Sunday Baseball in Fargo? Maybe...

Playing baseball once occupied a place alongside showing movies, shopping, and hunting as activities prohibited on Sunday. In Fargo, a law was on the books banning baseball on Sunday, but the statute was generally not strictly enforced. In the 1897 Red River Valley League, Sunday baseball was a non-issue, for reasons you can discover in my upcoming book. In the summer of 1901, however, a Sunday game between Fargo and Larimore was deemed illegal and arrests were made. 

The Minneapolis Tribune, July 29, 1901

Ollie Berg Accomplishes Incredibly Rare Feat

Wahpeton-Breckenridge pitcher Ollie (or "Allie") Berg received mention in the September 16, 1902 edition of The Minneapolis Journal for an incredibly rare feat: an unassisted triple play. The unassisted triple play occurs when a fielder is responsible for recording three outs on one batted ball, without any assistance from the other fielders. The play is so incredibly rare that it has happened only 15 times in the history of Major League Baseball. Berg turned his triple play in 1901 when he was pitching for a Langdon, North Dakota town team against a town team from Cavalier, North Dakota. 

Unassisted triple plays in Major League Baseball: http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/history/rare_feats/?feature=unassisted_triple_plays

Bill Zink Honored 40 Years After RRVL, 30 Years After Historic Game

The May 27, 1937 Hutchinson News reported that its beloved ballplayer, Bill Zink, would be honored at a ceremony before the May 29 game between the Hutchinson Larks and Joplin (MO) Miners. The Larks were a Class C farm team of the Pittsburgh Pirates at the time, while the Miners were affiliated with the New York Yankees. Bill Zink played in Kansas from 1906-1910, in 1906 as a member of the Leavenworth Old Soldiers, and 1907-1910 as a member of the Hutchinson Salt Packers. On May 29, 1907, Zink took part in a 23 inning contest between Hutchinson and Oklahoma City. After his playing career, Zink settled down with his family in Hutchinson, so he was invited back to Carey Municipal Park in Hutchinson exactly 30 years later to be honored for his part in the memorable game (box score is below). The game was seven innings longer than the longest game of the 1897 season, when Zink was a member of the Fargo Divorcees. On August 2, 1897 Zink played shortstop for the Fargo club in a 16 inning loss to Moorhead. In the 4 to 2 loss, Zink had two hits in six at-bats with a run scored.

 

"Special Events With Baseball," The Hutchinson News, May 27, 1937, p. 2.

Box score: "A Remarkable Baseball Game," The Leavenworth Post, May 30, 1907, p. 4.

Another Fargo Major Leaguer? - Some Detective Work

Though not directly relevant to the 1897 Red River Valley League season, the July 14^th Forum gave readers an update on a player named Sexton, who had played in Fargo as Wilson the summer before. Sexton was now playing left field for the New Bedford, Massachusetts team of the New England League and was reported to be “batting like a fiend.” After a short trip over to the indispensable www.baseball-reference.com, I discovered that the 1897 New Bedford, MA team did feature a player named Frank Sexton, who had played in 1895 in the National League for the Boston Beaneaters. To confirm that Sexton and Wilson were indeed the same person, I had to determine when and where Sexton played during the summer of 1896. Sporting News articles show Sexton playing in late June 1896 for a team in Springfield, Massachusetts. Sexton disappears from the Springfield box scores after that, which corresponds to the appearance of a Wilson playing for Fargo, who first appeared in late July 1896. The story seems to check out that another major leaguer likely played in Fargo in 1896. 

- “Baseball,” Fargo Forum and Daily Republican, July 14, 1897.

- http://www.baseball-reference.com/register/team.cgi?id=089fa5df

- http://www.baseball-reference.com/register/team.cgi?id=093512be

- The Sporting News, June 27, 1896.

Rookie Pitcher Deacon Phillippe Tosses No-Hitter

Less than two years after appearing with Fargo in the Red River Valley League, Charles "Deacon" Phillippe found himself in the major leagues pitching for the Louisville Colonels of the National League. On May 25, 1899, Phillippe shut down the New York Giants, surrendering no hits and issuing three walks in a 7-0 Colonel victory. It would be the only no-hitter of his career. Below, Phillippe received accolades from The Sporting Life, appearing on the front page of the June 10 edition of the sporting weekly. The paper spelled his last name as Phillippi, a customary error made for several years by most newspapers. 

The Sporting Life, June 10, 1899.

Terminology: Part 5

I have continued to find interesting terminology from the summer of 1897. Some of the references are a little difficult to figure out, but the context usually provides the answer.

