 7-2 score stood in the Gilt Edge’s favor. Demon Doyle notched the win. The game was called after eight innings.

On Sunday at the state capital, the two interior clubs played eleven innings before a winner could be determined. Jay Hughes and George Harper went at it for eight innings, with game standing at 4-4. At that point, George Babbitt took over from Harper. In the eleventh inning, Jay Hughes tired, giving up three runs to put the win in the Stockton column.

At Oakland on Sunday morning, the hometown pitcher, Doc Moskiman, gave up 7 runs on 11 hits, while the Wasps’ Tom Fitzpatrick gave up 4 run on 6 hits. Oakland actually led going into the seventh by a 3-1 margin, but Moskiman gave up 2 in that inning, and 4 more in the following frame to put the game away for good. Red Held, who later would become an umpire of some note, hit a home run for the losing Dudes.

In the nightcap at Rec, the two Saturday pitchers came back to face one another with the result reversed. Chief Borchers prevailed over Ham Iburg 7-5 in a sloppily played game, 20 hits and 12 errors. Ham Iburg’s record fell to 21-20.

STIRYOUROWNWHISKEI, to You

2006-06-01T14:14:00.000-07:00

Davis Barker came across this player, who may or may not have made the club:

Player STIRYOUROWNWHISKEI can sign his name "Smith" and it will be oaky with President Bramham of the minors, but the player'll have to jot his name in parentheses at the end of his signature.

From The Sporting News

A Wrong Direction Story, & An Odd Death, From Davis Barker

2006-05-31T13:21:00.000-07:00

A Wrong Direction Story, & An Odd Death, From Davis Barker

Davis found these two item in the Sporting News in 1935:

Right Town, But Wrong Club

With a Greenville in North Carolina and another in South Carolina, the former in the Costal Plain and the latter in the Sally, it is not surprising that Joe Zanolli, a young infielder, got mixed up and reported to the wrong camp.  He was purchased by the Costal Plain League club from Statesville of the defunct Tar Heel loop, but went to the Sally loop city instead.  Joe lives in Massachusetts.  Finally straightened out, he showed up at Greenville, N. C., April 4.

Zanolli does not appear in the guide for that season, and one is left to wonder if he ever made back to Massachusetts.  I could not find him in subsequent season either.

An Extraordinary Death, & A Question or Two

Charles Wilson, manager of the Huntsville club of the Arkansas State League, on August 2, was killed in a fall from a Ferris wheel in Huntsville, Ark., the coroner calling the death accidental.  The player’s real name was Antone Butkus, he having taken the name of Wilson from home town of Wilsonville, Ill.  He was born in Marysville, Ill., August 29, 1912, and won fame as a football and basket ball player as well as in baseball.  Played with Joplin this year before going to Huntsville.

Charles Wilson, not the only one in O. B., was a pitcher in the Western Association in 1935, then winds up as manager, at 24 years old, for Huntsville while going 11-5 on the mound at the time of his fall.

Books Ive Read Over the Winter, and Into the Spring, Part Two

2006-05-30T15:48:00.000-07:00

Books I’ve Read Over the Winter, and Into the Spring, Part Two

I have to admit, this is one book for which I’ve been waiting. Barry Swanton’s Mandak League: Haven for Former Negro League Ballplayers, 1950-1957 does not disappoint. A McFarland book (which can be ordered from Amazon, where I got my copy), this history gives an overall view of that Western Canada league in all its glory, and in all its failed promise near the end. Length: 222 pages and $29.95 soft cover (from Amazon, and qualifies for free shipping from them:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0786425105/102-4552237-
4141736?v=glance&n=283155

The Mandak League began as an outgrowth of the Manitoba Senior League. The previous league would import up to three players per roster, many of whom were veterans of the Negro Leagues. The Manitoba-Dakota League was formed to ride the wave of interest in minor league ball after the Second World War. That golden age lasted from 1946 through 1952 or 1953, when baseball began a long decline in attendance. Swanton’s book chronicles the highs and the decline for the Mandak League.

Because the league had a very high salary cap of $8,500, it was able to attract veteran black players who could no longer be considered “prospects” by major league clubs, and attracted O. B. players with the same futures as the black veteran players.

The league began as a five-club circuit in 1950, but became a four-team league in 1951, and remained so until its demise after the 1957 season. Winnipeg was the hub of the league (with two clubs its first season), but after the 1953 it joined the rival Northern League in Organized Baseball. In 1955, Bismarck, North Dakota joined the league to partially offset the loss of Winnipeg.

The book is set out chronologically, with season-by-season recaps. The 1950 season goes into detail on the ballparks, the league personnel and umpires, then relates the pennant race, season highlights and any in-season tournaments played. The following season chapters give pennant-race recaps, highlights and playoff summaries.

All the season chapters are well constructed, well written, and hold the reader’s interest. What also helps is that Swanton’s second section of the book gives player profiles of most of the players in the league, making it easy to flip to when one is reading the first section of the book.

As to the player profiles, let me give you an example that I just now flipped to:

Lou Lombardo

Pitcher; Bats—Left; Throws—Left; Height—6’2; Weight— 210 lbs;
Born— November 18, 1928 in Carlstadt, New Jersey; Died— June 11, 2001 in Rock Hill, South Carolina.

Lombardo was 20 years old when he appeared in two games for the New York Giants in 1948. He pitched five innings and had a 6.75 ERA. In 1950, he pitched in Double-A with Little Rock in the Southern Association. In 1952, he was 11-3 for Montgomery in the Sally League. In 1953, he was 25 years old when he joined the Minot Mallards from Rochester, Minnesota of the Southern Minny (semi-pro) . He pitched six games with little success and had an 0-3 record when he was released on July 16.

After the comprehensive player profiles, Swanton has three appendices (strangely numbered: I, II, and IV, and even though I took what was called poet’s math at Columbia, I can still find my way to Super IV without much brain sweat).

The first appendix is a one-page reprint of the 1950 Minot Mallard team rules, which may or may not be of much interest.

Appendix II is the most important part of the book for me, and for many others. This appendix lists batting and pitching stats for most players, reunited (apparently) from a number of primary sources. In 1950, batting stats included are for:
G AB H HR RBI AVG Pitching: W L Pct.

From 1952 on, batting stats include DB & TR. Pitching remains light throughout, but does include Strikeouts and Walks in later seasons.

In another nice feature, Swanton list players for whom no statistic are available.

The final appendix (IV) list complete rosters for each franchise, season by season, with notes on players who appeared for other clubs in the league during the season.

In conclusion, I can’t recommend this book enough. It belongs on every minor league researcher’s bookshelf.

This Week in the California League, October 15-21, 1900

2006-05-29T00:15:00.000-07:00

To get a better view of the Standings & Leaders, click on image.

This Week in the California League, October 15—October 21, 1900

Games this week were played on Saturday and Sunday, October 20 and 21.

With the weekend games out of the way, Sacramento pulled out to a 3½ game lead over second place San Francisco. As should be noted, the Wasps had pulled within ½ game of the leader the preceding week. Russ pace continued to lead the hitters in batting, though that won’t hold up for much longer, as he jumped his Stockton contract to play in the Montana League.

Sacramento traveled to the Bay Area to play a three-game set with last place Oakland, and left with two more wins. On Saturday, Jay Hughes notched his 200^th win of the season by shutting out the Dudes 4-0. He allowed only 6 hits, and struck out 7.

On Sunday across they Bay, Oakland won 5-2 as manager Brick Devereaux gave up 13 hits, while his counterpart, Chief Borchers only gave up 7 hits and 2 runs in route to his 11^th victory of the season.

In the rubber match, Demon Doyle pitched a 6-hitter at Rec Park, and giving Sacramento a 4-1 victory. The game was lost in the second inning, when Dudes pitcher Doc Moskiman gave up all four runs. If the doctor had not pitched that inning, he would have wound up on the winning side of a 5-hit shutout.

Goodwater Grove at Stockton was home to the Sunday doubleheader in the interior. In the morning contest, Ham Iburg was going for his 21^st win of the season. When the game ended he still would be. He lost 8-1 to Youngy Johnson, who pitch a 7-hitter. Julie Streib and jack McCarthy both went 3 for 5 for the victors, and old Rube Levy went 3-4 for the Wasps.

In the afternoon contest, the Pirates swept the doubleheader with a 7-2 victory, six of those runs coming in the first three innings. George Harper edged his record up to 11-17, and Tom Fitzpatrick dropped to 15-12. And, so, the Wasps limped back to San Francisco 3½ games behind the Gilt Edgers.

Books Ive Read Over the Winter, and Into the Spring, Part One

2006-05-28T12:00:00.000-07:00

Books I’ve Read Over the Winter, and Into the Spring, Part One

I’ve read a number of baseball books this year, from the baseball guides through The Hardball Times.  I  read three books on the minor league this off season: Minot Mallards of the ManDak League, 1950-1957 by Bill Guenthner, The Mandak League: Haven for Former Negro League Ballplayers, 1950-1957 by Barry Swanton, and the current American Association Almanac written and published by a friend of this blog, Rex Hamann.

I will review these publications in the order I bought them and read them, beginning today with Bill Guenthner’s Minot Mallards.  (At this point, I’d like to offer to post reviews of any other books that you may have come across this season, or may have been missed by many.  Please let me know.)

Minot Mallards has gone through two printings, and is awaiting the possibility of a well-deserved third.  In the meantime, Bill is offering the book on a CD, which can be printed out, and then bound, which is what I did.  The format is in MS Word, and he includes cover art for the book.  What I did was take it over to Office Depot, and they printed out and comb bound it for me (though they also offer perfect binding).  Bill charges three or five dollars (I forget) for the CD, which basically covers his shipping costs.

This is a history of Bill Guenthner’s team in the town of his youth, and one could call it a loving portrait of that club.  But it is also much more than that.  The book delves into the history of what lead to the league, how the league and the club came into being.  Then it gives a complete season-by-season recap, primarily from the Mallards perspective.  These recaps are well-written and interesting.

After seasonal recaps, the author takes a retrospective look—without nostalgia— at the league and the level of competition.  Then comes a section that gives thumbnail biographies of virtually—if not every—player who appeared with the Mallards.  So many times I pick up a book on a league, and find myself asking “Who the hell is this guy?” This is a very valuable section that took the author considerable effort to put together.  There are some minimal statistics in this section for the players, but stats was not of great importance to the author.

The following section is a detailed season-by-season roster, showing where the players came from, the seasons they played for the club, and other comments.

The two final sections present photos of a number of the players, caricatures of players that appeared in the local newspaper, and the cover of a scorecard.  The final section lists in tabular form season-by-season league standings, which— being at the end of the book— makes it easy to get to when reading the season recaps.

How good is the book?  Very good, and serves as a great introduction to the league.  The team perspective also give one a feel for the ups and downs of a franchise that one might not find in a league history.  The only critique one could make is that it’s a little light on stats—but that has been remedied by Barry Swanton in his book.

In final analysis, this belongs in every minor league researcher’s library.  I can’t recommend it enough.

Contact Bill @ the following address for further information on his book:
bguenthner@comcast.net

Famous Last Words

2006-05-27T09:08:00.000-07:00

Famous Last Words

“The Oakland team will never win the pennant,” remarked Elmer Meredith, the San Francisco pitcher. “To my mind they are playing above their gait now [mid-May, two games ahead of the league]. I know some of them are. They will have a relapse.”

“That’s right,” cut in [Los Angeles shortstop Jimmy] Toman, who was standing near. “They are doing good fielding, but they are not batting enough to stay in front very long. Wait till they strike their bad luck. Just now, though, they certainly are playing good ball.”— Los Angeles Herald.

The Oakland Dudes finished the 1902 season some 13 games ahead of the league. At the time, though the fielding was much above the league, it was the pitching staff that really boosted the club: Harry Schmidt would have a stellar season on the mound, along with Bill Cristall, and old veteran George Hodson putting together another 20-plus win season. And the hitting came around later in the season, with a league-leading batting season by Walt McCredie

This Week in the California League, October 8-14, 1900

2006-05-26T23:16:00.000-07:00

To get a better view of the Standings & Leaders, click on image.

This Week in the California League, October 8—October 14, 1900

Games this week were played on Saturday and Sunday, October 13 and 14.

On Saturday, Stockton and San Francisco faced off at Rec Park, with Youngy Johnson of Stockton coming out on top 4-2 over Tom Fitzpatrick. Stockton scored the the first 3 runs, then San Francisco came back with 2 in 4^th, but could not come any closer.

At Sacramento, it was a laugher. Sacramento, behind Jay Hughes, won 10-zero. Hughes struck out 7. Chief Borchers took the loss for Oakland.

