If you’re interested in minor league research, you should check out Carlos Bauer’s blog. He put up a series of good posts recently on independent minor leagues, which are usually ignored by historians. His posts are about the early 1920s in particular, when independent circuits, many of them industrial leagues, sprang up all over the country and spent heavily to attract top players from the established minors and even the major leagues. He says that major-league salaries were driven up by 50 percent by 1923-24; inflation was a factor, but primarily he thinks it was due to competition from these indy leagues, which he calls “the first real threat to Organized Baseball.”
By the way, these sorts of teams and leagues are usually referred to as “semipro.” This was the accepted usage in the newspapers of the time; but keep in mind that professional black teams were often classified as semipro, as well, even after the Negro Leagues were founded. For many of them, “independent professional” is certainly a better description, as the teams played well in excess of 100 games a season.
If you do any research on eastern African-American baseball in the early 1920s, one of the first things you’ll notice is how often the top black teams played white independent teams. These games were well-reported in the black press, especially in 1921. The Chicago Defender devoted especially lavish coverage (including several play-by-play accounts) to games between black teams and a white club called the Tesreau Bears.
Tesreau was, of course, Jeff Tesreau, formerly of the New York Giants. He walked away from the Giants during the 1918 season while still clearly a major-league quality pitcher. Where he went was the New York City independent pro scene, playing for teams with names like the Killers and the Treat ‘Em Roughs. In 1920 promoters organized a whole team around him, the Bears, which included several former major leaguers and lasted (to my knowledge) through the 1921 season. (So far, I’ve found no mention of the team in 1922.) The Bears played their home games in Dyckman Oval (near the Harlem Ship Canal), the home of Alex Pompez’s Cubans for many years.
(Tesreau's bio at the SABR site has more details about his decision to leave the Giants and his career as a semipro pitcher and coach of the Dartmouth baseball team. I'm somewhat puzzled, though, at its characterization of the Bears as a "New England team." They played in New York City nearly every weekend in 1921...but maybe there's more to the story. Perhaps the Bears split time between New York and some New England location. It would certainly make sense if he was coaching at Dartmouth. I'll see if I can find out.)
In 1921, the Bears played 35 games (that I know of) against the best black teams in the east—the Lincoln Giants, Cuban Stars, Brooklyn Royal Giants, Bacharach Giants, and Hilldale—plus the Chicago American Giants, champions of the western Negro National League. The Bears won 20 and lost 15.
Some of the Bears’ players are easily identifiable. These include:
Jeff Tesreau himself, p
Larry Doyle, 2b (who only played in two games, to my knowledge)
Manuel Cueto, 3b, a fine Cuban League player who was much better than his brief major league career suggests
Harry Wolter, 1b, another former major leaguer and PCL batting champ.
But for most of the rest I only know what I’ve found out from period newspapers. If anybody has any information whatsoever on who these guys might have been, where else they might played—anything at all—I’d love to hear about it.
Buster Brown, 3b/manager, a fixture on the New York independent scene—I have no idea if he is the same as this guy. Brown was injured before the season began, and I have him appearing in only a September 19 doubleheader against the Bushwicks.
Willie Kelleher, p, the team’s other ace
Frankie Kelleher, p
Paddy Smith, c, probably the best of the everyday players other than Cueto
Dietz, ss, whose name appears in NY-area box scores going back at least to 1919
T. Taguer / Tagner, rf
J. or S. Taguer / Tagner, 2b
J. or R. Kelly, 1b
E. Kelly, cf
H. Kelly, p (two or more of the Kellys could well be the same person)
Crowell, 2b
Page, cf
Curran, lf
Tierney, lf
Dinan, 3b
Simpson, 3b
Callahan, cf
Emmerich, rf
Shear, ss
Wilson, 1b
Mooney, rf
NOTE: Researching early 1920s black and independent baseball in New York City is quite difficult, for two reasons: 1) of the major black papers, the New York Age decided to stop printing box scores during these years (and didn’t resume until 1925 at the earliest), and the New York Amsterdam News before 1923 isn’t on the standard microfilm edition; and 2) of mainstream papers, only the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported on black and independent games. The rest—the Times, American, World, Herald-Tribune—stuck to the majors, the high minors, and maybe a few college games.
