History's Still Workin, Babe Ruth in Montgomery, Research Hits Too Close

I wrote about the conference a few weeks ago, before the whole "shut down 2020" thing, so I added to it for todays post.

CONFER
Recently I attended the Southern Association conference, held annually at Birmingham's venerable Rickwood Field. Baseball researchers from across the south make presentations on the topics of their studies and offer a fabulous sounding board for ideas from upstart blogger-snappers.

The highlights this year, for me, included meeting the official scorer for Memphis, Mr. John Guinozzo. Quite a likeable character with a fabulous love for his home towns sporting history. I was fortunate to get a copy of his self-produced history of Memphis baseball, one of the most complete histories to be found on one cities teams.

Another highlight was hearing respected baseball history author William Plott discuss Atlanta sportswriter Fuzzy Woodruff. Fuzzy covered the southern baseball scene in the early 1900s and has that old-style fancy writing that has been such an influence on this blog.

Bill Plott is simply the most learned scholar on Montgomery's negro baseball history to be found, anywhere, as a member of the SABR Negro League Researchers since its inception. So of course I cornered him about five times with questions!


Every year the conference features a special guest speaker, this year it was Greg Bennington. He gave a fine presentation on behalf of his uncle, Bobby Durmbaugh, who played in the Southern Association.

 I also enjoyed hearing veteran SABR researcher Terry Sloop, of Atlanta, covering the career of Jumbo Bill Barrett and the 1928 Memphis-v-Atlanta series (known as one of the greatest match sets of all time).

A good friend and author of Baseball in Montgomery, Clarence Watkins discussed Charles Glock, a player for the Atlanta Crackers and later spoke on the career of Dusty Rhodes.

At the end of the conference, Watkins dropped what he thought would be a real bombshell on the room. Asking if, after seventeen years of Southern Association only, anyone objected to including the SALLY League in next years topics. He expected the crowd to voice its displeasure but instead received a round of applause!

HIT TOO CLOSE
Most baseball research is pretty standard, focus on a player, team or city, event or game and it works itself out. Usually the info is a stat line and a win loss record. Reconstructing events surrounding the topic to build a narration that illustrates the true history can be a task, but not often overly emotional in nature.

Yet, the stories of baseball are the stories of life, of people, of teams and of cities. They are the stories of dreams of victory and failures of defeat. It can be easy to feel separate from those people and events of the past. But then a story such as this pops up out of nowhere and resonates, connecting the past and present. Such occurred to me as I was working on a player biography project that I expected to be just the standard baseball bio.

It's tough to write about bad times, having to compose a sentence or two and then stand up and walk away. Read it and retype it, again and again, as a way of unburdening the weighty sense of obligation to a person no longer able to tell their own tale.

As the research unfolded, I found myself with my jaw literally dropped, having to cover my own mouth to muffle my vocal exclamations of surprise and horror.

Not the typical kind of thing that most other baseball biographies include. It requires delicate wording, my blunt nature often bungles such cautious occasion for discretion. Hopefully the reader receives the concept as it was intended, but a writer has as much control of that as a pitcher has on a home plate ump.

I expected to offer much more content in the past week, but was thrown off schedule by the deep story of a local player from the past. It's a story that I'm proud to give a voice to, a story of love and life and winning and losing. It is a story of baseball and its a story of life.

It will post at the start of next week.

THIS WEEK IN MONTGOMERY BASEBALL MAR 23-29

Holy Cow! There is a LOT of baseball history here! Might be one of the biggest weeks in the history department files!

MARCH 23 1895
Baltimore defeats Montgomery in exhibition game at Montgomery

MARCH 23 1924
Baltimore defeats Philly Athletics in exhibition game in Montgomery

MARCH 24 1936
Cubs vs Giants in Dothan

One of the biggest games in Dothan history, the Cubs knew it as the longest road trip ever. Chicago held spring training on Catalina Island in sunny southern California, then boarded a train for their first exhibition game - in DOTHAN ALABAMA!

Cubs v Giants in Dothan 1936

MARCH 24 1911
Montgomery defeats Philly's NL club in exhibition game, walkoff style thanks to Manning Smith's RBI double.









MARCH 26th 1903

Nixey Callahan

 White Sox manager Nixey Callahan announces that he expects his team to win every single exhibition game during the spring. “The boys are now in fair shape to show their true form. We want to return home with a full string of scalps.”

The White Sox promptly lost to Montgomery, 10-9 in 10 innings. Montgomery’s manager and first baseman, Lew Whistler, went 4-for-5 and belted two home runs to lead his team to victory.


MARCH 26 1906
Connie Mack's Philadelphia A's face Montgomery in exhibition game

MARCH 26 1908
Cubs play Montgomery in the first of a two game exhibition series, Cubs 1 Climbers 0, Overall and Fraser doing the pitching for Chicago

MARCH 27 1908
Cubs play Montgomery in exhibition series game 2, Cubs 4 Climbers 3, Zimmerman homers to left

MARCH 27 1918
At Montgomery, an exhibition between Cleveland and Cincinnatti, the Reds beat the Indians 3-1 in a game that featured future HOF'ers Tris Speaker and Ed Roush.

MARCH 28, 1918
Rube Fosters Chicago American Giants face Montgomery Cubs at Paterson Park

MARCH 28 1926

Yankees beat Dodgers at Montgomery, 2-0. Dodgers pitcher Dazzy Vance goes six innings, allows just one hit and strikes out six

MARCH 28 1941
Yankees beat Montgomery in exhibition game slugfest, 17-1

MARCH 29th 1903

The Boston Beaneaters pitcher Wiley Piatt’s finger is so sore that a hotel physician cuts into it to drain the blood to avoid blood poisoning.

Piatt is scratched from his scheduled start against Montgomery. Piatt is one of only seven pitchers Boston uses that season and goes 9-14 with a 3.18 ERA. The 1903 season proves to be his last in the big leagues, capping off a six-year career in which he posts a record of 86-79 with an ERA of 3.61.



MARCH 29 1925
Dodgers play Yankees at Cramton Bowl, Yanks win 5-4 in ten innings

MARCH 29 1926
Yankees play Dodgers, win 2-0 in Montgomery at the Bowl

Dickey, Ruth and Lefty Gomez in Mobile on the barnstorming tour 1926