On Sunday, the Sacramento-Oakland affair turned out to be a see-saw game, with Sacramento coming out on top 11-10. Brick Devereaux and Doc Moskiman both pitched complete games. Devereaux hit a home run to help himself to the win. Lou Hardie and Red Held hit four-baggers for Oakland. The game, however, was lost when Oakland was forced to fill in for shortstop Abe Arellanes with center fielder Bill Drennan, who booted four balls, all at critical moments.

Over in the Bay Area, San Francisco and Stockton split a doubleheader. Ham Iburg of San Francisco pitched a four-hit shutout over Youngy Johnson, who gave up 6 runs on 11 hits after pitching his second game in two days. The game was close until San Francisco score 3 in the 7^th inning.

In the afternoon tilt at Rec Park, Stockton held on to pull out a 5-4 victory. George Harper won, and San Francisco’s Phil Knell took the loss. Stockton scored first, with 2 in the 3^rd, but San Francisco came back to tie it up the very next inning. Stockton scored 2 in the fifth, and added another run in the 7^th. San Francisco tried to come back in the 8^th inning, but fell short.

From Davis Barker Found in TSN, April 25, 1935

2006-05-25T09:04:00.000-07:00

From Davis Barker: Found in The Sporting News, April 25, 1935

The following Davis Barker found on the Portsmouth, Ohio ballpark.  Its dimensions are equal distance from home plate at 349 feet.  Davis has never come across such a ballpark, but I know of three: Venice Park in the early PCL, the Sunset League park in Las Vegas, and now this park.

Portsmouth, O., Dedication, May 8

$40,000 Ball Park Will Be Thrown Open on First Day of Season

Portsmouth, O.— After an absence of 20 years, Portsmouth will make an elaborate re-entrance in Organized Ball as a member of the Middle Atlantic League, May 8.  On that date, the new $40,000 ball park will be dedicated, with the Huntington team here as guests for the opener.

From 1905 to 1915, Portsmouth was the backbone of the old Ohio State League and it is quite a coincidence that the club was moved here from Springfield, O., because the present club representing this city likewise was moved here from Springfield.  Alex Pisula, owner of the Pirates, as the team is known, found the city most receptive when he decided to pull away from Springfield, where he had operated in 1933 and 1934, with the result that the municipality got behind the park project, which will be the best in the league.

The grandstand, seating 3,000, is of brick, while the field is surrounded with a solid brick wall, nine feet-high.  The plant will be quite a novelty, in that the fence is of semi-circular construction from left field to right field, making every part of the enclosure exactly 349 feet from the plate [italics mine].

The grandstand, in addition to its large seating capacity, has 248 box seats.  Every conceivable convenience for fans and players has been provided.  The club rooms under the stands are equipped with rubbing tables and six shower baths.  Accommodations for the women have not been overlooked, for, besides a tiled rest room, there will be a ladies’ parlor, completely equipped with lounging chairs and tables.

The chamber of commerce will have complete charge of the dedicatory exercises on opening day.  To that end invitations have been sent to several of the baseball dignitaries of the nation.  F. W. SHERIDAN

The May 8 dedication was also Picasso’s birthday, though I doubt they opened the park on that day to honor him.  It might have made a unique promotion, none-the-less.

John Benesch Adds a Minor League Site to Bill Williamson's List

2006-05-24T08:31:00.000-07:00

John Benesch Adds a Minor League Site to Bill Williamson’s List

Carlos,
Although in French, the Provincial League Website does have significant stats for the independent era.
http://histoirebaseball.150m.com/
John

Ron Smith's Record, Revised

2006-05-23T08:53:00.000-07:00

Click on Career Record to Enlarge

Ed Washuta did some new research on Acestry.com, and found Ron Smith had a "baseball age." He was born in 1914 rather than 1918. Additionally, Ed has the Minor League Digests for the 1948 & 1949 period, and he is listed as still on the Sacramento roster, not as voluntarily retired, so he could have been injured. However, Cuno Barragon once (or twice, because he was so pissed off) told me that Buzzy Bavasi would not release him for five seasons so he could find a slot with another club (probably in his hometown of Sacramento), and Cuno remained on the Dodger (or Spokane roster) for five years after he actually retired. Things like that happened all the time when players had no power at all.

I had a source that listed the Visalia entry as Ronald V., but Ed thought it might be another player, and so I went back and did the research I should have done in the first place-- checking the official average sheets rather than the guide. Bill Weiss listed the Visalia player correctly as Ronald G. Smith, the guide had plain "Ronald," and that was where I made my mistake. Not my first, and not my last. Take that one to the bank!

This only re-proves the adage that one can never do enough research.

This Week in the California League, October 1-7, 1900

2006-05-22T12:10:00.000-07:00

To get a better view of the Standings & Leaders, click on image.

Games this week were played on Saturday and Sunday, October 6 and 7.

On Saturday at Rec Park, the Sacramento Brewers and San Francisco Wasps tied 7-7 in 12 innings, with Truck Eagan hitting his 6^th home run. Sacramento got out to a 7-1 lead by the fifth inning, but Jay Hughes had two bad innings in which he gave up 6 runs before settling down again, giving up no runs or hits over the last three frames.

No game was play in Stockton, in favor of a Sunday double header.

At Stockton on Sunday, Stockton and Oakland split a doubleheader. Jack McCarthy went 4 for 5 to lead the Stockton club to an 11-7 win in the morning contest.

In the afternoon contest, Chief Borchers pitched a 0ne-hitter for Oakland, striking out 9 in a 3-1 win. George Harper took the loss, dropping his record to 9-17.

In the morning contest at Oakland, Tom Fitzpatrick of the Wasps faced Brick Devereaux, the Sacramento change pitcher. Devereaux made manager George Harper like a genius, pitching Gilt Edge to a 1-0 victory.

At San Francisco in the afternoon game, it was a back and forth game, with San Francisco coming out on top with 3 runs in the bottom of the 9^th to take a 10-9 slugfest. Phil Knell struggled the whole game, but took the win.

What the Future Hold, I Think, I hope

I have been rather remiss with this project, so I have decided that I will post “This Week in the California League” twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays, until I complete the 1900 season. I also hope to continue through the 1901 and 1902 California League seasons.

Some Research Links Provided By Bill Williamson

2006-05-21T09:00:00.000-07:00

Some Research Links Provided by Bill Williamson
After talking to Bill at the PCL Reunion about things on the internet, he sent me a copy of some links he finds of value. I haven’t gone through them myself, but am planning on doing so. Thanks, Bill…

Leagues
Alabama-Florida League
All-American Girls Professional Baseball League...
American Association Almanac
Arizona Fall League
Blue Ridge League
Central League Baseball
Evangeline Baseball League (TOC)
Federal League
Golden Baseball League
Kitty League Baseball - The Class D Kentucky-...
KOM League
Mexican League
Midwest League
Minor League Baseball
Nebraska Minor League Baseball
Nothern League
Old Pacific Coast League
Pacific Coast League
PCL 100
Pioneer Baseball League
Three I League-new
Western Canada Baseball
All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Players Association
Independent Baseball on OurSports Central
Indy Leagues Graveyard - Defunct Independent Baseball Leagues
Minor League Baseball History - Baseball History - Minor League Sports - MLN Sports Zone - A Minor League News Magazine

Baseball Research
AAF Library
Accessible Archives Databases
Ballparks
Baseball America - Executive Database
Baseball Archive
Baseball Scorecard - Downloads
Baseball-DataBank.org
Brooklyn Daily Eagle Online (1841-1902)
Business of Baseball
Business of Baseball Downloadable Data & Documents
California Newspaper Project
Colorado Historic Newspapers
HeritageQuest
Historic Baseball : The history of the game through players, teams and leagues
Hot Hand in Sports
Internet Public Library: California
Los Angeles Public Library
New York State Newspaper Project - Home Page
NewspaperARCHIVE.com - Search old newspapers
Overview of Electronic Data Resources
Paper of Record - Building the world's largest searchable archive of historical newspapers.
Photographs from the Chicago Daily News: More Topics
Pro Quest/Newspaper Search
Spalding Base Ball Guides Search Page
Utah Digital Newspapers
Who's Alive and Who's Dead
Winona, Mn Newspaper Archive
United States Newspaper Program
Elysian Fields Quarterly -- The Baseball Review
Small Town Newspaper-A newspaper directory featuring small town newspapers and articles.
Pro Baseball Newspaper Articles Archive

Jake Wade Died in February

2006-05-20T11:17:00.000-07:00

Click on Career Record to Enlarge

Jake Wade, who played a couple of season in the Coast League, and was involved in one of the great PCL on field fights. From Dick Dobbins book, Nuggets on the Diamond:

"During th 1935 season, the Mission Reds were playing a series in Portland's Vaughn Street Park. It was "Jake Wade Day," with Wade pitching the first game of a Sunday doubleheader. Reds center fielder Lou Almada was having a field day against Wade. Anything Wade tossed up to the plate, Almada hit out of reach of the Beavers' defenders. The two began jawing at each other. Waxde became more angry with each Almada success, and by the end of the game, he was angry and embarrassed.

"Between games, both teams retired to their respective clubhouses. After a few minutes, there was a knock on the Reds' clubhouse door. Outside stood John 'Moose' Clabaugh, the burly Portland outfielder. Clabaugh was there as Wade's second for a showdown with Almada. Manager Gabby Street told both players to take off their cleats and go out to settle their differences. Almada made quick work of Wade as Clabaugh passively stood by.

"Beavers pitcher Sailor Bill Posedel later told the Missions' george McDermott that Clabaugh had urged Wade to challange Almada. Clabaugh didn't care at all for Wade and was confident Almada could beat him. Ah, teammates."

Pitcher Ron Smith Died in 2004

2006-05-19T12:32:00.000-07:00

Click on Career Record to Enlarge

Dick Beverage just learned that pitcher Ron Smith died in 2004 in Arizona. Not much was known about this pitcher, and in fact Dick's obit in the PCL Potourri thought that Smith had jumped from the semipros to the Coast League, which I learned he didn't. When I put together Ron Smith's career record yesterday, I couldn't find anything for him in the guide for 1948 and 1949. I am also missing a string of Minor League Digests for that period, and was only able to pick him up in the 1950s MLDs, so I listed him as "voluntarily retired," but he may have been injured, etc. Any more information would be appriciated. Thanks.

Royce Lint Has Died

2006-05-18T12:38:00.000-07:00

Click on Career Record to Enlarge

Three obits for PCL players appeared in the last issue of the Pacific Coast League Potpourri. We have done career records for them, and will post them to the blog over the next three days, beginning with Royce Lint. Lint, over his career, was both a starter and reliever. He died in April in Portland, Oregon, where he finished his career. His 154-113 minor league career tellls us a lot more about his pitching prowess than his 2-3 major league record.

Kind Words from SABR

2006-05-17T09:19:00.000-07:00

Kind Words from SABR

I received this yesterday, and thought I’d share it with all of you. We continue to have effect, and no always is it taken as an insult, as was the case of The Sporting News. We are truth seekers, and we hope to continue in that vein. Our thanks also goes out to Davis Barker…

Davis,My thanks to you and Carlos, as well as Dick Beverage who sent on the blog site, for the postings of these distances. It is really helpful to me. We are finishing up the ms of Green Cathedrals and these distances supplement the ones in Lowry's book.Thank you again. It is a terrific blog.Jim CharltonSABR publications director

Following Up in Sioux City, With Some Long Fences

2006-05-16T11:31:00.000-07:00

Davis Barker, deep in an article on baseball in Sioux City, came up with some pretty amazing data on their Western League park, Stock Yards Park:

No "pill box" is the park, either, in delightful contrast to Mizzou Park, whose right field fence was so short, drives over the barrier went for only two bases and the right fielder had to be an accomplished shortstop. In Stock Yards Park, the distances from home plate to the various fences are:
Right field: 307 feet
Center field: 675 feet
left field: 450 feet

No balls have ever been driven over either left or center field barriers.

The Sporting News in 1934, which must be a good year for ballpark news, though you might have to read every word. Thanks, again, Davis.

From Davis Barker:American Association Parks in 1934, August 16 Issue

2006-05-15T09:00:00.000-07:00

From Davis Barker: American Association Parks in 1934, August 16 Issue

In a follow up to his fine sleuthing on Southern Association Parks, Davis found this note in The Sporting News:

In order to settle a number of arguments as to the size of the parks in the league, W. Blaine Patton, sports editor of the Indianapolis Star, ascertained the distances of fences at the various fields and here is what he found:

Indianapolis:
Left field, 350 feet
Center field, 500 feet
Right field, 350 feet

Milwaukee:
Left field, 262 feet
Center field, 395 feet
Right field, 265 feet

St. Paul:
Left field, 315 feet
Center field, 470 feet
Right field, 365 feet

Minneapolis:
Left field, 336 feet
Center field, 435 feet
Right field, 275 feet

Louisville:
Left field, 331 feet
Center field, 512 feet
Right field, 350 feet

Toledo:
Left field, 378 feet
Center field, 400 feet
Right field, 327 feet

Columbus:
Left field, 340 feet
Center field, 430 feet
Right field, 315 feet

Kansas City:
Left field, 363 feet
Center field, 559 feet
Right field, 390 feet

As Davis put it in a note to me: “Quite some contrasts!”

