This Still Works - This Week in Montgomery Baseball History for Mar 14-20

This week, in the first of several history installments, we will focus on events of the past as we wait for what is to come. To help offset the lack of baseball, over the course of the week I will be posting several reports on my recent research and even offering up a contest!

THIS WEEK IN MONTGOMERY BASEBALL

MARCH 14 1906
Word of Rube Waddell being attacked and robbed in Montgomery hit the papers.

While the star lefthander did have his wallet taken, it couldn't have been a big heist - manager Connie Mack knows better than to let the Rube have more than two dollars at once.

Rube reports the crime, then disappears again for a day before returning to the A's spring training workouts.

MARCH 15 1906 
The Montgomery ball club ownership hangs a $3ooo purse for its players to split as incentive to win the Southern league.

 1906 Montgomery captain Mullaney

MARCH 16 1921 
Big Sum offered for Montgomery's Steel Arm Dickey - its learned that Boston offered $5000 for the pitcher but is turned down.

Dickey remains and pitches for the Gray Sox as the ace of the team known as the "best colored outfit in the south"

Steel Arm Dickey

MARCH 17 1923 
The Philadelphia A's beat the Bham Barons 12-7 at Cramton Bowl in Montgomery.  

 

MARCH 18 1905 
Governor Cummings meets with the NY Highlanders as they hold spring training at Montgomery ... Sporting Life says that NY planned to break camp on the 18th, leaving for a game at New Orleans on the 20th.

1905 NY Highlanders player work out at Montgomery

 

MARCH 19 1908 
S.H.Smith, a student at Alabama Polytechnic Institute (Auburn Uni), who was struck on the back of the head by a thrown ball in a game on the 18th, dies without regaining consciousness.

Previously this was the only news source I had.

Since then I have found an article in the Birmingham News that offers more info on that tragic event.

MARCH 19 1908 
Philadelphia vs Montgomery, the Athletics soundly defeat the locals 11-1.

MARCH 20 1904 
Announcement comes that W.H.Raglan has bought Mgm team. Raglan is one of the heads of Montgomery street railway. The team would change hands again by the end of the following year.

MARCH 20 1911 

Thos. Kilby

Sunday Baseball Bill Goes Through
The Measure For Mobile is Passed by Senate By 12 to 11.

Bart Chamberlain’s Sunday baseball bill came to the senate and passed by nearly a tie vote of 12 to 11. Mr. Kilby speaking against the bill, compared the city of Mobile with Sodom and Gomorrah, and said the bill was an effort to repeal the Ten Commandments.

Shoeless Joe Comes To Montgomery

Joe Jackson, the shoeless White Sox outfielder banned for his knowledge of World Series game fixing, is an oft cited omission from the Hall of Fame.

The impression that most of us have of Joe after being banned from baseball is largely based on a single story - years after the Black Sox scandal, Ty Cobb found Joe running a small town liquor store and when Joe didn't acknowledge him Ty says "Joe, don't you know me?" to which Jackson replies "Of course I know you, Ty, but I wasn't sure if you wanted to know me".

Grantland Rice

Sportswriter Grantland Rice, known for his "elegant prose", knew how to spin a story. Not that this event didn't happen just as Rice wrote it, it could have. Probably. Sure it did, right?

That's the way much of Jackson's story goes, lots of stories spun into myth. With his career cut short, Joe Jackson left baseball wondering what could have been and trying to decide what actually had happened to one of the games greatest players.


LEADING OFF

Joe Jackson

The idea of Shoeless Joe walking away from the game entirely is a false one, just as much fiction as the "Say it ain't so, Joe" myth - also created by a sportswriter. The legends surrounding Jackson have become the larger part of his story, often implying that he sheepishly left baseball behind to slink back to the south and spent his days running shady pool halls and small town liquor stores while playing only under assumed names.


That Jackson himself appears to have thought Landis would readmit him is evident from every corner and seemed to be a foregone conclusion among most sportswriters of his era. He was acquitted of any crimes, of course.



WHAT THE HEADLINES SAY

Landis

Even after the Black Sox scandal, Shoeless Joe had opportunities to play in every league in the country and was often in articles on the verge of his next comeback. Joe Jackson would appear interested in joining teams, only to be disappointed when baseball commissioner Landis either refused to reinstate him or simply ignored Jacksons correspondence.