This is actually highly unusual for the times. In every other American city I’ve researched in the early twenties, semipro, Negro League, amateur, high school, church league, and even sometimes grammar school baseball is reported on, sometimes with whole pages of box scores. It is a general principle that the bigger the city, the more haphazard and perfunctory the Negro League coverage is, the explanation probably being that smaller and mid-size cities had fewer entertainment options and local news events to compete with baseball games; in places like Birmingham, Memphis, Kansas City, or Cincinnati, to name a few cities whose daily papers printed generally excellent box scores and decent (though often brief) game stories, a Negro League or semipro was a much bigger deal than it was in Manhattan. New York is really unusual, though, in that most of its major papers made no attempt whatsoever to cover independent baseball—even though New York City was the hotbed of this kind of activity, with dozens of teams and several ballparks devoted to semipro and black baseball.
It could also be an issue of which editions have been preserved on microfilm—perhaps editions with more local coverage weren’t kept by libraries.
Anyhow, if anybody has any insights on finding researching independent baseball in New York City in the early 1920s, let me know!
Kelly I believe my grandfather. His name is Joseph Kelly (1900 - 1967).He played for the 1920 - 1921 J. Tesreau's Bears (r. field, then signed with the NY Yankees.
Posted by: kevin kelly | January 29, 2016 at 11:22 AM
You might want to take a look at my book on the Bushwicks, out in 2009.
Thomas Barthel
Posted by: Thomas Barthel | June 2, 2010 at 05:19 PM
Most references to the Tesreau Bears seem to refer to New York -- in fact, they are often called Tesreau's New York Bears. But a 9/10/1921 Boston Globe article and photo is about "Jeff Tesreau's Newport [VT] Bears" -- possibly explaining the New England reference.
The lineup:
Laird ss
Bruce 3b
Bower 2b
Ross c
Maloney 1b
Merritt cf, mgr
Tryon lf
Skelton p
Brown rf
Tesreau p
This article was about them winning the New England Semiprofessional championship by defeating Raymie Skilton's Haverhill Pros.
Posted by: Bill Mullins | October 1, 2009 at 02:16 PM
And the 6/10/1921 Philly Inquirer has a box score for a 6/09 game between the Bears and Bridesburg team. Bears lineup:
Tierney lf
Crowell 2b
Cagula cf
Smith c
Cuteo [sic] 3b
Dietz ss
Walter rf
Kelleher 1b
Tesreau p
Posted by: Bill Mullins | October 1, 2009 at 01:55 PM
Just found the box score in the 8/22/1921 Sun, with a slightly different lineup:
Walters 1b
Meara cf
Kelly rf
Brown ss
Huber 3b
Edwards 2b
Tesreau lf
Bowman (???) c
Lowman p
plus one more player whose name and position are illegible.
Posted by: Bill Mullins | October 1, 2009 at 01:52 PM
The Maryland Sun of 8/21/1920 had a small article saying that Tesreau's New York Bears would play the Dry Docks at Oriole Park (Baltimore) that day. Bears proposed Lineup:
Walters 1b
Brown 3b
Lantzis lf
Simpson ss
Edwards 2b
Kelly rf
Meara cf
Hebblewaite c
Tesreau, Fullerton or Burke p
Posted by: Bill Mullins | October 1, 2009 at 01:34 PM
Mark, the above post is probably the best I can do right now. If you're interested in the Bears, I'd suggest checking out the Chicago Defender, which featured quite a bit of coverage of them in both 1920 and 1921; and also maybe the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, NY Evening Telegram, and possibly New Jersey and Philadelphia papers from those years, too.
Posted by: Gary Ashwill | September 30, 2009 at 11:30 AM
Hey Guys, fit poston this great site.
I am looking for extensive info on the Tesreu Bears and Manuel Cueto such as stats, etc.
Any help...maybe Gary Ashwill...
Thanks,
Mark Rios
[email protected]
Posted by: Mark Rios | September 26, 2009 at 05:53 PM
I've found 10 box scores for Tesreau Bears games in 1920, against Negro League teams plus Babe Ruth's Stars, from July well into late October, and Meara appears in center field in every game.
Posted by: Gary Ashwill | December 26, 2007 at 11:51 PM
I just found "Meara, cf", batting 2nd for Tesreau's Bears vs. Hilldale at Dyckman Oval, New York, July 25, 1920 (in the July 31 Chicago Defender). He got two hits and stole a base, and the Bears won the first game of a doubleheader, 8 to 4. (Hilldale got revenge in the second game, 11 to 1, but there's no box score.)
Posted by: Gary Ashwill | December 26, 2007 at 11:31 PM
Wow, that's really interesting. Do you happen to know which years he played for the Bears?
Posted by: Gary Ashwill | December 26, 2007 at 11:15 PM
my grandfather charles meara who played for the yankees in 1914 played for jeff tesreau's bears and for the treat em roughs after the war
Posted by: brian meara | December 25, 2007 at 02:06 PM