Pandemonium in Enderlin! - An excerpt from the upcoming book

As I continue progress toward completing the chronicle of the 1897 Red River Valley League, I thought I would share a fascinating aside to the story. Here's a sampling:

Despite a late 6 pm start, the fans in Enderlin were itching for more baseball and savored the championship game to be played between the rival towns, the winners going away with a cash prize. As the teams took the field, “pandemonium reigned”, and a group of especially passionate Enderlin fans in the grandstand roared with insane fervor, amplified by dog whistles and six foot long tin horns, among other noisemakers. Sheldon’s club was up to the challenge and rose above the intimidation, taking a 2-0 lead after two innings to quiet the crowd somewhat. At that point, it was time for the estimated 1,500 Sheldon supporters to show their enthusiasm, as they “filled the air with hats, coats, fans, yells and parasols” and their team held off a late Enderlin rally to win 11-7. Lee Roberts was reported to have “pitched the game of his life”, and the Sheldon club returned to their town heroes, greeted by the “blaze of trumpets and the boom of cannon”.  The Red River Valley League clubs should have envied the display of enthusiasm, particularly those teams struggling to draw even a fraction of the fans seen in Enderlin that weekend. (Forum June 21, 1897)

Random Fact of the Day (1st in a Series)

Men from various occupations gathered to play friendly baseball games near the turn of the century. Newspapers in the valley occasionally reported on match-ups featuring teams of doctors, lawyers, printers, plumbers, hotel workers, railroad men, and cigar-makers, among others. 

The Problem of Salaries

In major league baseball today, fans of small-market teams worry about the ever growing disparity in the payroll of their team versus the big-market big spenders. While the New Yorks and Bostons of the world address their weaknesses with high priced free agents, the San Diegos and Oaklands must squeeze every penny in their efforts to keep their teams competitive. Though not always the case, big spending means more wins. Interestingly, the Red River Valley League of 1897 faced a similar concern that contributed to its failed season.

The problem of salaries was not lost on the league's organizers. In fact, the league rules specified a $40 per player per month salary limit. Only the captain of each team could earn more. Additionally, the league established a $400 monthly limit on a team's total salaries. The Forum remarked that these measures were necessary to avoid "the experience of the old '87 league." The paper also chastised unnamed teams who had already violated the new salary limits, predicting that if the practice continued, it would "cause the downfall of the league."

Indeed, the salary issue ended up being one of the nails in the coffin of the 1897 league. The Moorhead club, particularly, shares a good deal of blame for overpaying players. Decades later, when W. P. Davies of Grand Forks reflected on the old RRVL, he placed the blame on the Moorhead saloon-keepers who excitedly pumped money into their hometown team. In calling the bar owners the "worst offenders" though, Davies implied that there were other teams breaching the salary limit. Davies explained in one of his later columns that the excitement of having a pennant winner caused enthusiastic local businessmen to pony up extra money "for the honor of the town."  As a result of the free spending, the Moorhead club took an early commanding lead in the standings, which may have caused fans to lose interest in the league. The resulting lack of gate receipts as the summer of 1897 went on impacted other teams' financial stability, particularly the Wahpeton-Breckenridge club. When the W-B club couldn't come up with a solution to its money woes, the team was forced to fold, and the league collapsed with them.

Fargo Forum and Daily Republican May 20, 1897, "Baseball"
"That Reminds Me: Today and Yesterday" by W. P. Davies, April 1932 and May 10, 1939.

A Few Reasons Why Baseball Was Better Then

There are plenty of things to like about baseball today. Anywhere we are, we can see our favorite major league team in action on television or online. The detailed statistics and rich history of the game make for great conversation and analysis. Baseball is still played outside on beautiful summer days and evenings. Discrimination doesn't keep certain players out of the big leagues. Despite all this, there is something to be said about the way baseball used to be. I would enjoy it if these aspects of the 1897 game were still prevalent today:

1) Pitchers pitched the whole game, nearly all of the time. None of this 5 1/3 innings and go to the bullpen stuff. You finished what you started. And you didn't get five days off between starts, either, despite pitching more innings per start. A three man rotation was a luxury. And no one knew what a pitch count was.

2) They only used a few baseballs per game, at the most. Going through three baseballs in one game was relatively unusual. Today, going through three baseballs in one inning is remarkably rare. The thing that might drive me the most crazy about major league baseball today concerns pitches in the dirt. Watch an inning on television, and you will see what I mean. When the baseball hits the dirt, its life in the big leagues is over. It is thrown out of play, automatically. They say it has something to do with the dirt not really being dirt and scuffing up the ball much more than natural stuff. (However, I will concede that one benefit of today's approach is it allows for fans to keep foul balls as souvenirs.)

