A look back at some local baseball history
To a guy in my profession, one of the worst mistakes you can make is leave a sports history book anywhere within my reach, especially one concerning local sports history. History was always my favorite subject in school, and at one time I even considered becoming a history teacher. A couple of editors come to mind who probably wish I had followed up on that, while there are probably countless teachers around who will say “hallelujah” that I didn’t.
Be that as it may, it has been my good fortune to be able to combine two interests into one, and enjoy reading sports history, especially every week while digging around in the files for the “Out of the Past” column that runs here on Saturdays.
What led up to all this was thumbing through a very interesting volume loaned to me by Lew Falton, another one of those guys who likes to devour sports history, statistics, whatever, and then resurrect them during the sports discussions that feature our daily watering hole visits.
Lew’s “Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball” takes the sport back to its roots, starting in 1902, to the lowest minor leagues, and traces each year through standings, team and individual leaders, cities and states involved, just about anything you might want to know if you are going to get into our discussion circle.
There are also little historical tidbits for each year. For instance, on August 23, 1906, President Danaher of New Haven, in the Connecticut State League, sold pitcher C.C. Hodge to Holyoke, in the same league – for 25 cents! Compare that to the prima donnas today who think they are worth millions.
Just thumbing through the book:
– In 1906, Uniontown won the championship of the Class D Pennsylvania-Ohio-Maryland League, with a 56-42 record, followed by Washington (57-44), Braddock (55-43), East Liverpool, Ohio, (55-45), Cumberland, Md. (50-48), Waynesboro (48-50), Steubenville, Ohio (48-51), and Charleroi (26-70).
– The following year, Steubenville won the title (69-33) and Uniontown was second (63-43), followed by Zanesville, Ohio (63-43), East Liverpool (62-45), Washington (45-57), Charleroi (45-63), McKeesport (38-68) and Braddock (37-71).
– In 1907, the area had two representatives in the Western Pennsylvania League, Connellsville and Scottdale. Fairmont, W.Va., won the title with a 68-36 finish, followed by Butler (58-44), Scottdale (48-49), Clarksburg, W.Va. (50-54), Greensburg (42-50), Connellsville (44-59), Beaver Falls (41-36), Latrobe-Cumberland-Piedmont-Somerset (16-36) and Kittanning (2-5). Beaver Falls and Kittanning withdrew from the league, while the franchise that started out in Latrobe was forfeited to the league on May 26. The league then moved the team to Piedmont on June27, from there to Somerset on July 11, and it was finally disbanded later in the same month.
– Uniontown came into the Class D Pennsylvania-West Virginia League in 1908, and won the title with a 68-42 record, led by league batting champion, Joe Phillips, with a .307 average. Clarksburg was 71-49, Charleroi 57-54, Connellsville 55-56, Fairmont 55-65, and the franchise that started in Scottdale, then moved to Grafton, W.Va., on July 31, was 36-78.
– Connellsville started out in the Ohio-Pennsylvania League (D) in 1912, but dropped out on July 12, standing 13-21.
– Uniontown and Scottdale would both return to minor league baseball, in the Middle Atlantic League (C), Scottdale playing from 1925 through 1931, and Uniontown in 1926, then from 1947 through 1949. The summer of the latter year a couple friends joined me in watching a lot of MAL games in Oil City, about eight miles up the road from my home town of Franklin, and we saw Uniontown play a few times. Vandergrift was also in the MAL and for a time, my wife lived right across the street from their field.
Unfortunately, after that year, minor league baseball started to decline, and eventually the franchises across the country dropped to where there are about 20 minor leagues going today.
But minor league baseball can still be interesting. You are watching players on their way up, working to get into the big time, and they give you a game that you can sit back and enjoy. Four of us had our times last summer in Washington watching the Wild Things play, and we are looking forward to getting back again this year. Why don’t you join us!
Jim Kriek is a Herald-Standard correspondent.