The southern press handles Jackson much differently than their fellow typesetters in the north, omitting the whole "banned from baseball" thing or portraying Jackson as on the verge of reinstatement. Jackson is mentioned often in articles connecting him with various clubs that have offered the star player a chance to stay in shape while waiting for the approval of Landis. In northern papers, Jackson is largely ignored and lumped with the other Sox conspirators.

PLAY BALL

Shoeless Joe Jackson at Cramton Bowl July 1924

  In fact, Shoeless Joe Jackson played often as an outfielder and manager for teams in Georgia and South Carolina. Unaffiliated and independent teams had no problem with improving their club and boosting attendance with a star such as Shoeless Joe. Commissioner Landis' ban had no reach to punish town teams, industrial leagues and barnstorming clubs. There Shoeless Joe Jackson easily found places to play ball.

By 1923, Jackson is with the Americus, Georgia semi-pro team. The Americus club is peppered with excellent talent of mostly southern players hired from area colleges, industrial leagues and smaller town teams. The addition of Shoeless Joe elevates Americus from being a good semi pro team to having a marketable product. They become barnstormers, making more money by playing exhibition games to larger crowds in bigger cities.

The 1923 Americus team with Joe Jackson

One of those cities is Montgomery.

In 1923 the Americus team came to town and faced off against a team from Blakely, Georgia. The game at Cramton Bowl was well promoted, with Shoeless Joe, the former Chicago White Sox outfielder billed as a star attraction. The city league game for that day was postponed so fans could watch Shoeless Joe Jackson on the field instead and the turnout was expected to be large.

The days game was so popular, it prompted a letter of complaint to the Bham News - someone was mad there weren't extra trains running to make sure all the fans in Birmingham could get to Montgomery to see Shoeless Joe Jackson play!

Cramton Bowl ca 1920s

SO NICE HAD TO PLAY AGAIN - TWICE!
The following year, 1924, Shoeless Joe Jackson was in Waycross Georgia with a railroad team called the Waycross Coast Liners when they played two games at Montgomery's Cramton Bowl.

1924 Waycross club with Joe Jackson

1924 game announcement

Again the games were billed with Shoeless Joe as the highlight, leading a southern All Star team playing local challengers. The games were held about six weeks apart, one being part of a doubleheader.

Regardless of the score or what action occurred on the field, Jackson's performance was what fans were watching. In one game at Montgomery, Jackson muffed a ball hit to him in centerfield and managed only a bloop single, yet observers all agreed he was a talented player who could return to the major leagues at any moment.

Nothing is said in any of the articles about the games about throwing games or accusations of any wrongdoing on Jackson's part.



JOE EXONERATED A SECOND TIME?

Shoeless Joe takes a swing at a game in 1922

Also in 1924, Joe Jackson sued White Sox owner Charlie Comisky for lost back pay in what was considered a re-trail of Jackson's part in the conspiracy to throw World Series games.

The jury sided with Jackson but the judge threw out the decision because Joe Jackson's testimony differed so greatly from his previous statements on the World Series fix. Jackson and Comisky settled out of court. 

ca 1926

SHOELESS JOE HIRED AS DOTHAN MANAGER

In 1926, Shoeless Joe was offered and accepted a job managing and playing first base for the Dothan team. Dothan was looking for a midseason boost and felt that bringing Jackson aboard would lift the clubs attendance as well as add power to the linup. Slated to take over for the July 4th homestand, Shoeless Joe was announced as the new skipper in the press.

First Jackson wired to say he would be late arriving, a day or two. Then he stopped replying to the teams cables. The Dothan team named a temporary replacement manager that eventually became permanent.

Later in the summer when it was learned that the club was seeking entry into a league that the Landis ban would be in effect, the Shoeless Joe in Dothan plan was scuttled entirely. What kept Joe Jackson from making that July 4th in Dothan is open to speculation.




HE WASN'T HIDING

Shoeless Joe with Savannah ca 1932

Joe Jackson moved to Savannah, GA with his wife immediately following the Black Sox scandal and stayed there off and on for the rest of their lives.