"Assaulted the ozone instead of the sphere" - Swung and missed
"Comer" - player with potential; like an "up and comer"
"Cracker" - like a "crack" team; skilled
"Do the leg wrapping" - pitch
"Doughnuts to cookies" - like "dollars to donuts" (I'm not sure what this says about the relative value of doughnuts vs. cookies)
"Flowing bowl" - alcohol
"Garden" - field (i.e. Center garden = Center field)
"Hoodoo" - trickery, deception
"Horse collars" - zeroes (relating to their appearance on the scoreboard)
"Hospital list" - like the disabled list
"Hummest" - best
"Inshoot" - Curveball that breaks toward the right-handed batter
"In the swim" - similar to "in the mix"
the "McGinnity Act" - pitching both games of a doubleheader 
"On the toboggan" - injured
"Pan" - the plate
"Pets" - players
"Pink of condition" - in the best shape
taking a "Reef in his sails" - likely meaning the action of settling down, or reassessing a situation
"Stuff is off" - event is not going to happen
"Up in the air" - going up in the air is used to refer to a pitcher losing control of his pitches
"Weary Willies" - hobos

Fargo Forum and Daily Republican, Grand Forks Herald, Moorhead Independent", Sunday Argus; April - August 1897.

No photos? No problem.

I've commented regularly on the descriptiveness and creativity found in newspaper accounts of baseball games in the late 19th century. Today a game can be summarized by a few nice snapshots, or even video highlights. Writers in the Red River Valley certainly didn't have these luxuries, however, and actual photographs of any baseball games in the era are quite rare. In the summer of 1897, the Fargo Forum, Sunday Argus, Grand Forks Herald, and Moorhead Independent never featured a single photograph relating to baseball. Fortunately, written accounts of the games were usually quite good, being both descriptive, and at times, even entertaining. A few days ago, I posted a cartoon drawn in the Grand Forks Herald satirizing the 1897 league and the plight of the umpires. This is the only drawing that appeared in the Herald during the 1897 season concerning the Red River Valley League, but illustrations from the cartoonist Straub were fairly common in chronicling the 1896 season. The following is one of my favorites. It captures the spirit of a strong rivalry between Crookston and the Company F team of Grand Forks, with a good dose of humor injected as well. The Grand Forks squad won the game 15-9. Several members of the 1897 Grand Forks Senators appeared in the game, including Charles Hutton, Harry Walker, and Jack Turner.




Grand Forks Herald July 17, 1896 "Fixed 'Em Plenty"

Metaphorically Speaking

The baseball accounts from the dead-ball era were often unusually and excessively descriptive. The writing certainly played an important role regarding perceptions of baseball in an era before radio and television. The newspaper descriptions about the games of the Red River Valley League are a key piece in understanding the flavor of the league. Here are some of the more entertaining gems:

During the summer of 1897, several pitchers who struggled to control their pitches were deemed to be "as wild as a March hare" by the Sunday Argus. Among the out of control rabbits were Wahpeton-Breckenridge's Ollie Berg, Grand Forks pitcher Charlie Hutton, and Fargo's Gus Munch. On a separate occasion, during a particularly poor weather day in which Ollie Berg surrendered 15 runs, the weather was described as "being as wild and wooly as Berg's delivery."*

Solid pitching performances elicited even richer descriptions. Deacon Phillippe was credited for being "as steady as a clock" in a game in late June. Wahpeton-Breckenridge pitcher O'Donnell's alertness in a game in late May caused The Moorhead Independent to credit him for watching base runners "like a hungry hyena".** Moorhead's Pike Mullaney was complimented for a start in which he "shot the ball over the plate with Denzer-like steam," a reference pitcher Roger Denzer, who threw for the St. Paul Saints and Chicago Colts in 1897.*** Moorhead's other ace, Bob Brush, pitched an impressive game allowing hits and runs "as scarce as mosquitoes in January."**** Perhaps the most creative embellishment of a pitcher's dominance came courtesy of the Sunday Argus. The paper remarked that Pike Mullaney's pitching against the Wahpeton-Breckenridge club "had the Methodists feeling around as aimlessly as pedestrians trying to escape the Fargo street sweeper, or huge cats from whose muzzles the whiskers had been cleanly shaven."*****

*The Moorhead Independent June 11, 1897
**Independent May 28, 1897
***Independent June 25, 1897
****Independent June 11, 1897
*****Sunday Argus May 30, 1897