From Sporting Life December 14, 1901

2006-05-12T12:49:00.000-07:00

From Sporting Life, December 14, 1901.

Speaking of Ted Breitenstein, I found this note today:

Breitenstein Breaks an Arm

The St. Louis, Mo., December 11.— Theodore Breitenstein, the famous left-hand pitcher, had his right arm broken in a carriage upset last night. He was driving when the horse started to run away. Breitenstein tugged hard on the lines, with the result that he was pulled over the dasher. Not only was his right arm broken by the spill, but his left was badly sprained.

In a time before automobile accident there were horse and buggy accidents, and many train related accidents. Actually, ballplayers today live and play in a much more benign environment today.

Tomorrow I will probably not be posting, as I’m off to The PCL Reunion in Carson, CA

From Davis Barker Found in TSN, February 15, 1934

2006-05-11T09:14:00.000-07:00

From Davis Barker: Found in The Sporting News, February 15, 1934

Davis Barker has been at it again, and he has come up with a marvelous find, the dimensions of Southern Association ballparks

Size of Southern Parks

It is a wise batter who knows his park in the Southern Association, for they differ enough to make it advisable to change batting tactics in every one of them. They have right field walls ranging from 262 feet at Sulphur Dell, Nashville, to 395 at Traverlers’ Field in Little Rock, center fields from 366 feet at Russwood Park, Memphis, to 485 feet at Engel Stadium, Chattanooga, Rickwood Field, Birmingham, and Heinemann Park, New Orleans, and left fields from 297 feet at New Orleans to 474 [sic] feet at Memphis.

Ponce De Leon Park at Atlanta, with a capacity of 15,200, is the largest and Smthson Stadium, seating 5,000 at Knoxville, is the smallest. Others range as follows:
Birmingham, 15,000
Memphis, 11,500
Chattanooga, 10,000
New Orleans, 9,500
Nashville, 8,500
and Little Rock, 7,000.

Distances from home plate to the fences in the various parks are [given in the following graphic]:

Southern Association Park Distances

2006-05-11T09:10:00.000-07:00

Click on Image to Enlarge

Ted Breitenstein's Career Record

2006-05-10T08:05:00.000-07:00

Click on Career Record to Enlarge

A SABR member requested the career record of TED BREITENSTEIN. The above record is from The Historical Register (for sale from Baseball Press, as listed below).

A Question Asked And A Question Answered, Sort Of

2006-05-09T11:48:00.000-07:00

A Question Asked, And a Question Answered, Sort Of

Why are Managerial Records so hard to find?  Even current managers have profiles with
tidbits of data but rarely can you find a complete managerial record.
Gary Alstadt Mississippi

Part of the problem is that for most of the history of baseball, the guides didn’t list the managers (through 1948), then only sporadically give the date for managerial changes, and never the record for the two or more managers for a season.  In other words, it would take a lot of work to find the record of managers when they were replaced in season.

The only person whom I know of who has attempted something like that is Jerry Jackson, who has spent a good part of his life compiling records for O. B. managers. Years ago, he wanted to compile an all-time manager encyclopedia, but I haven’t talked to him in years, and so don’t know the status of such a work.

I, however, have problems with some of Jerry’s methodology.  In the early years of baseball, the person called a “manager” was not what we call a manager today.  Prior to World War One (more or less, and depending on the league), the job description of “manager” was that of what today is called a GM.

The person who wrote filled the lineups, made the player and pitching changes, and the person who sat on the bench— was called the captain.  After 1885, a manager was not allowed to sit on the bench in many leagues— unless he was also a captain.

To Jerry the manager was the manager.  I could talk to him until I was blue in the face, and a manager would still be manager for him.  And that is why many of the listings in the Minor League Encyclopedia are in error.  Lloyd Johnson got much of his managerial listings from Jerry Jackson.

To give an example: The Sporting News and Sporting Life would publish a list of all the O. B. leagues and list the managers and presidents on a weekly basis.  For Sacramento in the 1903 PCL season, they listed Mike Fisher as manager.  He was, but “manager” meant “business manager.”  Years later, when TSN published a profile of Charley Graham, they asked about his managerial career, and he mentioned that he managed Sacramento  in the Coast League during its inaugural season of 1903.

In the work I have done on the Coast League, I had to go back and check day by day to figure out the managerial records.  But to do that, one needs local papers— especially in the early years.

I guess I answered the question— sort of.

1901 North Carolina League Redux

2006-05-08T12:55:00.000-07:00

About a week ago I made mention that the 1901 North Carolina League was a league in which we didn't have any stats, and would be a nice project for somebody to work on. John Benesch brought to my attention that Ray Nemec recently compiled stats for that league, and that we can consider the book closed on that particular league.

We can now go on to other projects.

Bill Weiss, PCL Hall of Famer

2006-05-07T13:13:00.000-07:00

Bill Weiss is our final entrant into the PCL Hall of Fame. I nominated Bill Weiss this year for the PCL Hall, and am extremely happy that others voting saw it the same way I did. Bill Weiss was the long-time statistician of the Pacific Coast League. He was born in Chicago more than a few years ago, and like me, moved out to California when he took over compiling statistics for the PCL and California League. He began compiling PCL statistics in 1950, and the league with the history of having the worst statistics became— overnight— the league with the best statistics, and if fact be came the model for all other minor leagues (and possibly the major leagues as well).

Bill began his career working for Howard Green, who founded any number of leagues in Texas in the post-World War Two era, and Bill Weiss became statistician for all of them. In 1949, he moved west to take on the duties of statistician for the California League and the Far West League (which Bill still calls the Far Worst League), and then the following season became PCL statistician.

As Dick Beverage has noted, no other executive has served the PCL longer than Bill Weiss.

Anybody who has compiled statistics has to look to Bill Weiss as a model. I did, and I do.

Tommy Lasorda, PCL Hall of Famer

2006-05-06T09:19:00.000-07:00

Tommy Lasorda's became a PCL Hall of Famer this year as a manager, though he did pitch in the league during his career. What can one say about Tommy Lasorda that hasn't been said already- good, bad or indifferent? His record as a manager stands for itself.

Bill Schuster, New Inductee to PCL Hall of Fame

2006-05-05T09:14:00.000-07:00

Click on Career Record to Enlarge

I have to admit that Bill Schuster never crossed my radar screen when I filled out my PCL Hall of Fame ballot. But here’s what Dick Beverage wrote about Schuster:

“BILL SCHUSTER, shortstop. Seattle, 194041; Los Angeles, 1941-43, 1946-49; 1949-50 Seattle; Hollywood, 1952. In 1,450 games Broadway Bill hit .275, but the numbers don’t begin to tell the story of his career. In nine years as a regular player, he played with three pennant winners— Seattle, 1940, Los Angeles, 1943 and 1947— and was the core of the defense on each of those clubs. Schuster led all PCL shortstops: in putouts, five times; assists, three times; and total chances, three times. As a hitter Bill did not post great averages— .298 in 1942 was his best. But he scored frequently, had a lot of doubles and was on base often. Bill had an ebullient personality, treated baseball as a fun game that it is and was wildly popular with the fans. After his playing career ended, he worked at Santa Anita racetrack. He died on June 29, 1987 at the age of 74.”

New PCL Hall of Famer, Dario Lodigiani

2006-05-04T08:29:00.000-07:00

Many people remember Dario Lodigiani for the prominent part he played in HBO’s When It Was A Game. After his first stint with the Oaks, he was purchased by the Philadelphia A’s, and then to the White Sox until he went away to War. He played one season with the White Sox after returning from service, and then went to the Coast League, where he completed his stellar Coast League career as one of the finest middle infielders of his era.

According to the PCL Potpourri, Lodigiani is still active as a scout on a part-time basis.

Bert Ellison, 2006 PCL Hall of Fame Inductee

2006-05-03T08:43:00.000-07:00

Bert Ellison was one of those players who we also seem to forget. In the Coast League, he was just below those who were the best, but just... We also don't give him credit for winning two pennants for the Seals, including helming the great 1925 club, which many consider the second best club ever in the PCL.

According to Dick Beverage's PCL Potpourri, Ellison worked in the customs department in San Francisco until his death in 1955.

Dom DiMaggio, 2006 PCL Hall of Fame Inductee

2006-05-02T21:04:00.000-07:00

Click on Image to Enlarge

Joe & Vince's younger brother followed them into the Coast League, and he put together two very solid seasons, and one extraordinary season. It should be taken into consideration that he began in the toughest of the minor leagues at age twenty, no mean feat in itself, having come from the North Beach Merchants to the PCL in one leap. Of course, he went on to the Red Sox for many seasons.

The Class of 2006, PCL Style

2006-05-01T13:11:00.000-07:00

Over then next few days, I will be posting the PCL records of the newest inductees into the PCL Hall of Fame.

We will start with Eddie Basinski...who played the violin and the right side of the infield with precision.

Eddie Basinksi, New PCL Hall of Fame Member

2006-05-01T09:37:00.000-07:00

From The Sporting Life, August 24, 1901.

2006-04-30T08:58:00.000-07:00

From The Sporting Life, August 24, 1901.

Another Minor League I just happened to stumble across in those year before the National Association, and while looking for something else:

North Carolina League

The Championship Season Prematurely Closed.

The Championship season of the North Carolina League came to a premature end on Aug. 17, the Charlotte team withdrawing on that date, owing to alleged unfair treatment by the League officials in the matter of umpire assignments. Raleigh and Wilmington are now engaged in an 11-game post-season series between themselves. Following is the final League record:

Clubs Won Lost Pct

Raleigh 23 - 9 .719

Tarboro 15 - 17 .469

Wilmington 14 - 19 .424

Charlotte 14 - 19 .424

Note: This shouldn’t be a hard league for someone in that part of the country to do. A nice, short season. And who knows what players may show up in the league. This league is not included in Lloyd Johnson’s The Minor League Encyclopedia.

Notice

2006-04-29T09:30:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note to let all know that the last set of The Coast League Cyclopedia has been sold, so will no longer be avialable.

From Davis Barker: Found in The Sporting News, May 25, 1939

2006-04-29T09:28:00.000-07:00

From Davis Barker: Found in The Sporting News, May 25, 1939

I once had a friend who decided he wanted to go to Alaska to get rich quick because of all the jobs they were offering went they first started drilling for oil. So he left Chicago in the dead of night…and drove through the night without stopping…and the next morning, in the light of day, he found himself in Pennsylvania. My friend never to admit a mistake, spent 10 or so years in Pennsylvania, got married, before returning to Chicago…

Here’s a baseball themed one from Davis Barker:

Identified by the means of a telegram from the Jersey club, found in his pocket, Ernest Sulik, outfielder recently transferred by the Dallas Rebels to the International League club, was released from a hospital in Fresno, Cal., where he had been taken, suffering from amnesia. He was sent to the hospital when he was found in a Fresno bus station, unable to identify himself.

Davis asked what had become of him…and maybe I’ll see if I can come up with anything in the next week or so.

A Letter From Dick Thompson

2006-04-28T12:32:00.000-07:00

A Letter from Dick Thompson On his Current Project, Cannonball Bill Jackman

Dick would like any help any of you can come up with on Jackman’s stint out here in California. If anyone comes up with anything, please let me know, and I will forward it on to Dick Thompson. Thanks.

Carlos,

I have sent you a copy of the sports page from the Portland (Maine) Press Herald of July 18,1947. Please note the column in the upper left hand corner of the page. It is about Cannonball Bill Jackman who is the subject of my current research project. To date I have Jackman at 123 wins and 48 losses and between 1925 and 1947. I know that Jackman pitched between 1917 and 1952. I suspect that there are at least 500 Jackman wins out there and my current goal is to document at least 300 of them.

Jackman worked mainly for the Philadelphia (Colored) Giants as they barnstormed around New England in the Twenties and Thirties. From my review of the Philadelphia Tribune I know that there was a Philadelphia Giants entry in the California Winter League. I know that Biz Mackey and Joe Rogan played for that squad but prior to this 1947 article I did not have any reason to suspect that Jackman also pitched out there. I had located a note in the Brockton, Massachusetts paper in the spring of 1928 that said that the New England version of the Giants had just come from the West Coast there they had been involved with the Oakland PCL team in a series of games. I had assumed that the Brockton paper had there facts wrong.