Shoeless Joe Jackson was known to be able to hit well into his fifties, though he put on weight as he aged, eventually moving from centerfield to first base. He appeared with many teams for local towns and companies, railroad teams and barnstorming All Star squads.

There was at least one instance of him playing under an assumed name that I found. It took exactly ten days for someone in a Texas bush league to recognize the guy hitting .485 as being the former Pale Hose batsman.
 

LATER

Joe Jackson at his store

 Joe also ran a dry cleaners and later, yes, a liquor store where the famous Ty Cobb meeting probably took place just as Grantland Rice told it. Jackson would occasionally give interviews but mostly stayed in town and enjoyed being a quiet part of the community over the next thirty years.

In 1951 the Cleveland Indians inducted Jackson into their team Hall of Fame. In December 1951 Shoeless Joe was invited to appear on Ed Sullivans "Toast of the Town" where many expected the announcement of Jackson's re-admittance to baseball. However, Joe Jackson passed away at home, two weeks before the event, at the age of sixty-four.

Predicting the Skitz 2020, The Montgomery Pretzels

new year = new vintage header!

Always a tough task, getting started a little later this year due to a high volume of research. Plus, the team makes us wait to get their info like coaching assignments and promotional skeds (I'm hopin for a throwback game with 1920 Montgomery Black Sox uniforms!) so I figured to play along and wait it out too!

There are so many nooks and crannies in the interwebs, it can be tough to find what is really pertinent. But then when it happens, well, when it rains it pours, some of which is included in todays special b/w newsprint style post!



Also, if you have are one of the folks who have asked me to check into a player, it might not be much longer. If you are curious about a player in Montgomery history, be it a family member or whatever, now might be a good time to let me know.

FROM THE RESEARCH ROOM
There is much to report on the research front, as stated, how should I start?

RUBE THE FIREMAN
Confirmed the report of Rube Waddell putting out a fire in Montgomery, from the Bham News of March 21, 1906...

Waddell was adored by the locals for his efforts as a fireman after the event. Among his fans was the cartoonist for the local rag, who gives us this fine interpretation of the lefty strikeout king pitching in Montgomery.

Uncovered reports of early parks and teams - the Montgomery Pretzels? Absolutely! 

THE MONTGOMERY PRETZELS
 Team names weren't always the choice of the club itself, as fans and newspapers often dubbed them differently than the teams themselves had picked. That's how the Dodgers got their name and it worked out pretty well.

If you asked an average person on a Montgomery street in 1905 how the Senators were doing, they were likely to think you wanted to talk politics. If you asked how the Pretzels were doing, you were likely to get a reply about baseball!

From  the early part of the 1900s, starting in 1904, the Montgomery team was listed officially as the Senators but in the press and among fans they were known as the Pretzels due to the popularity of a name brand that matched the managers last name, Stickney. The Pretzels name stuck around for at least three seasons, well after Stickney himself had moved on.

So that kind of makes the Montgomery Biscuits name a little nod to the past - how bout that!

Your 1904 Montgomery Pretzels

EX-EXCELSIOR UPDATE
We learned more about A. T. Pearsall, blog fave and bringer of the game to Montgomery. In one story the good doctor is on the run from the law.

Indeed the rarely documented event happened at divorce proceedings during his time here  - he was ordered by a Montgomery judge to appear yet chose instead to board an eastbound train. Telegraphing ahead, officials had a marshal waiting at the next station, apprehending the ex-Excelsior and former Confederate doctor. Pearsall jumped from the train as it left the platform and was a wanted man for a day or so. Eventually turning up in Montgomery, his divorce case proceeded without further incident.


FIRST BIG LEAGUE EXHIBITION GAME
How about our first known big league exhibition game in Montgomery? The fall fair of November 1870 saw a visit from the New York Mutuals, fresh from their championship defeat of the Chicago White Sox. The Mutuals were oft competitors of Pearsall's Brooklyn Excelsiors at Hoboken's legendary Elysian Fields.

Much has been revealed about Pearsall and his ties to early Montgomery baseball clubs, as well as their close connection with baseball in nearby Alabama cities, large and small.

Baseball was working as an important social network of its time, the rosters are filled with notable names from politics, business and high society. Montgomery box scores from the 1860's read like a street map of Montgomery - Sayre, Lanier, Holt and others. Connecting local teams with the touring champion would have advantages beyond baseball for the businessmen involved.