3) Nearly all players, even major leaguers, played mostly for love of the game and not for insane sums of money. Fortunately, this is a characteristic that has endured in most minor leagues, and I think it adds a unique feel to those games. There are too many major league players who don't seem to really mind if they strikeout or give up a home run. They sometimes lack that competitive, scrappy edge that players of old had in abundance. And they seem less like "regular guys", which has always been a strength of baseball.

4) The players faced more adversity, in general. Long train rides, no air conditioning, frequent doubleheaders, no night games, no guaranteed contracts, primitive facilities and equipment, and the list goes on.

These are obviously fairly subjective items, but these are some of the things that I think baseball could benefit from still having. In a perfect world, perhaps.

Glad They Weren't In Cleveland!

Baseball and other forms of recreation on Sundays were by no means universally accepted norms in 1897. The Fargo team played on six different Sundays during the 1897 season, and there really wasn't much of a backlash. One notable mention of the subject occurred on June 15 in the Forum. A Wahpeton Baptist pastor, L. V. Schermerhorn, had spoken on the Sunday question to a "very large and appreciative audience" in Wahpeton on June 14. Baseball, racing, and gaming were cited by Schermerhorn as contrary to both civil and religious statutes. Certainly, a fairly sizable segment of the population still frowned upon Sunday baseball, and other diversions that were deemed frivolous, unnecessary, or disrespectful on the Sabbath.

Sunday baseball would remain popular in large cities in particular, due to the fact that many workers were unable to attend weekday games. Working late hours, it was difficult to attend since games began in the afternoon, and night baseball was still a few decades away. A fair amount of working men also worked on Saturdays. This left Sunday as the best day for baseball in the minds of many.

Though the Red River Valley did not feature significant opposition to Sunday baseball in 1897, the same could not be said of Cleveland. After the first inning of a Sunday, May 17th game between the Cleveland Spiders and Washington Senators of the National League, players on both teams along with the umpire were arrested by Cleveland policemen for violating the city's ban on Sunday baseball. Cleveland's owner had to post bail to get the men released. The city did allow the Spiders to host Sunday games later in the 1897 season.

On This Date: Itching for Baseball

In 1897, today's first week of April usually occurred around mid-May. Before you accuse me of using some version of the Mayan calendar, allow me to explain. Today, the first week of baseball is a treasured time for the baseball fan, with the completion of spring training and opening day happening around April 1st. In the Red River Valley, the middle of May featured this same show of great anticipation among baseball fans for the coming season.

The May 17, 1897 front page of the Forum featured an account of one of the first games of the season, an exhibition between Wahpeton-Breckenridge and a team from Morris, MN. Not including season ticket holders, the attendance was 486, an impressive total (though the article does not specify whether the game was at W-B or at Morris). The W-B team won the game 24-4, but the "cranks" were likely still pleased, itching to enjoy the national pastime after a long winter and a spring flood.

Ban football?

Baseball, cycling, and tennis were the most popular sports in Fargo in 1897. Baseball coverage in the Fargo Forum and Daily Republican was significant. In addition to their Red River Valley League team, Fargo featured cycling clubs and tennis tournaments throughout the summer. Basketball was in its infancy, and was just a blip on the radar. Today's most popular American sport, football, was also relatively new and rarely mentioned in the Forum. Debate still occurred regarding football's proper place in the world of sport. Many thought it was overly barbaric and violent. In fact, the April 1, 1897 Sunday Argus mentioned a bill introduced in the North Dakota state legislature that would have made it a misdemeanor to even participate in a game of football. Fines could be levied from $10-$50, fairly significant sums for the time.

Nothing ever came of the bill. According to The Spectrum, the North Dakota Agricultural College's student newspaper, the bill failed about as soon as it was introduced. The controversy over football, however, speaks to the prominence baseball held in the national mind versus a sport that is so wildly popular today. However, it should be noted that even in 1897, football was clearly the most popular sport at the NDAC (later North Dakota State University). Much of the the athletics section of The Spectrum at the time was devoted to football summaries.

*Bill discussed in The Spectrum February 1, 1897 p. 8

Popularity

Baseball was the most popular sport among Fargo children in 1897. It was popular enough for the May 22, 1897 Fargo Forum and Daily Republican to print this: "Baseball kids are prohibited from operating in the Northern Pacific Park - too many plate glass fronts endangered by foul balls." I hope those downtown business owners were forgiving (of course, several of them bankrolled the 1897 team).