I am hoping you can post this article and this email. If any of your readers can document Bill Jackman in California I would greatly appreciate that information.

Thanks

Dick Thompson

Cannonball Bill Jackman Article

2006-04-28T11:56:00.000-07:00

Click on Article Image to Enlarge

Nap Rucker

2006-04-27T20:52:00.000-07:00

Click on Career Record to Enlarge

I just noticed that somebody place a comment about Nap Rucker's early career, and it just so happens that his record is included in The Historical Register. Apart from all the Hall of Famers, we have included complete career records of all the Black Sox players, and every player who appeared in The Sporting News' Eight editions of Daguerreotypes. The career records of the players contained in the book are unique to The Historical Register. It's not a cut and paste effort; incredible amounts of research went into fleshing out the records. If you have an Encyclopedia, then you have to have The Historical Register to go along with it. Each edition contains new and updated material.

· The Historical Register, Fourth Edition, compiled by Numerous SABR Members

This work presents the complete career records major, minor and independent leagues, even semipro, of baseball greatest players, from Alexander Cartwright through Ryne Sandberg. In all, career records of 740 players. Every Hall of Famer, including Negro Leagues players, and virtually every near Hall of Famer that ever donned spikes. The most complete career records ever published by far! Literally thousands of new lines of never-before-published data. There has never been a book like this one! Now in Fourth Edition!

460 pages $49.95 from Baseball Press Books

· The Historical Register, Fourth Edition, compiled by Numerous SABR Members

This work presents the complete career records¾ major, minor and independent leagues, even semipro¾ of baseball greatest players, from Alexander Cartwright through Ryne Sandberg. In all, career records of 740 players. Every Hall of Famer, including Negro Leagues players, and virtually every near Hall of Famer that ever donned spikes. The most complete career records ever published¾ by far! Literally thousands of new lines of never-before-published data. There has never been a book like this one! Now in Fourth Edition!

460 pages $49.95 from Baseball Press Books

Add $5.00 shipping & handling, plus 8.25% sales ytax for those who buy it in California.

John Benesch on the 2006 Sporting News Baseball Guide

2006-04-26T12:33:00.000-07:00

Carlos,

Received my 2006 TSN Guide in the mail yesterday.

In identifying the SL batting leaders, TSN lists “Young” as the Slugging Leader at .545. There is a Christopher Young [Birmingham] in the stats who compiled a .545 Slugging Average.

There is also a Delmon Young [Montgomery] who fell short of qualifying by having only 370 Plate Appearances [vs. the 378 required for qualifying].

By adding the shortfall ['ghost' appearances] to his ABs [330] we come up with a Slugging Average of .568 [192 TB's / 338 ABs].

By this process, the Southern League 2005 'Slugging' leader should be Delmon Young [actual figure: .582].

John

This, of course, is not a Sporting News error, but an error on the part of the statisticians. Most people never check to see if theoretical PAs would make somebody a league leader in either batting or slugging.

Thanks, John.

From The Pacific Coast League Potpourri, April

2006-04-25T09:59:00.000-07:00

Click on Image to Enlarge

The new PCL Potpourri just came out, and the one thing that caught my eye was the above, which listed the oldest living PCL players. But what I found even more interesting was the list of possible living players. If anybody has any information on those oldtimers, please let me know.

One player, Steve Coscarart, I believe is still alive, because researchers here in San Diego are in contact with the family, and his obit would have shown up in the San Diego Union-Tribune.

As always, you can subscribe for $15.00 by sending check or money order to:

The Pacific Coast League Historical Society
420 Robinson Circle
Placentia, CA 92870

PCL Pinch Hitting in 1903

2006-04-24T08:02:00.000-07:00

Click on Image to Enlarge

One of the things that I had always wondered about, but never wanted to spend the time doing much about, was early pinch hitting. With an upgraed of the stat-compiling software I use, StatTrak 10.0, I was able to tease out the pinch hitting stats for the 1903 PCL season.

I would say 95%+ of the pinch hitting that season was done in the last inning of a game, and the pinch hitter batted for the pitcher. Roster were small, and so a manager's options were limited.

What is amazing, though, is the numbers: Pinch hitters compiled a .307 batting average in a season where the final batting average for all players was .260. Of course, pitchers hitting for themselves brought that average down, but still the gap would be large. And an enormous edge over the pitchers.

1933 Dixie League, Less Thans Pitching

2006-04-23T08:15:00.000-07:00

Click on Image to Enlarge

From Davis Barker: The 1933 Dixie League, Batting Less Thans

2006-04-22T11:58:00.000-07:00

Click on Images to Enlarge

Getting back to normal, Davis Barker compiled these stats from various sorces, and have never been published before. We can't thnak him enough for letting us post the following material. Pitching will be published tomorrow.

From Davis Barker Found in TSN, Jan. 1939

2006-04-21T09:37:00.000-07:00

From Davis Barker: Found in The Sporting News, January 1939

Too Many Baseballs Lost on Homers, Spa Will Heighten Fence

HOT SPRING, Ark.—  Too many baseballs went over the short right field fence at the home field of the Hot Springs Bathers last season, so they’re going to raise the barrier this year.

Officials of the Spa club hadn’t planned to do much improving to Ban Johnson Field this year until they read the report of Club Secretary Warren Banks.  It showed an expenditure of $894.04 for baseball, 84 dozen of them.  Most of them, Banks explained, went over the 200-foot right field fence.  So the club decided to raise the fence by 15 feet, along with the other improvements

More home runs were hit in the Spa park last year than in any other park in the Cotton States circuit.  Club officials also pointed out that the short field had long been a hindrance to pitchers, many fly balls which should have been easy outs going for easy outs going for hits against or over the barrier.

This got me thinking about Gavvy Cravath.  With the short right field fence at Baker Bowl, he— or so I thought— changed his swing to hit balls over that short barrier.  Larry Zuckerman found so many home run balls by Cravath going over the right field fence, he asked me if were possible that Cravath might have been a left-handed hitter.  I did some checking, and found an article about Cravath aiming for the inviting right field porch.  I thought that it began in Philadelphia.

Later on, I found that Cravath began experimenting with the inside out swing to take advantage of the Minneapolis ballpark, Nicollet Park, prior to that.

Independent Baseball in the 1920s, Part Three & Final

2006-04-20T13:17:00.000-07:00

Independent Baseball in the 1920s, Part Three & Final Part

As I said when I began this essay, I’ve had problems with people dealing with leagues that are not in Organized Baseball.  Many researchers ignore them completely.

But should we?  Should we ignore the San Joaquin Valley League or the Midwest League of the early 1920s?  What do we do about the Chicago City League?  For many years, a player would make more in that league on a weekend than he would playing in “D Ball” for a whole month.  The same for the San Francisco City in one season in the 1920s.  Judge Landis call the San Francisco City League an outlaw league one season.

What about the 1928 through 1936 California State League that Ken Camozzi’s grandfather pitched in, or Jerry Coleman’s father played in?  John Spalding called it a semipro league— but the Yankees and the Cincinnati Reds had farm clubs in the league.

The two seasons the San Joaquin Valley League was in O. B. were probably the two weakest seasons as far as players were concerned.   The reason for this was they problems these leagues had with population and salary requirements in O. B.   People in the Central Valley expected a higher caliber of ball than they would be allowed under Organized Baseball rules.  The towns were too small, and they had too much money to spread around.

Personally, I think we should handle them like we do leagues in the 19th Century.  If they are good leagues, include them in the whole scheme of minor league baseball.  If not, consign them to semipro status.  But no matter what they are, they are part of the great canvass of American baseball, and I will continue to research these leagues, especially here in California.  But there are strong— non-O.B.—leagues throughout the country prior to World War Two that should be researched.

Independent Baseball in the 1920s, Part Two

2006-04-19T10:12:00.000-07:00

Independent Baseball in the 1920s, Part Two

Salaries shot up overnight for the average to above average player, and it got so bad that in 1924 (as I remember, but it could be 1923) The Sporting News had an article where they quoted Baseball Commissioner Judge Landis expressing his doubts about the survival of major league baseball because teams MLB teams might not be able to compete against real industrial giants for the services of ball players. The implication being that Baseball Magnates were but small business men being forced out of business by the Wal-Marts of the day.

This whole independent-industrial teams phenomena began, as far as I can tell, about the mid-teens. Apparently, companies decided to incorporate athletics into their industrial relations programs, both for keeping their workers fit and keep their minds off dwelling about their lot in life. These companies were more often than not in smaller cities, where diversions were less prevalent; e.g., Beloit, Akron, Kenosha, Racine, Canton, Bethlehem, PA, and so on.   To attract workers from the big cities, these companies needed some type of athletic pastimes.

Gradually, these teams became symbols of pride for both management and the workers, representing both the town and the company of these one-company towns. Real rivalries sprang up between neighboring towns, and rival companies. Firms sensed this added dimension, and began importing a ringer or two.

In the case of Beloit, the company imported Al Chubb from the Chicago City League to set up its athletic program. Over time, he brought in players from Chicago. The real quantum leap in the quality of players began, however, in the war-shortened season of 1918. General Crowder's work or fight order made ballplayers scramble to find jobs in what was called "vital industries" as quickly as students in the 60s applied to graduate school.   The shipbuilder and steelmakers' leagues on both coasts that season had probably the highest ball ever played outside of the majors. The Harlan team of Wilmington, Delaware boasted the services of Rogers Hornsby, Joe Jackson, Patsy Gharrity and Lefty Williams to name only the ones I remember from the Harlan roster. Other teams in the league boasted rosters only a tad below that. Buck Weaver wound up with his buddy Al Chubb in Beloit, along with Dickie Kerr. (Chubb wanted to sign Weaver after the Black Sox scandal broke, but the other league people passed a no-dumper provision, even though the league employed Bill Rumler who had been suspended from the Coast League for five years for his part in the 1920 gambling scandal.)

Management saw the effect of their workers being represented on the field by the likes of well-known ballplayers. There was virtually no talk of strikes in some plants, and talk of the team was everywhere. Management knew they wouldn't be able to pay the salaries of the Babe Ruths or other stars, but they realized they could sign virtually any of the other regulars, and many of the better— though not best— pitchers. And management eventually got a case of George Steinbrenneritis.

To illustrate management's commitment to the teams they organized, let me quote an article about the coming season from the Beloit Daily News of April 5, 1923 under the headline of Fairy Pitchers Leave for South: "Beloit Fairy pitchers— Vaughn, Cashion, Noyes, Zabel, Kemman— leave Beloit today, April 5- for Hot Springs, Ark., where they will take a week-long conditioning drill before being joined by the remainder of the factory squad, due to leave for the southland April 11.  Manager Chubb will accompany the pitchers to Hot Springs, and will be on hand to pray for less rain at that resort than has been the portion of the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Boston Red Sox-- which clubs have been wallowing through three weeks of soggy weather there."

Spring training, huh?   And yes, the Vaughn is Hippo, and, yes, the Davenport is Dave, and, yes, the Noyes is Win, and yes, the Zabel is Zip, yes, yes. Apart from a good salary and easy life of four games a week, they were offered the possibility an occupation after they their careers ended, if they so chose.

This escalated until about the mid-1920s, when the bean counters got control of the operations and began to reign in the excesses in athletic programs.

Nevertheless, some of these industrial teams lasted up until the 1960s, with names I can remember like the Phillips 66 Oilers in basketball.  (That's not to mention the Chicago American Gears, the Zollner Pistons, and others.)

The Sheboygan Redskins were a continuation of the Sheboygan Chair Company basketball team; the baseball team wound up in O. B. under the guidance of Joe Hauser in 1939.

The Fairbanks-Morse Basketball team lasted at least up until the early 1960s, and maybe into the 1970s.

Independent Baseball in the 1920s, Part One

2006-04-18T11:35:00.000-07:00

Independent Baseball in the 1920s, Part One

One of the things I have come up across very often is the resistance to including independent leagues in the whole scheme of minor league baseball.  The other thing I come across is the belief that independent ball came about with Miles Wolff in the 1990s.

