Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Pike's Decision: Cigars or Baseball?

Pike Mullaney was the star pitcher, along with Bob Brush, of the 1897 Moorhead Barmaids club that ran away with the Red River Valley League pennant. Mullaney went on to play a few more years of independent baseball in Superior, Wisconsin. By 1901, however, he had disappeared from the baseball scene. Mullaney found his way into the cigar manufacturing business, and he appeared to be content with his full-time work. That fact didn't stop the Duluth News Tribune from buzzing, when in the spring of 1904, Mullaney moved his operations from Eveleth, MN to Superior. 

The local professional club, the Superior Longshoreman of the Class D Northern League, was set to welcome Mullaney's former teammate in Moorhead, Artie O'Dea, to its team, as well as George Keas, Fargo's captain from 1897. Pike, however, would not join the 1904 edition of the Superior baseball nine. Still, local fans hoped they would at least see the star pitcher in some amateur games that summer.


Duluth News Tribune, May 5, 1904

Sunday, August 2, 2015

Big Bill Zink... Was, Not Surprisingly, Big

William Henry "Bill" Zink, Fargo's star infielder from 1897, was not a large man by modern standards. His girth was sufficient by turn of the 20th Century standards, however, to earn him the nickname "Big" Bill Zink. The Rock Island Islanders welcomed Zink to Illinois in 1901, and the local paper lauded his success so far in his young baseball career. Along with providing a brief synopsis of Zink's baseball exploits, the paper informed readers that Zink was, well, big:



The Argus (Rock Island, IL) March 27, 1901