Joe Marshall Running Home - Picture Series Part V

After the 1897 season, Joe Marshall spent most of his baseball career playing for minor league teams in the Mountain West and on the West Coast. One of his stops was Butte, Montana, where he played for the Miners in 1902 and from 1911 to 1913. The picture below shows Marshall running to home plate in a game against the Portland Webfoots of the Pacific Northwest League in 1902. The catcher is Sammy Vigneaux - also playing for the Portland club was Andy Anderson, a member of the 1897 Moorhead Barmaids.

Butte Inter Mountain 6-16-1902

Phillippe and Marshall Reunite - Picture Series Part I

Over the next few weeks, I will periodically post pictures of interest relating to the 1897 Red River Valley League. These are pictures that did not fit into the context of my upcoming book: Divorcees, Barmaids, and Cranks: The 1897 Red River Valley Baseball League.

Fargo's Deacon Phillippe and Grand Forks' Joe Marshall, rivals in the 1897 Red River Valley League, became teammates just six years later in the major leagues. This photo was taken during Marshall's only year with the Pittsburgh Pirates of the National League, in 1903. Marshall was a reserve utility player who appeared in only ten games for the Pirates. Phillippe won a career high 25 games in his fourth year with the club, and he would play the rest of his career in Pittsburgh before retiring from baseball in 1911. The 1903 Pirates fell to the Boston Americans, five games to three, in the inaugural World Series. Deacon Phillippe won all three games for the Pirates, while Marshall did not appear in the series. 

As noted in the caption below the photo, Phillippe is standing in the back row, third from the left. Marshall is seated on the floor, furthest to the left.

The Pittsburgh Dispatch, September 20, 1903

Team information from http://www.baseball-reference.com/.

On This Date: Four Pitchers and No Luck

July 9, 1897 

True to form, the Divorcees returned to their familiar offensive funk in game three of their series against Grand Forks. The club managed just four singles against the Senators starter Hoar. With that performance, Gus Munch’s chances were doomed from the start, but the Fargo lefty was not sharp anyway and asked to be removed after surrendering four runs in the third inning. Fargo would use three more men to pitch before the game was done, including position players John Murphy and Bill Zink. The GFPD observed “Four of Fargo’s pitchers were killed and over the grisly corpses Grand Forks piled eleven runs and hits innumerable…” (July 10) The use of four pitchers in a nine inning game was exceptionally rare during this era of baseball and shows just how disastrous the outing was for the Divorcees. As a result of the ever-changing lineup, Deacon Phillippe found himself called upon to play left field later in the game. The Fargo defense did not help matters by committing seven errors, but homeruns from Joe Marshall and catcher Jake Bouchert were more than enough to lift Grand Forks to an 11-0 victory. All things considered, the final score could have been much worse.

Random Fact of the Day (6)

Joe Marshall of Grand Forks, arguably the best RRVL player in 1897 and a future major leaguer, died at Norwalk State Hospital, a mental institution in Santa Monica, California in 1931.

Home Run Joe Marshall Leads Senators

No one could blame Joe Marshall for the Grand Forks Senators being second in the league standings at the end of June 1897. Marshall was on a tear for the first month of the season, and his team narrowly trailed Moorhead for the league lead at a record of 12-9. "Home Run" Joe was the star for Grand Forks, and arguably the entire league through June, posting a .417 batting average, hitting six doubles, scoring twenty runs, and clubbing an incredible seven home runs. Playing in the heart of the "deadball era" of baseball, Marshall's seven home runs was an astounding statistic, especially considering the feat was accomplished in just 21 games. By comparison, the National League home run leader for 1897, Hugh Duffy of the Boston Beaneaters, hit eleven home runs in 134 games played.

Marshall's great month included an otherworldly three games against Wahpeton-Breckenridge June 23-25. Leading the Senators in a three game win streak, Marshall slaughtered the W-B pitching trio of Oliver Berg, Reddy O'Donnell, and Conrad. The Audubon, MN native went 10 for 16 with two doubles, two home runs, and three runs scored, as the Senators welcomed the Methodists to Grand Forks by outscoring them 38 to 14.

Fargo Forum and Daily Republican, Grand Forks Herald, Moorhead Independent box scores from editions May 27 through June 30, 1897.