In the early days, every minor league was an independent league.  Then the National Agreement came into effect, which only protected signatories’ contract from poaching by other signatories.  Most leagues remained independent (non-signatory) or outlaw (meaning that they did not respect contracts of other leagues).  Then in 1902, the National Association was formed, which created Organized Baseball for the first time.  Independent baseball remained strong, and continued that way up until the First World War.  That brings up to what I consider the first real threat to Organized Baseball, beginning with the end of World War One.  And I would also like to make a comment on are salaries of the early to mid-1920s.  From what I've seen, salaries must have gone up over 50% by 1923 or 1924, primarily driven by industrial league teams, but also by the inflation of the post-WWI period, which drove up salaries in all sectors.
When I was compiling statistical data for players included in The Historical Register who spent time in independent leagues around the country, I was surprised to find out much money was being thrown around by those teams and leagues.   To give one example, Hippo Vaughn's salary with the Cubs in 1921 was $3,500 or $4,000; for 1922, he signed a contract with the Beloit team (sponsored by the engine maker, Fairbanks-Morse) calling for a salary of $7,500. By the time he pitched his last season with the Beloit Fairies, he had become what they called in those days, A Ten-Thousand-Dollars-A -Year Man. (By the way, for all you Black Sox fans, Dickie Kerr also in the appeared in the league that year.) As a matter of fact, in 1922, the Midwest League had 52 major leaguers on the rosters of the six teams during the season (and the other roster spots seemed to be filled by Association players). The number two pitcher for the Beloit Fairies was Dave Davenport. Patsy Gharrity did the catching. The Midwest League had teams sponsored by Nash Motors, Simmons Mattress, etc., later years had teams sponsored by Spencer Coal in Chicago, Chicago Steel Mill, Studebaker, etc. The Midwest League played well over hundred games a season. Most of these companies also supported football teams in the fall, and basketball teams in the winter. This, the Midwest League, was only one league. In Central Illinois there was the Central Illinois Industrial League that had baseball teams like the Decatur Staleys (with Joe McGinnity, Chuck Dressen and George Halas, and whose football team-- "managed" by Halas— became the Chicago Bears), the Springfield Watch company, and Sinclair Oil's Havolines among others.   (The Beloit football team was so loaded one season, that they knocked off one of Curly Lambeau's Packer teams.)

In Ohio, the tire companies had teams and leagues. In Pennsylvania, the steel companies had the Steel League, where they would hire the likes of a Joe Harris off the Senators' roster. In Arizona and northern Mexico, they had the Cooper League— where all the 1919 dumpers wound up except Joe Jackson, who tried to hold out— and the Mining League around Cananea, Sonora. In California, they had the San Joaquin Valley League, whose teams looked like veritable Coast League All-Star teams, and supported by agricultural interests. Frank Shellenback, the great minor league pitcher, couldn't hold on to his roster spot after Fresno brought in Hub Leonard for two years, before the major leaguer returned to Detroit in 1924. Shellenback when down a rung to the Raisin Belt League. Sailor Stroud pitched for Hanford in 1921 or 22. After Hardrock Lane of Salt Lake couldn't match the salary of that San Joaquin Valley League club, Lane turned around and sold Stroud's contract to the Yankees. Stroud, as explained by the Bakersfield Daily Californian, refused to report to New York because he didn't want to take a cut in pay playing for the Yankees.

The West Texas oil fields is another area where ballplayers wound up, and should prove a veritable gold mine for researchers.  If one looks at many of the records of minor league stars of the 1930s, most of those players seem to disappear from the scene for several years.

Another Bill James

2006-04-17T08:15:00.000-07:00

Another Bill James

Ken Camozzi sent me the following letter, and the follow-up letter.  When I was compiling my Cyclopedia, I threw up my hands on trying disentangle the then two Bill James, and asked “so-called” minor league expert Bob Hoie (who had compiled records for the two players, and considered himself an expert on the two pitchers) to help me straighten out the careers of the two players.  The pitcher in 1919 was— according to Hoie— was William Lawrence “Oroville Bill” James, and he pitched for both Portland and Oakland that season.  As with much of the data Bobbie Hoie has given me, the Bill James  stuff turned out to be erroneous.

I never compiled any averages for 1919, so I can’t be sure I would have picked it up or not, but it looks like we have a new Bill James, William A. “Lefty” James. And all thanks go to Ken Camozzi, admittedly not a Bill James expert until now.

Hi Carlos,

I¹ve been busy going through all my 1918 clippings and cross referencing names in the PCIL records you sent me. A friend up in Seattle spent a lot of time making copies of almost every PCIL related page in the Seattle and Portland papers, plus I own a copy of the 1918 Sporting News on microfilm and have online access to the Oakland Tribune
(www.newspaperarchives.com).  Lots of source material.

Anyway, I¹m finding lots of missing first names. Plus I found Nick Williams one game was not recorded. Found ³Lefty² James first name as Bill. Crossed referenced his name in your PCL records books. Found “Big Bill” and “Seattle Bill” but no “Lefty”. Plus both James' listed are right handed. But the fact that “Seattle Bill” James played for Portland in 1919 peaked my curiosity, since "Lefty James" played in the PCIL in 1918. So I did a quick search of the Oakland Tribune and found “Lefty James” opening the PCL season with Portland then released on May 1. Dug a little deeper and found “Oroville Bill” James joining Oakland on June 27. He was still property of the Boston Braves until Oakland purchased him outright on July 3, 1919. I also checked the LA Times through my SABR account and it seems to confirm what I've found.

Here are some clippings. Could this Be a third Bill James? I was wondering
what your thoughts were regarding the possibility.

I also found that Nick Williams played one game in the 1919 PCIL, but wasn't recorded in the records you recently shared with me. Also the Mails,—— is actually Walter Mails, he pitched the last game for Aberdeen (my grandpa played second...a rare thing to see a lefty at second).

Ken Camozzi

After Ken wrote me the above, and I determined that the player was in fact William A. “Lefty” James.  As to Bobbie Hoie, the old saw seems to fit— “Many times wrong— but never in doubt…”

Hi Carlos,

Here's what I've found. I’m looking at the 1919 Bill James “Orville Bill” in your records, you show him playing for Portland/Oakland in 1919. What I think is that the Portland part is “Lefty” Bill James,  which would be a third Bill James to add to the confusion of the other two.
Here's a timeline:

“Lefty” James

1918—Pacific Northwest Shipyard League and PCIL1919-04-09— LA Times: Starts season with Portland of the PCL gets  into game opening day.

1919-05-01—Oakland Tribune: Released by Portland.

1919-05-13— Galveston Daily: Joining Galveston’s team in the Texas League.

1919-05-16— Galveston Daily: Debuts in Texas League

Bill “Oroville” James

1919— Starts season with Boston Braves (last game  06-04-1919)

1919-06-27 —Oakland Tribune: Scheduled to start next week for Oakland

1919-06-28 — Woodland Daily  reports “Oroville” Bill Passed  through on his
way to join Oakland.

1919-07-02— Oakland Tribune” Oakland purchased Bill James contract from
Boston Braves.

1919-07-10— Oakland Tribune: Debuts for Oakland

Ken Camozzi

I think Ken nailed it.  Below you will find the revised PCL records of the three pitchers.  Of note, both William H. & William A. pitched for the Indians in 1912.

Which Bill James is Which?

2006-04-17T08:10:00.000-07:00

Click on Image to Enlarge

A Word from Our Sponsor

2006-04-12T12:57:00.000-07:00

A Word from Our Sponsor, April 12, 2006

I have begged for sales in a while, so I’ll put this up while I finish up my taxes over the next few days.

Here are the books I have published since I started Baseball Press Books. All are still in print, and for sale. Every month or so, I’ll post this price list for the connivance of new readers, and those I’ve missed on my mailing list. These are some of the best baseball books ever published, and, needles to say, should be in every baseball fan’s library.

Price List for Baseball Press Books Titles:

The Early Coast League Statistical Record, introduced by Chuck Stevens & Roger Osenbaugh

A complete Pacific Coast League encyclopedia, for years 1903-1957. Major essays on how it was to be a player, by former Coast League players Chuck Stevens & Roger Osenbaugh. Complete stats for every player in the league, presented in year-by-year, team-by-team format, with 13 batting categories and 15 for pitchers. Also included leader boards, season and lifetime record holder, league officials, playoff records and attendance figures for the 1919-1957 period by club. Many of the statistics have never been published before.
310 pages $39.95 from Baseball Press Books

The Historical Register Fourth Edition, compiled by Numerous SABR Members

This work presents the complete career records( major, minor and independent leagues, even semipro( of baseball greatest players, from Alexander Cartwright through Ryne Sandberg. In all, career records of 740 players. Every Hall of Famer, including Negro Leagues players, and virtually every near Hall of Famer that ever donned spikes. The most complete career records ever published( by far! Literally thousands of new lines of never-before-published data. There has never been a book like this one! Now in Fourth Edition!
460 pages $49.95 from Baseball Press Books

The New SABR Guide to Minor League Statistics, edited by Carlos Bauer & Bob McConnell

A guide to the material contained in virtually every baseball guide since 1877, giving page number and what stats included by league. This new listing includes stats contained in the Baseball America Almanac. Also listed are final league averages for The Sporting News & Sporting Life, and what box scores were published yearly by those two papers. Additionally, there is a twenty-page list of final league averages that have been compiled by individual researchers, and microfilm holdings at selected libraries around the country.
206 pages $21.95 from Baseball Press Books

The All-time Japanese Baseball Register, by Carlos Bauer

For the first time ever in English: The complete statistical record of all the great Japanese and American players who appeared in Japan since the inception of the Japan Pro Baseball League in 1936 through the 1999 season. Over 950 players career records in Japan, all with complete stat lines (13 categories for batters, and 15 for pitchers) in an easy-to-read format.
320 pages $29.95 from Baseball Press Books

The 2003 Japanese Major & Minor League Statistic Report

For the Second Year: The complete statistical record of every player who stepped onto the field in Japan. Complete statistics: 13 categories for batting; 17 categories for pitching. Additionally, complete bio material: Full name, date of birth, height, weight, bats, throws. Everything a guide should be. Used by the majority of major league clubs.
64 pages $13.95 from Baseball Press Books

The 2002 Japanese Major & Minor League Statistic Report

Early Dreams, by David Nemec

Noted baseball researcher David Nemec has written what can only be described as one of the great works of baseball fiction. Even if you are not one for fiction, this book will change your mind. Early Dreams captures the way of life of 19th Century ball. Reads as if it were non-fiction. And, with all books by David Nemec, you will learn a great deal of history. This will someday be viewed as a milestone in baseball fiction.
174 pages $15.95 from Baseball Press Books

The Coast League Cyclopedia, by Carlos Bauer

Patterned after the Macmillan Baseball Encyclopedia. Every batter, pitcher & manager, with complete stat lines, plus standings, league leader boards, etc. Complete biographical information for every PCL player, 1903-57.
1,160 pages, 3 volumes $125.00 from Baseball Press Books, includes postage Only several copies remain

The Senior League Encyclopedia, compiled by Jay Walker

This work presents the complete history and complete statistics for the Senior Baseball League of 1989-90 and 1990-91. The two-year experiment failed, but many well-known players participated, including Amos Otis, Willie Aikens, Pete Lacock, Ozzie Virgil, Jon Matlack, Milt Wilcox, Len Barker, and a long etc. Contents include a history of the league, team profiles, teams statistics, player, pitcher and manger register sections.
170 pages $22.95 from Baseball Press Books

World Series Baseball, by Carlos Urbano

A baseball board game, played with either a scientific calculator or three ten-sided dice (not included).  This game comes with game boards on cardboard, instructions, and 32 all-time great teams.  Also included are instruction for rating player teams and leagues.  Fabulous for recreating minor league seasons & Negro League all-star teams.  A unique item from the infamous Carlos Urbano.
60 pages               $9.95 from Baseball Press Books

All books are shipped Media Mail, and shipping & handling is $5.00 for first book, and then $2.00 per book (Canada $5.00 per book).  All orders must be in U. S. Funds.   California residents must include 8.25% sales tax.  E-mail us for other rates: carlosb@simplyweb.net

Make all checks of money orders out to Baseball Press Books & send to:

Baseball Press Books
P. O.  Box    22493
San Diego,  CA     92192-2493

A Great Find From Rocky Bauer

2006-04-11T08:22:00.000-07:00

Click on Records to Enlarge

George and Ed Hurlburt played in the PCL in 1903, and according to John Spalding, George also played in the California League in 1902.

Ed Hurlburt was a catcher, and George both caught and played in the outfield.

Ed Hurlburt began the season as a change catcher with Los Angeles, and ended the season with Los Angeles. George Hurlburt played for Portland, and then went over to Seattle for a couple of game in September.

When Los Angeles played a series up in Portland, a Hurlburt caught 3 games for Portland, and then caught for the Browns when they traveled down to San Francisco to play a series. Shortly thereafter Ed Hurburt caught games for Los Angeles. And George Hurburt began playing the outfield for Portland, and catching occasionally.

What I assumed was that George Hurburt played all the games for Portland. Rocky Bauer, in going through the Portland papers, found that L. A. loaned Ed Hurburt to Portland, and he caught 3 games for Portland in Portland, then caught 5 games Portland in San Francisco before rejoining Los Angeles.

I rechecked both the L. A. Times and S. F. Chronicle, and I could not find any mention of of the loan of L. A.'s change catcher.

The above records are the revised records for the two players. Hat tip to Rocky for a great, and not easy, find.