Taking Trash Talk to New Heights

Back on May 5th, I gave you a sampling of some of the trash talking from the Fargo Sunday Argus, some of it even directed toward the home team. It turns out that the critical tone of the Argus paled in comparison to the weekly across the river, the Moorhead Independent. In its June 4 edition, the Moorhead paper took several nasty shots at the city of Fargo, its baseball team, and some of the players on the club. A 27-6 exhibition loss to Moorhead gave the Independent a perfect opportunity to add insult to injury. The paper kicked off its account of the game by referring to Fargo as the "Divorce colony." It then proceeded to mock Fargo pitcher Lee Roberts, calling him the "only invincible", and suggesting he write a book called "My After Fame." The paper then inexplicably labeled the Fargo team the "yellow ball team from over the creek." Finally, a shot was taken at Fargo's Hornsby, taunting him for breaking several teeth in an attempt to catch a fly ball. The Independent jokingly argued that the right fielder ought to be "arrested for attempting to practice dentistry." Considering Moorhead's great start to the season, and Fargo's struggles early on, the Independent displayed a poor sense of sportsmanship in its writing that went beyond the normal banter between rivals.

June 4, 1897 Moorhead Independent "The Exhibition Game", "Notes of the Diamond" p. 1

On This Date: Bad Blood Boils Over

Saturday, August 7, 1897 - Tige Lyons apparently was not satisfied with just arguing with Fargo's catcher Ryan at Haas's saloon in downtown Moorhead Friday night. The Red River Valley League umpire and former Fargo player got into a disagreement with Ryan at the bar, and Ryan (or someone with him) knocked Lyons to the floor. The catcher may have hoped he had seen the last of "Tige", and migrated to Murphy's saloon later that night. But Lyons made an unwelcome appearance again, found Ryan, and knocked him out with a "blunt instrument." Interestingly, if it weren't for a followup confrontation Saturday afternoon between the men, the story may never have surfaced.

At about 2:30pm on Saturday, Lyons found Ryan on Broadway in Fargo. On this occasion, he had former Fargo catcher Hartman with him, who was no doubt recruited due to his reckless nature and the fact that Ryan had displaced him as the Fargo backstop. The two men ganged up on Ryan, and Hartman pulled out a razor while Tige cheered him on. As Hartman chased Ryan into Alex Stern's clothing store, Ryan picked up a brick and hurled it at Hartman in self-defense. By this point, officer Bingham of the Fargo police department was on the scene and arrested Hartman. Meanwhile, Lyons took off towards Moorhead in an attempt to escape arrest, but was chased down near the Great Northern bridge and taken in. Later that day, awaiting their appearance before municipal judge Hanson, Hartman made his own escape attempt, but was tracked down by Bingham in a slough on First avenue north.

The two embittered former Fargo players appeared in court before judge Hanson on Monday, but the bizarre chain of events would have a very anti-climactic ending. The cases against both men were dismissed, oddly, because Ryan failed to appear at the hearings. No reason was given for Ryan's absence, and the specific reasons that precipitated the assault were also unclear. The previous week Hartman had been let go in favor of Ryan. After this, Lyons apparently took a barrage of verbal abuse from the new Fargo catcher at the August 2 game between Fargo and Moorhead. What Ryan specifically did or said to Lyons during the game is unclear, but the Moorhead Independent amusingly observed that "the freak catcher yelled and gyrated like an escaped lunatic." The sole reason given in the Forum for the attack was the fact that Ryan had been bad-mouthing Lyons, who apparently was trying to stir up discord among the Fargo players. Ultimately, the resentment among the men, along with a likely liberal flow of alcohol, played a role in spurring the violence.

Lyons and Hartman left the area, and the following June, the men were said to be trying out for a Seattle club. Tige had not made the team, but Hartman was playing "magnificent ball" and had reportedly quit drinking.
 
Also on Saturday, August 7, second baseman Breuer's four errors hurt the Divorcees in a loss to the Barmaids. Breuer deserves some sympathy as he was likely a local man, called on to fill in after the release and blacklisting of Josh Reilly. The Forum also blamed poor umpiring as a contributing factor in the loss, though they shouldn't have expected much. The game was officiated by a Western Union operator who hadn't umpired a game all year in the Red River Valley League. The Moorhead nine scored two runs in the ninth inning to give pitcher Pike Mullaney yet another win, which fit the mold of a season in which the Barmaids dominated while Fargo struggled to find consistency. The loss went to Gus Munch, who surrendered just five hits, struck out six, and gave up no earned runs. 

Fargo Forum and Daily Republican
August 7, 1897 Front page "Baseballists Scrap"
August 9, 1897 p.3 "City Locals"; p.4 "Saturday's Game"
August 10, 1897 p.3 "City Locals"
June 20, 1898 p.4 "Baseball"

Moorhead Independent
August 6, 1897 Front page "A Battle Royal"

Sunday Argus
August 8, 1897 p. 6 "Two Home Runs"