On This Date: Fargo Pounded, Protested Game Settled

July 17, 1897 - Fargo failed to capture a series win against Grand Forks, surrendering 14 runs to the Senators in the finale of a four game home stand. Oscar Peterson was on the mound for Fargo, and struggled mightily, allowing eleven to score while recording only nine outs. The knockout punch for Peterson was a mammoth three-run home run smashed by Sid Adams to begin the fourth inning. The young southpaw Gus Munch came in to relieve Peterson and pitched well, striking out seven in six innings of work. Fargo had to settle for a 2-2 series split with the Senators.

Some bad blood between first baseman Peaceful Valley Brown and Umpire Arthur Lyons came to the surface in the eighth inning. Presumably a rift had developed between the two while Lyons was playing for Fargo early in the season. With Brown at-bat, Lyons made a strike call that Brown clearly disagreed with. Later in the at-bat, Brown slashed a ball down the third-base line that got by Grand Forks third baseman Joe Marshall. The problem for Brown was that the ball had failed to stay fair, and the general consensus was that Lyons had made the correct call in ruling the hit foul. Nonetheless, Brown was angered by the call and barked at Lyons for some time before being ejected. Some fans who had a bad angle on the play also gave ol' "Tige" an earful, and one crank was rowdy enough for a policeman to be summoned. The Divorcees could not afford to lose Brown, since Deacon Phillippe had just returned to Minneapolis, Fred Steele was playing in Sheldon, and Catcher Hayes hadn't yet arrived from Omaha. Luckily for Fargo, team captain George Keas was able to convince Lyons to let Brown remain in the game. It wasn't much help for Fargo, though, who already trailed by double digits at the time of the ejection, and they lost 14-3.

The game wasn't a total loss for the Divorcees. Fargo's nomad second baseman, Josh Reilly, apparently had made quite an impression on the local fans by mid-July. Before one of Reilly's at-bats, a female admirer gave him a bouquet of flowers as a sign of appreciation. Reilly doubled in the at-bat.

Also on July 17, RRVL officials and managers met to discuss the matter of several protested games. While two decisions regarding protests were referred to National League President Nick Young for further review, the league board did rule on one game. The result of the June 26 Fargo vs. Moorhead match up featuring Umpire Tupper's egregious missed call was thrown out by the board, and the game was set to be replayed at a later date (see "It Was Larceny" for more details on the June 26 contest). 

Sunday Argus July 18, 1897 p. 8 "It Was Awful" 

Fargo Forum and Daily Republican July 19, 1897 p.4 "We Were Easy"

On This Date: Joe Marshall Tearing up the RRVL

June 17, 1897

When the Grand Forks Herald listed the Senators team batting leaders on June 17th, one name stood out from the rest: Joe Marshall. The 21-year-old led the team with a .449 batting average, adding a home run to help Grand Forks beat Moorhead on the 17th by a score of 6-1. Over the next week, Marshall was nearly unstoppable. During a stretch of four games against Wahpeton-Breckenridge, the Audubon, MN native went 11 for 21 with two home runs, two doubles, and eight runs scored.

June 23 - 2 for 5 with a double in a 7-0 Grand Forks shutout win
June 24 - 4 for 5 with a home run and three runs scored in a 9-6 win
June 25 - 4 for 6 with a home run, double, and four runs scored in a 22-8 rout
June 26 - 1 for 5 with a run scored in a 8-7 loss

Marshall did commit six errors in the four game stretch, three of them playing out of position as a catcher in the June 26th loss. "Home Run" Joe typically played second or third base for the Senators during the 1897 season.

Player Profile: Charles "Deacon" Phillippe

The most well-known player of the 1897 Fargo team was future major leaguer Charles "Deacon" Phillippe. In 13 major league seasons, Phillippe went 189-109 with a 2.59 ERA. He pitched a record five complete games in the 1903 World Series (a best of 9 series), winning 3 games for the Pittsburgh Pirates in the series. The Pirates lost to the Boston Americans in this inaugural World Series, five games to three.

In the summer of 1897, while on loan from the Minneapolis Millers baseball team, the 25 year old posted a 3-4 record for Fargo before finishing the season with the Millers. The Fargo Forum and Daily Republican regularly praised his level of play and his promise as a young talent. During his time in Fargo, Phillippe pitching style was "of the 84 vintage, when the under-handed ball was in its prime."* He would later switch to a more conventional overhand delivery, which he used while pitching in the major leagues.

Interestingly, a teammate of Phillippe's on the 1903 Pirates team was Joe Marshall, who played for Grand Forks in 1897.

*The Moorhead Independent June 25, 1897 "First Game at Fargo" Front Page