Pete Palmer Weighs In On the 2004 Season

2006-04-10T08:30:00.000-07:00

Pete Palmer Weighs In On the 2004 Minor League Statistics

CarlosI worked with the 2004 minor league stats. The problem as I saw it was that the Sporting News got data from Sports Ticker, and for some reason, the data ticker sent did not include players no longer with the team for about half the leagues including the PCL. They were not the official statisticians. The minors gave the job to Sports Network for some unknown reason, which was clearly a bad decision. Sports Network posted their stats, which were supposedly official, on the BBA website, but included only players who qualified for the batting or era titles. The BBA Almanac also used Sports Network data, but left out several categories and did not have pitcher batting. There were probably 50 players who had fairly big differences between the two sources. I was never able to figure out which one was correct. Sports Network is now out of business for minor league stats, and MLBAM did the minors last year and this, and seem to be doing a good job. At least there is only one set of figures to worry about.I don't believe that the Sporting News knew that they only got about half the players for some leagues. And probably not many people noticed. The team media guides for the most part (except Detroit) used the Ticker figures, with the dropped players included, but again, they did not have pitcher batting and omitted most of the minor categories. One thing I determined was that Ticker fudged their pitcher AB, TBF, SH and SF allowed. My guess is they did not have a source for that data, so they had to fake it. It was pretty close to the correct numbers, but off a little. Ticker had to rely on secondary sources for their data, since they had the official job taken away from them, even though they still had a contract to supply the major league teams with stats.I am not aware of anyone trying to clean up the 2004 minor league stats, but would be interested if anyone is. It goes beyond just leaving half the players out of the guide. The main problem is the two sources disagree and there is no way to tell which one was correct.Pete

I wrote Pete that I had heard the same story from reputable sources, but then was told a contradictory story by people just as reputable. I think the bottom line is: Preserve the raw data— which Rod Nelson has told me is now in the hands of MLB; make it available to the Hall of Fame, where researcher can access it; have an ongoing system of preserving a copy of the raw minor league data on an ongoing basis, so problems of this sort can be sorted out.

I also told Pete that I have been working behind the scenes on this project, and have asked him to join me if he wishes.

A Follow Up Note From Davis O. Barker

2006-04-09T09:27:00.000-07:00

A Follow Up Note From Davis Barker

Interesting thoughts ..... ones I would imagine anyone who has done any "original" research has pondered ...... led me to believe that anyone who does the same stats (including the official league statistician) would most likely have different totals on something ...... there is too much margin of error to assume otherwise.

I have redone stats, as has Willie Runquist, and one does expect discrepancies, but there are certain stats that have to correct; e.g., if a team plays 154 games, then there must be 154 games started for the team’s pitchers.  Inning pitched is the same type of stat.  Where discrepancies creep in are generally on errors, assists, extra base hits, etc.  I’ve found errors on at bats, and on hits, but if a league has batters getting 11,138 hits in a season, then you have the right to expect that pitchers gave up 11,138 hits.

One of the things I encounter often is discrepancies in box scores of one game in various papers ..... I often work in regional works, like the Dallas, Houston, and Shreveport papers, and local papers as well. It is a fairly common occurrence that a box will vary from paper to paper .... I talked to a retired sports reporter and a newer one about the issue ..... both said in the pre-computerized days it was usually about space and personnel.

The variances I have found are mostly in fielding, where some discretion is needed on the part of the scorer, and errors— I have found— are more often than not pure typos that come from the typesetter rather than the reporter.

The personnel that transcribed this type of stuff was usually lowest on the totem pole and often were not even baseball-oriented or even fans (have encountered the same when contacting a local library asking for a copy of a particular box score on a particular day) ....... regardless, it was always about space— if one column was too long, they would drop a line from a box - most often a late inning defensive sub or a pinch hitter ..... they are usually caught by the researcher because of the totals, but who the missing player is not usually identified ...... interestingly they often occur at or near the bottom of the page - when they suddenly realize that they have used their allotted inches ......

For the Coast League & California League I have found this only vary rarely.  There are many papers who pride themselves on producing a good box score.

I found this especially true of the 1930s ..... why, I don't know ...... probably financial - fewer pages. Another thing I found was that until after WWII box scores were not standardized ..... big problem with locals in the 'Teens and early '20s was that local reporters (especially in towns without much past experience in OB), assigned to the game, may not have been baseball fans themselves ...... I can pretty much ID them because these papers normally ran only line scores .... and articles are one big baseball cliché of phrases.

If someone wishes to follow my tracks, they are welcome. The 1925 Texas Association stats took over a year of regular work and almost 30,000 miles on my truck to complete. Finding over 400 box scores in obscure, small-town papers was an ordeal. I was not long into the project when I realized why no one had ever done them.

Last summer I did the two O. B. seasons for the San Joaquin Valley League of 1910 & 1911, and in the hundred-mile radius of the towns I put 2,500 mile on my car, so 30,000 miles in Texas doesn’t surprise me. For the 1903 and 1906 PCL seasons, I traveled all the way up the coast to Seattle (via Fresno) to get all the box scores.

The bad thing here is that I always seem to follow some of the work of Vern Luse, whom I never met but greatly admire. Texas is a big place, and way behind in the age of microfilm. It is fairly easy to go on-line today and locate a paper ..... in Vern's day he was working hit-and-miss ..... bothers me when I find different stats .... knowing that I located more missing box scores, not because I am a better/more dedicated researcher, but because of technology and the fact that the trails have been blazed ahead of me by people like Mr. Luse. I hope that came out right and you understand what I am trying to say. I seem to meet a lot of people in this pursuit who seem to believe they are the only ones working ..... they are the only ones capable of doing legitimate research ..... or that their work is definitive and above question ...... I'm all for accuracy, but there is so much more out there that needs to be done that it is hard to get involved general scrutiny ..... one of my great fears is spending time, money, and sweat on something that has already been done ...... that is why some form of informational clearinghouse is vital ..... thanks to you, there is some form of gathering point.

The accuracy I’ve been talking about is one of properly compiling averages.  Different sources obviously will lead to slightly different averages, but if you are adding up the same source material twice, and get a different set of numbers, it might be incumbent to go back and correct your numbers.  And as to Charlie Chech— innings pitched cannot be off that much without an error: Counting a couple of games twice; counting 8 innings as 9 over the course of a season; missing reading the name of a pitcher; or any combination of the above.

As to Vern Luse, the leagues he compiled were leagues where most of the box scores appeared in Sporting Life, and supplement with other papers in those leagues.  What Davis and I do are travel to towns where you pull up to the front door of libraries.  In those libraries you sometimes find nuggets— like a second newspaper that only lasted a year— but covered baseball like The Sporting News!  Minor league baseball research is a lot like detective work.

Lots of thoughts on these issues ....... things that have always bothered me as I compiled yearly stats ..... anyway, thanks for the blog!!!!!!!!!!

dob

OK, Davis, now what does the “O” stand for?

Another Long Left Field Fence

2006-04-08T08:45:00.000-07:00

Another Long Left Field Fence, From Davis Barker

Davis found the following note in The Sporting News:

The First Erie Sailor to hit the ball over the left field fence at General Electric Field, home of the Mid-Atlantic League club, has been promised an airplane ticket to Boston Bees Park by Business Manager Jack O’Connor…it might be a quick route to a chance in the majors, except for the fact that the fence is 420 feet from home plate.

From The Sporting News, May 5, 1938

Accounting for Innings Pitched

2006-04-07T10:21:00.000-07:00

Accounting for Innings Pitched

The below are a series of questions from Rex Hamann that I think will be of interest to many researchers. I will try to answer each one as they come. First, thought, let me say that what Rex is doing is how many of us got started in baseball research; i.e., filling in the blanks that history has passed down to us, whether it is adding Innings Pitched columns, like Rex, or Extra Base Hits, or compiling a whole season of stats that never existed.

I use Marshall Wright's American Association roster book as a research tool for the writing I do on the American Association. Because he did not include the quantity of Innings Pitched for the 1903 season, I embarked upon a project to do so. I am 99 percent through with this project, but there are loose ends I'd like to take care of. The process has given me a strong sense of familiarity with the pitchers of that season in the American
Association, and it's an experience I consider to be invaluable.

Rex is absolutely right. One never gets closer to players than when one compiles seasonal averages. Building those averages, brick by brick, day by day— that gives you a real feel for the season.

But I wonder about the credibility of my own information. For example, in a book called The Minor League Register, published in 1994, edited by Miles Wolff, they list Charles Chech as pitching 326 innings in 1903. The total I come up with is 304. How can it be that, after such a detailed examination as I have performed, these numbers should be so far off?

The discrepancy, as stated above, is large, and one should go back and check, first games pitched— do they match up, or did you miss a couple of games? Rex did mention how he compiled his stats, but I would assume he used a spreadsheet of some sort, so it would be easy to check that.

By the way, I would love to know where Mr. Wolff was able to find the innings information for the pitcher Chech. It would mean that there is a source I could have used other than to have generated the data on my own. But then, would that data have been trustworthy? I'm finding that it's not always possible to trust the data. At which point do we draw the line in trusting the data, especially for these earlier records?

I did a little bit of digging, and found that The Minor League Register picked up the record of Charlie Chech from the SABR publication Minor League Stars, Volume III. In looking over the people contributing to that volume, it appears that the work on Chech probably was done by Ralph LinWeber who was a big American Association researcher/expert, who also lived in Minnesota.

My final question is this, at least with respect to the pitcher Chech: Should I go over my work to see how I might be able to account for the missing 22 innings, or should I realize that the 326 innings figure may be in error and to have faith in my own work as possibly setting a new standard of accuracy?

If games pitched are all accounted for, then at some point you’ll have to go back and satisfy your own mind. Let me give you an example of what I found with my own work, and why I used a form of double entry bookkeeping when I compile averages now. (I don’t think anybody else— save Bob Tiemann— does when compiling averages.)

Not long after I did my first project, the 1903 Pacific Coast League, I decided that it would be interesting to see what were the best hitting parks in the league. So I decided recompile all the averages for each day for each park. That is, I would take the totals for both teams for each day and sum them up. If Portland had 38 AB and Sacramento had 40 AB on July 23, the total would be 78 AB for that game played at Vaughn Street Park. I did that for every game for the whole season. When I was finished, I was shocked at what I found, even though I was so sure of my work before that. For one example, Innings Pitched had the totals for all pitcher 11,225.3, but the Innings Pitched at all the parks turned out to 11,191.0. I was also off five strikeouts and four walks, which I suppose over the course of a long PCL season is not much, but has always bothered me. (Pete Palmer once told me that when the American league came up with discrepancies at the end of the season, their statistician would fudge the number to make them balance.)

After seeing that, I decided that I had to come up with a system to cut down on those discrepancies as much as humanly possible. And the system I came up with is as old as the hills, and which I detailed in an earlier post about compiling averages for the 1918 PCL season, but will restate again here.

What I do is compile a weeks’ worth of stats (I have been using a stat compiling program, StatTrak from All-Pro software since it was a DOS shareware program called Soffballs), then go back and compile all the same stats for each game, as if one single player. This is the same concept behind double entry bookkeeping. Then I go back and try to resolve any discrepancies between the two sets of data, and believe me, more often than not there is something that does not jive. Once this is done, I go on to the next week. Entering the park part of the data is not as time consuming as it may first appear. It’s only one number, not 18 or more numbers as with players, and takes me no more than a half-hour to do the whole week of park data. (At first, I tried doing a month’s worth of data, but resolving errors took me too long, so I scaled back to a week’s worth of data, and that seems about right.)

What I am doing, in essence, is counting the same numbers in a different sequence, nothing more. However, I get the added beinfit of winding up with Park Data for my effort.

Rex, I believe you should redo your data as outlined above, because you’ll either be pleasantly surprised at how good, and how careful you are— or thankful that you didn’t publish your data with all those errors in it!

Not for nothing did they invent double entry bookkeeping!

Rex Hamann
14201 Crosstown Blvd. NW
Andover, Minnesota 55304

The American Association Almanac
A Baseball History Journal (1902-1952)
www.AmericanAssociationAlmanac.com
Subscriptions available...Be the first on your block!

By the way, everything I’ve seen done by Rex is first rate!

Bill Staffa Corrects the Baseball Encyclopedias

2006-04-06T10:05:00.000-07:00

Bill Staffa Corrects the Baseball Encyclopedias

How this happened, I don’t know.  Bill enclosed two articles stating that Ballou was right-handed.  Just for the hell of it, I checked the L. A. Times for an article announcing Ballou joining the Angels, and the subtitle stated: “Browns Right-Hander to Join Angels.”  The two Zeenuts of Pard Ballouwe are posting are from Mark Macrae.  Thanks, Mark.