BROOKLYN ROYAL GIANTS VISIT EARLY
One of the great early teams on the Negro circuit, the Royal Giants barnstormed the country and in 1911 visited Montgomery for a rare exhibition game between a local black team and an opponent that is essentially a big-league club. Negro teams often played in Montgomery, but its special to see a team of that level playing here pre-WW1.


GET UP EARLY
Speaking of early games in Montgomery history, in 1867 the games were literally early - five a.m. first pitch! One contest was a five hour long marathon that kept the players from getting to work until after ten o'clock. Newspaper reports were scant of the early morning games beyond reporting scores, for obvious reasons.

LOST BALLPARK NOT LOST
What was that in the Brooklyn Royals article - West Side Park? That's tough to find now, unless you stop on the interstate just south of the 65-85 exchange. The field now has about ten lanes of traffic that flow over it every day.

Another spot that gets overlooked is Highland Park, on Highland Avenue where the school now sits. The Montgomery team is known to have played at multiple parks around town until Cramton Bowl was built in the 1920's. The grounds at Capitol Heights are often cited as the home park for the era, but games were held at Highland Park with regularity as early as 1903.

Local teams would occupy the park when the pros were on the road, but there was a controversy when park owners put a $100 fee on the use of the field for each team per season. This spurred others to build parks to attract teams and drove teams to find other fields, helping spread the game across the area but creating occasional confusion for fans as to where the game was being played.

from 1942

The files being greatly expanded, I am excited to have new info and images to share. While stats tell a story of old teams and players, the visual offers a powerful connection with the past.

A few years ago I was asked by the Biscuits if I had any high quality images of old Rebels players in action and had to reply that they either didn't exist or hadn't been found yet. While many of the existing images aren't of a high quality, having a grainy view of the past beats having no view at all.

Your 1948 Montgomery Rebels

'54
  Finding images of the 1954 season has been especially difficult. It's hard not to suspect they were swept away quietly when the team went back to segregated ball after that one year. Getting a look at the players in action from that club is a real treat.

from April 1954, Johnny Davis gets a handshake after a home run for the first integrated pro team in Montgomery

Not all the new images are low quality - even some of the newspaper snips have good clarity.

Lineup for the '65 edition of the Johnny Rebs

I KNOW WHAT YOU WANT...

 No, that was the worst idea ever - the ballpark was insane by the third inning. More Montgomery fans were never more drunk at one ballgame than this mid-70's promotion. Reports of fans at Paterson for the game are pretty much what you would expect. Women and children were sent out as lineup cards were exchanged and it went downhill in the stands quickly from there. As a result of the promotion, the Monty Reb character was dropped, in spite of the fact that it was the third highest attended game of the year.

PSYCHIC BASEBALL
Whadda we see? Its a crapshoot, a good spring camp can send a guy otherwise ticketed for Biscuitville to Durham. An injury to any pitcher above can shift the Skitz from having a well rounded club to being a little short at a position. Who can say?

I can. And shall!!

PREDICTING THE SKITZ 2020

C Ronaldo Hernandez
C Joey Roach
C Pinto
1B Haley
2B-SS Brujan
SS-2B Walls
SS Wander Franco - son of Wander Franco, brother of Wander Franco and Wander Franco. Seriously.

3B Gray
OF Chester
OF Garrett Whitley
OF Michael Smith

UT Palacios
UT Jake Palomaki
INF Kaleo Johnson

SP O'Brien
SP McClanahan
SP Ryan
SP  Romero
SP Michael Plassmeyer - lefty

RP Angel German - recently signed from Pirates org
RP  Raiden
RP Salinas
RP Simon Rosenblum-Larson - smart enough for Harvard
RP Charpie - ready to play fortnite
RP Jack Labosky - Jack brings the tiny bus to the gump
RP Pelaez
RP Trey Cumbie - lefty
RP Mike York

JANUARY 31 1943 

Rebels owner Ben Goltsman buys Meridian team to round out the Rebels roster. Meridian finished last in league previous season. Rebels finished first. Fans appreciate the reinforcement efforts but by July the Rebels would make a mid-season move to Chattanooga due to low attendance and wartime player shortages.