From the Encyclopedias:

WIN BALLOU

GIVEN NAME: Noble Winfield Ballou
BORN: 11/30/1897  Mount Morgan, Kentucky  DIED: 1/30/1963  San Francisco, California
BAT: R  THROW: L  HEIGHT: 5'10"  WEIGHT: 170  MLB DEBUT: 8/24/1925

Hi Carlos,

A little piece for your database.

In every encyclopedia, electronic or otherwise, published since 1994, Win Ballou is listed as BR TL.  However, one of my cohorts brought it to my attention that he has two Zee-Nut baseball cards from the late 20s showing Ballou throwing right-handed.  He also said that there's a picture of him in John Spalding’s PACIFIC COAST LEAGUE STARS ... throwing right-handed.

It occurred to me that the original Macmillan (1969) had pitcher hitting, so I looked in there and sure enough, he's listed as BR TR.  Somewhere between 1984 and 1993, the keeper of the great source database re-invented Ballou.

Attached are a couple of articles referring to him as a right-handed pitcher, one of which has a photograph.

Proof enough for me.  My little contribution to your work.

I'm sending you a check today for your latest Encyclopedia, The PCL Statistical Record, 1903-1957.

Bill Staffa

"Pard" Ballou as Seal & Angel, & All Right-Hander

2006-04-06T09:59:00.000-07:00

An Update on Tommy Sheehan from Alan O'Connor

2006-04-05T08:55:00.000-07:00

An Update on Tommy Sheehan from Alan O’Connor

Hi Carlos—
I was just looking at John Spalding's book The Sacramento Senators & Solons and noticed that Tommy Sheehan looks to be about 6 inches shorter than the 5'11 Truck Eagan in the 1899 Gilt Edge photo. That would split the difference between the 5'8" listed and Dick's 5'3" typo theory!
Alan

Every place I’ve seen Truck Eagan’s height listed, it’s always been 5’11, and that includes newspapers on top of encyclopedias. In the whole shot he is the shortest man in the last row. That in an age where people were much shorter than they are today. So I think the nickname “Midget” had its reason. I think Alan is right to go with 5’5”, though one could make a case for 5’4”. I’ll probably change my records to 5’5”.

He doesn't look to be 160 lbs, either, as the encyclopedias have it. I'll change my records to "a gentleman's" 140 lbs. though he looks pretty thin to me, and might even be 135 or 130 pounds. If he weighed 160, his nickname would be "Dumpling."

Tommy Sheehan & Truck Eagan Together

2006-04-05T08:42:00.000-07:00

Click on Image to Enlarge

An Update on David Abel's Presentational Baseball

2006-04-04T08:35:00.000-07:00

An Update on David Abel’s Presentational Baseball

It’s good to hear that David was finally able (no pun intended) to pretty much resolve the question of where and when. City baseball league were big, I mean really big in the first decade on the twentieth century. In Chicago, for instance, it was not uncommon to have neighborhood crowds in excess of 5,000 fans. Not everywhere, but in a number of cities this type of neighborhood pride supported their local baseball teams until WWII.

Hello to all,

It's been about 4 months since I started researching an old baseball that I had acquired. Through the help of many of you I was able to concentrate my research and not spend many hours going around in circles. About two months ago the Boston Public Library had found reference to two teams I was looking for.

They were the Tigers and the Ironsides. Those findings sent my search to the City of Newark, New Jersey. My search continued but with little success until I found a book written by Robert Cvornyek about baseball in Newark. We emailed back and forth. He recently made another trip to Newark to continue his research on baseball in that city. Upon searching reels of microfilm from The Newark Star and The Newark Evening News papers from May of 1910 he hit gold. Not only did he find mentions of the two teams, but detailed accounts of their seasons in the Newark City League. It doesn't stop there. The ball I have has writing on it that says "First Ball Pitched at the opening Game on the Tiger Oval". On May 22, 1910 the champion Newark Ironsides played a double header with the Newark Tigers from the Vailsburg section of town. The morning game was played on the Ironsides turf at the West Side Oval and the afternoon game was played on the Tigers turf on the Tiger Oval. The afternoon game on the Tiger Oval was the first home game ever for the Newark Tigers. The article mentions a large gala and elaborate ceremonies were planned with many attending including political figures. The game drew over 5,000 fans. The ball I have came in a handsome leather display case. The ball is also inscribed with the date that matches the article and the score of Tigers 8 and Ironsides 3 which also matches the article. The ball was presented to a local Assemblyman which I am still searching for.

I know I had email conversations with a handful of you and the name Oval was really hard to search for. The articles mention the other following teams: Bay Views, Parkviews, Rosevilles and the Turners. Some of the other Ovals mentioned are: Parkview Oval, Roseville Oval, Johnson Oval, Ashland Oval.

The newspaper articles even mention the players from both teams. Some of which either went on to play in the majors or already had stints with major league teams.

I want to thank all of you for your help. I still have a little more research to do because I want to learn more about the Newark City League and teams and players.

David Abel
Parrish, Florida

Eastern League Pitching, Two

2006-04-03T08:06:00.000-07:00

Eastern League Pitching, One

2006-04-02T08:31:00.000-07:00

Eastern League Batting, Two

2006-04-01T07:40:00.000-08:00

Eastern League Batting, One

2006-03-31T08:10:00.000-08:00

PCL Pitching, Two

2006-03-30T09:17:00.000-08:00

PCL Pitching, One

2006-03-29T08:55:00.000-08:00

PCL Batting, Two

2006-03-28T09:32:00.000-08:00

PCL Batting, One

2006-03-27T07:22:00.000-08:00

Brian Mohr As In....

2006-03-26T13:16:00.000-08:00

Brian Mohr As In….

I posted the following on SABR-L, basically to inform people that I’d be posting PCL & Eastern League batting and pitching league stats, expecting nothing in the way of crimes against nature…

2004 Minor League Stats Redux

When I brought up the problem of the 2004 minor league statistics, critics maintained that the 2005 Sporting News Guide published what they had been sent, and that—in any case—they no longer existed in any form.

Since then I have been able to come up with a set of official minor league stats, and they do contain considerable data not contained in the TSN Guide. For example, TSN guide misses about a third of either the batting or pitching stats for the PCL. More than half of the Fresno pitching staff is missing from the guide, but appears in the official stats. Another league missing considerable data is the Eastern League, though no quite as bad as the PCL.

As a public service, I have decided to begin an eight-day posting of the batting and pitching average for those two leagues in facsimile of the official sheets, and you can judge for yourself what are the facts of the matter.

Carlos Bauer

No more (catchy, no) than posting the above, the critics came out of the woodwork… I leave in all the gory details, spelling mistakes and bad grammar, so please be warned…

Carlos
What are you contending is a correct stat for the minor leagues. I also had seen the FSL stats were incorrect in the 2005 book. I also noted that in 2005 the stats will be incorrect as well due to inaccurate box scores. To my knowledge these were never corrected and this was found just by me going to a game and know what had occurred (ie a pitching change in an inning and no record of the new pitcher ever appearsing and a batter getting an extra plate appearance when the 5 batters in front all had 1 less appearance). I have to wonder how accurate minor league info is when many of the leagues use interns and do not have many checks and balances to make them correct.

Brian Mohr
--Advanced Mortgage Professionals 239-542-4413 Fax 239-542-4486

Anyway, Mr. Mohr (As in…) meet Mr. Bauer:

Brian:Do you have a reading problem? I never maintained the official statistics for 2004 are correct— just that they are complete. Inaccuracies have occurred since the first box score was conceived. What TSN did is compound the 2004 problem by missing a third of the lines for the Coast League, a great number of lines in the Eastern League, etc.I will explain it to you one last time: The Sporting News received the official stats from The Sports Network-- and failed to put all the batting and pitching lines they received in their guide. If you still are confused, reread what I wrote below until you do understand.cb

What was the purpose of what Brian Mohr (As in…) wrote? Do we publish baseball encyclopedias that years later we find had a “phantom player” or find a player not included in one of many box scores?

Why do these people still attack me for trying to make the record more complete? Is it that SABR has become a fanatical church— where nobody dare speak the truth?

I suppose no good deed goes unpunished....

The Stats That Don't Exist, 2004 Redux

2006-03-26T08:07:00.000-08:00

The Stats That Don’t Exist, 2004 Redux

I was told that the official stats for the minor leagues for 2004 no longer exist, and for that reason the Sporting News would be unable to post the complete stats on their website for all those who bought the 2005 Sporting News Guide that was missing considerable data.

I was able to find somebody who made a copy of all the 2004 O. B. Stats, and offered to make a copy available to me. I want to thank that person from the bottom of my heart.

I called Willie Runquist yesterday. Runquist— as has been documented here— is the researcher who blew the whistle on 2004 TSN Guide. He told me that the worst two leagues in the guide were the Pacific Coast League and Eastern League. For instance, half the Fresno pitching staff was missing. And he calculated that fully a third of league players were missing a batting or pitching line.

One researcher who took exception to my criticisms of TSN, stated flatly that the stats TSN published were the same ones that they got from the provider, Sports Network, Inc.

As you will see, that is not the case. Beginning tomorrow, I will begin an eight-day posting of the batting and pitching average for those two leagues in facsimile of the official sheets, and you can judge for yourself.

Some Updates/Corrections from Gary Fink

2006-03-25T10:27:00.000-08:00

Some Updates/Corrections from Gary Fink

Eli Cates has been on my "One Year Wonders" list for players who only played one year in the Major Leagues but played a lot that year.

Recently I went on Ancestory.com to see where he was living during the census years. I found out he had a twin brother named Levi.

It has bothered me for a long time that there is no win-loss record for him in 1903 in the Missouri Valley League. He has a lifetime record in the minors of 156 wins and 163 losses. So I started gathering information on the league. I got copies of the SL, Reach, and Spalding Guides and compiled the information. In doing so, I noticed that the SABR Guide to Minor League Stats states that there is "R" listed in the Spalding Guide and TSN. While I do not have TSN (I have ordered it) the Spalding Guide does not have "Runs" for the batters. Delete "R" from the Spalding Guide from The New SABR Guide to Minor League Statistics.

Going through The Historical Register I noticed that "Big Ed" Reulbach (one of your Cubs) is listed with playing in the Missouri Valley League in 1901, 1902, & 1903. I know Ed Reulbach, born in Detroit, Michigan, helped beat the Detroit Tigers in the 1907 & 1908 World Series. He is not listed in the final batting stats in Sporting Life, Reach, and Spalding Guides. I checked the 1940 Baseball Register and it lists that he played under the name of Lawson while in the Missouri Valley League. There is a Lawson listed with playing with Sedalia in 1903. It needs to be added to The Historical Register for Reulbach.

Gary

Al Federoff

2006-03-24T10:06:00.000-08:00

Some time ago Robert Morphy asked me to put together a career record for Al Federoff. I only do that when I get inspired, and I did because Al Federoff was they player I admired when I was a young kid in San Diego playing second base.

When the club traded Federoff to Seattle, the whole town was up-in-arms, as I remember it. (Well, at least, I was.) But if you look ove his record, you'll see that he was nearly at the end of his baseball career, and that Padres GM Ralph Kiner had it exactly right.

James Francis Thorpe

2006-03-23T08:39:00.000-08:00

James Francis Thorpe

Dick Beverage and I were talking the about Tommy Sheehan yesterday, and he felt that there might be a possibility of Sheehan’s height being a typo, that “8” might actually have been a “3” at some point. This has happened to me— and every body else— who has worked with old microfilm, and old guide pages, especially photocopies of guides.

Anyway, there is no way for us to that out, but we did agree that somebody called “Midget” would be closer to 5’3” than 5’8” in stature, and that the encyclopedias should— for the time being— eliminate the 5’8” from future editions. I told Dick that I had passed “the Midget” information on, but nothing had come of it. (It only occurred to me later that people who compile encyclopedias wouldn’t especially like to admit they don’t know something.) Dick told me that he had the same thing occur to him in regard to Jim Thorpe. He stumbled across an article that stated that Jim Thorpe had died in his trailer. Dick, of course, knew the trailer park where Thorpe had his trailer, and the park was located in Lomita, not Long Beach, as the encyclopedias still maintain. He passed that bit of information on to no avail.

Then after I got off the phone and began to correct my database, I noticed that the correction I had made to the Thorpe record that is still not carried by the encyclopedias. After Thorpe got back from the 1912 Olympics, he so dominated those games that he was sent to be examined by a group of scientist to see if they could find anything in his physique that might account for his dominance at the games. They didn’t, but the scientists did measure every inch of Jim Thorpe’s body. What is of interest to baseball researchers, historians and fans is the fact that Jim Thorpe measured 5’11” tall. When this bit of data was passed on, it, too, fell on deaf ears. The encyclopedias still list the “Greatest Athlete of All Time” at six feet one inch tall.

I believe what Ken Burns once said about Enos Slaughter spiking of Jackie Robinson incident. When somebody brought to Burns’ attention that Slaughter maintained that the incident never occurred, Burns— not the sharpest knife in the drawer— said: “But I’ve read it in 23 places!” What tends to happens is that one writer (researcher, etc.) puts something down on paper, and then others put that fact down on paper. So in Burn’s example, one guy may have made the whole thing up out of whole cloth, and 22 guys copy what the first guy wrote.

And that, I believe, is why is so hard to correct anything in baseball encyclopedias.

Some Questions from Rex Hamann

2006-03-22T09:26:00.000-08:00

Some Questions from Rex Hamann

Rex asked me to post these questions that he has had, and will do so here .

On to a baseball question for you.  I'm writing about Stoney McGlynn (again)in my Spring issue of the Almanac and am looking at his record 14 shutouts in one season.  Do you know of anyone who has come close to this in the minors or if the record has ever been exceeded?

I found two Coast Leaguers with 14: Jimmy Whalen in 1905, and Vean Gregg in 1910, and searched my 19th century database, but didn’t find anything that beat it.  However, the data is very sketchy in regards to shutout, complete games, etc.

And what about short games? For example, recalling that McGlynn did this in 1909, would a 6-inning run-less game be considered a shutout?  A 5-inning?  Which leads to my final question:  would a 5-inning game be considered as an official "complete game" for either winner or loser? Not sure why it wouldn't but just never thought about it before.

I believe shutouts were handled like 7 inning no-hitters, etc.  If anybody had any knowledge of this, please let me know, and I’ll post it here

By the way, A new issue of the Almanac with be out in about three weeks.

Rex

If you can help Rex, please contact him.

Rex Hamann
14201 Crosstown Blvd. NW
Andover, Minnesota   55304

The American Association Almanac,
A Baseball History Journal (1902-1952)
www.AmericanAssociationAlmanac.com
Subscriptions available...Be the first on your block!

Thomas H Sheehan

2006-03-21T09:19:00.000-08:00

Thomas H. Sheehan

Born: November 6, 1877   Sacramento, CA
Died: May 22, 1959   Panama City, Panamá

BAT: R  THROW: R  HEIGHT: 5'8"  WEIGHT: 160

Tommy Sheehan— 3b

1898 Sacramento (PCL)
1899 Sacramento (Cal)
1900 Sacramento (Cal)
1901 Sacramento (Cal)
1902 Sacramento (Cal)
1903 Sacramento (PCL)
1904 Tacoma (PCL)
1905 Tacoma (PCL)
1909 Oakland (Cal St)
1910 Stockton (Cal St)
1910 Portland (PCL)
1911 Portland (PCL)
1912 Sacramento (PCL)

Additionally, he appeared in the majors in the following seasons:
1900 Giants
1906 Pirates
1907 Pirates
1908 Dodgers

The question nobody can answer— at least to my satisfaction— is why in California, where he was born, does almost every mention of him refer to him by calling him by his nickname “Midget” or simply say some to the effect of: “The play was made by the midget third baseman”?

I find it hard to believe that the encyclopedias still carry him at 5’ 8” and weighing160 pounds.

One would not call somebody 5’8” midget even today, much less at the beginning of  the 1900s.

I mentioned this to Bill Carle— chair of the SABR Bio Committee— some time back, but never even received a response, and the encyclopedias keep on listing Tommy Sheehan as 5’ 8”.  Though I once worked with a guy named “Shorty” who was 6’5”, I believe Tommy Sheehan more likely have been 5’ 5” or less.  A midget in that era would most likely be closer to five foot tall than five foot eight.

A Box Score of Note, From 1901

2006-03-20T16:40:00.000-08:00

Click on Box Score to Enlarge

I am always on the lookout for box scores that are a little different from the norm. The above box score comes from the June 16, 1901 San Francisco Examiner. They also published a June 15 box score in the same format. An eleven-column box score never caught on, obviously, but sure is interesting, and would be a great help to historians if it had.

Here are what I think the obscure columns mean:

be— bases advanced by errors

1b— singles, as opposed to extra base hits, carried in the summary.

But even with only two of the columns added, it would have been great. The two I’m referring to are: bb (batters walks) and so (batter strikeouts).

The Examiner asked Bill Lange, recently retired from the Chicago Cubs, to make up an ideal box score, and he came up with the above. Tis a shame it didn't catch on.

Note: We have been unable to post until now because of compliants about the content, and had to be reviewed. We are now back up, and hope to remain that way.

The 1892 Wisonsin-Michigan League, Part Two

2006-03-16T07:54:00.000-08:00

The 1892 Wisonsin-Michigan League, Part One

2006-03-15T09:31:00.000-08:00

Today and tomorrow I will be posting what Reed Howard has already done on the 1892 Wisconsin-Michigan League.

Today I'm posting standings, league officials and umpires.

Tomorrow I will post a player list that Reed has worked up from his sources. With his limited resources, it's amazing how many players he was able to document.

A Follow Up Letter from Kevin McCann

2006-03-14T10:50:00.000-08:00

A Follow Up Letter from Kevin McCann

Carlos,

Thanks for sharing your views about stats gathering. Working on the 1935 Kitty League over the past few months has given me a greater appreciation for the work you and other minor league researchers do. It's my first attempt at what really is a tedious but ultimately rewarding project. My opinion is similar to yours. It's better to have a few stats for a season than none at all. That's what I've come to realize with the Kitty League seasons that have none. Maybe I'll only be able to gather 30-40 box scores for a 1903 team, but it's better than having none at all, which is where the record now stands.

My ultimate goal is a book about the Kitty League, but first I feel I need to fill in the statistical gaps in its history, and there's lots of them. I've been working on the league for the past eight years, but I'm just getting into the statisticals part of it now. I've spent a lot of my time in the 1935-1955 period, interviewing living players and researching the newspapers.

When I started out researching, I figured partial records weren't worth much. Now I know better, thanks in large part to your blog and the work other researchers are doing. It would be nice if MLB would grant the Minor League Committee similar funds to correct the ML record as they did for the Negro leagues!

Kevin

I think this is how a lot of minor league researcher start. They want to document the minor league that dominated their region, and consequently produced many memories. Many times they start out— like I did— believing that all the stats must be in the guide for” their league.” How could the guides no include stats for the PCL?I asked myself. It takes only a little delving into the matter to find that baseball statistics evolved— and not always in a straight line.

When I began, I thought I’d just get all the stats from the guides for the Coast League and be done with it. Boy, did I get a surprise! I am nowhere near complete on all I now want to do with the early Coast League. The pitching in the 1920s and part of the 1930s is horrendous, and I would like to redo all the pitching stats for that era. (One thing I noticed is that the league a pitcher a game pitched even if he played another position; i.e., a pitcher is a pitcher is a pitcher, and if he happens to play another position one day they’ll count it as a game played as a pitcher.) But that is a project I’ll be going back to someday. What I am working on now is the complete record of early California Leagues; i.e., leagues that called themselves California League or California State League. Then I plan on working on other, lower leagues here in California. I especially am interested in the central valley leagues. Some seasons they had leagues— judging from the rosters— that were every bit as good as the Coast League.

Then maybe I’ll get back to the Coast League.

Other people began doing minor league research because of the book Daguerreotypes, which attempted to publish the complete record, major and minor, of the great players. Many researchers, on their own, tried do put together records of the near greats and/or other, but finding that a league that the player appeared in didn’t compile stats (this is especially true for the 19^th century), and so would attempt to compile that season. Vern Luse did many league seasons from Sporting Life box scores for that purpose. Bob McConnell does individual players in leagues, compiling only the stats for that season for the player he is working on at that moment.

A 788 Foot Fence

2006-03-13T13:24:00.000-08:00

A 788 Foot Fence

I have seen some long fence distances, but this fence distance that Davis Barker came up ith is the longest I have heard of. Davis found this in a 1932 issue of the Sporting News. What is also of note is that certain towns were still using "Sunday parks," presumably because of the Blue Laws still in effect in Pennsylvania.

Scranton, Pa-- A deed to the park awaits any player who make a home run over the center field fence at Dickson City Park, the Sunday home of the Scranton Miners of the NYP League. The offer has been made by Stanley Evans, head of the Dickson City Association, who says the deed will be presented [to] the player when he crosses home plate after making the clout.

However, the fence stands 788 feet from home plate and not even Babe Ruth of the New York Yankees ever knocked a ball that far. The park is one of magnificent distances, for the left field fence is 315 feet from home plate and that in right field 416 feet.

The Miners utilize the property on Sunday, on which games are forbidden in Scranton. It has accommodations for 7,500.

A Letter from Kevin McCann

2006-03-12T08:43:00.000-08:00

A Letter from Kevin McCann

Kevin is in the process of putting together as complete as possible record for the Kitty League, and had done considerable work so far. The Kentucky-Illinois-Tennessee League was in existence off and on from 1903 through 1955. Kevin is asking a question that every researcher asks at some point in time.

Carlos,

I've asked Ray Nemec this question before, but I'd like your opinion as well. In my Kitty League research, I have four seasons (1903, 1904, 1905, 1922) for which there are no complete, official stats available. For the 1903 season, I already know two newspapers (Henderson and Jackson) no longer exist. I also know some papers did a better job with complete box scores than others; some used only line scores most of the time. My question is this: Knowing these facts, would it still be worthwhile to gather as much data as I can to compile at least a partial season? I figure that a partial season is better than nothing at all. Ray seems to think it would be a waste of time and effort to do so. What's your take?

Thanks,

Kevin

Kevin,Let me tell you a little story. When I first started working my PCL Encyclopedia, one of the big guns of minor league research told me that he had researched 1903 and 1906 and stated flatly that not all the box scores existed, and that it would be a "waste of time" to try to find them.I, of course, found all of them save one box score for 1906, but was even able to make up a pretty good box score from all the game stories. What helped was that the game was played in the Bay Area, and one paper published a box score summary.You say that many of the papers no longer exist. I have been to virtually every library in California that fielded a pro ball club, and out here at least, when a paper goes belly up all its files go to the local library which will then put it on microfilm. I would bet that has happened there in your neck of the woods, too.A lot of minor league baseball research depends on how much effort you want to put into it. Many times, if you go to the town in question, you will find in the microfilm drawer a second or third paper for the period you are doing. (I suspect that to be the case for the 1903, 1904 and 1905 Kitty League. Later years sometimes are not as good.)Many researchers tend to remain at home and try to get things through interlibrary loan, but libraries never send the second or third paper out. If you go to the towns, you may be pleasantly surprised at what you find. People in smaller towns and cities have pride in their local history and tend to preserve more than one would believe.But let's say that Nemec turns out to be right. If you were to go to the towns, and only came up with line scores for the games-- you'd still be able to compile pitcher win-loss records that nobody's ever seen.Last summer, I put 1,500 miles on my car driving around the Central Valley to get box scores for the 1910 & 1911 San Joaquin Valley League. Most of the papers no longer existed in the towns in that league, but they were on microfilm in the local libraries. I didn't get every box score, but I got damn close.Kevin, a lot depends on how much effort you want to put into it. Best wishes, & good researching,Carlos

A Request for Help From Steve Gietschier

2006-03-11T12:21:00.000-08:00

A Request for Help From Steve Gietschier

Steve asked me to post this on the blog, and so I here it is. You can get in touch with him at the below email address.

I am looking to borrow a copy of a rather rare book, Dwight Miller's
Sioux Fall Canaries Cross Bats in League Play, 1933-1940. This book was
published in 1941, and it is really hard to find. Book dealer Bobby
Plapinger has none for sale.

If you have a copy and would agree to loan it to me, I will treasure it
as my own, read it, and get it back to you promptly

Please respond directly to me. Thanks.

Best,

Steve Gietschier
sgietsch@sportingnews.com

Steve Gietschier
Senior Managing Editor, Research
Sporting News
10176 Corporate Square Drive
Suite 200
St. Louis, MO 63132
314 993-7787
314 997-0765 FAX
sgietsch@sportingnews.com

Some Websites to Check Out

2006-03-11T07:56:00.000-08:00

Some Websites to Checkout

When I wrote about a couple of minor league websites I look at from time to time, Bill Williamson sent me the following websites that he has found.

Carlos:

Here are some minor league sites I check regularly:

Alabama-Florida League http://www.alabama-florida-league.com/aflintro.htm

Evangeline League  http://www.nicholls.edu/baseball/

Nebraska minor league baseball  http://marian.creighton.edu/~besser/baseball/second.html

Three I League  http://www.three-eye.com/home.htm

And the Blue Ridge site is now back up:

http://www.blueridgeleague.org/

Bill Williamson