I’ve got a piece in the latest Outsider Baseball Bulletin about Cool Papa Bell’s rookie season with the 1922 St. Louis Stars. In February 1925 there appeared a series of articles in the California Eagle penned by Earl C. Gurley, who like Bell had been a rookie southpaw with the Stars in 1922. (Gurley played the 1924/25 winter season in Los Angeles with a team called the St. Louis Giants, organized by Lorenza Cobb, former catcher and longtime manager and promoter.) This is actually a rare and valuable document, a fairly detailed, first-person account of the early 1920s Negro leagues that was written very soon after the events described. It covers Gurley’s introduction to professional baseball with the Chattanooga Black Lookouts in 1919, his move to the Nashville Elite Giants the following year, and his signing with the St. Louis Stars in 1922 on the advice of outfielder Charles “Doc” Dudley.
It also gives us an account of Gurley’s first game, a June 15 start against the Chicago American Giants in the old Giants Park in St. Louis (Stars Park would not be finished for another three weeks). Gurley, like Bell, has a very precise memory of the game, including the exact score, a 7-6, come-from-behind victory by Gurley and the Stars over Ed Rile. Gurley, perhaps out of modesty, manages to avoid mentioning that he helped his own cause considerably by knocking out the game’s only home run.
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My Pitching Experience
By Earl C. Gurley
Of The St. Louis Giants
California Eagle, February 13, 20, and 27, 1925.
Part One
In the spring of 1919, while helping to pitch Howard high school…to the championship of the city schools in my home town, Chattanooga, Tenn., by luck I won the deciding game of the series. While leaving the field a fellow came up to me and said that was a wonderful game you pitched and you should be in the Southern League. I thanked him and started off, when he continued, I can get you a job, if you want one. I turned to him and said, all right. The next day [Saturday] he came by my home…and said come on[,] they are waiting on you, and really it seemed like a joke, but when I got over to the field where they were practicing for the Southern League, I found out differently. He gave me an introduction to the manager, whose name was Bishop. Then he asked me what I could do, so I said I can pitch a little, but there is a lot I can learn. He acknowledged that with a smile and said here is a uniform. I put it on in a little house nearby. After practice he said you will report to me Monday at 9:30.
[When] training season [was] nearly over[,] I really doubted myself when they were letting those didn’t make good go, but to my surprise the manager did not let me go. Well, the season started. My first game I lost, ten to three. The manager came to me and said you will have to beat that. All my teammates were talking around that I could not pitch and why should he hold me, but I guess he still saw something good in me, and too, I suppose I was more nervous than anything else. However, with all that discouragement I still believed that I could pitch. Then all the stars began to falter, and to my encourageable spirit, I began to win. Then came a most trying test. Nashville at that time was tied with us for third place, and we were then in Nashville. We won the first game, lost the second and tied the third. Sunday came and a large crowd really did me a lot more harm than it does now. Well[,] again fate played my hand. I won.
That night I could send a telegram home to tell the good news. After a couple more months the season closed again and I went back to school.
And the next spring [1920] I was traded to Nashville for a couple of players.
Part Two
In Nashville, 1922, was one of the hardest years of my career. There were four leading pitchers and all of them favorite[s] of the Nashville fans. Pitchers Noel, Moore, Young and Miller, but I felt as if I would make good. However, fate dealt me some more hard luck. In spring training my arm went wrong and it was about the tenth of June before I could do any pitching, although it was only relief duty. All I could hear was, Mr. Noel, Moore, young and Miller. I went to Mr. Wilson, the manager of the team[,] and said, “I believe I had better go home—my arm won’t let me do anything.” But Mr. Wilson replied, “Don’t be a joke of the fans.”
And that night I lay alone in my bed at home trying to think of some way to get my arm in condition. They next day I got a hot water bottle and put some water in it as hot as I could bear it and the next day, while pitching in batting practice[,] I cut one down the alley pretty good[,] and that is where my arm seemed to come around.
So we moved over to Memphis for a series of games. I asked to start the first game. I won after fifteen innings of hard work. When we came back to Nashville everyone asked me, How did you do it? The only thing I could tell them was that my arm had come back to me.
At that time, Dudley, the right fielder of the St. Louis Stars, was there with us. He was also a student of the Meharry Medical College, [and] didn’t have to report to St. Louis until his school was over for the year. Pretty soon he left and in a few days I received a telegram from St. Louis asking if I would like to pitch for them. Naturally, I said yes. All of the boys who at one time made me the joke of the team wanted to shake my hand—“Bully for you, and hope you make good,” were their remarks. Before long I reported to the St. Louis Stars, which at the time [were] playing at sixty-nine hundred Broadway, before they built their new park on Compton and Market.
The next day I was slated to hurl against Rube Foster’s club. What will fate do, [and] what will become of all of the hardships of the past? Did I win or not?
Part Three
…The manager of the St. Louis [Stars] was Bill Gatewood[,] in days gone by one of the greatest pitchers of the Negro National League.
Manager Gatewood came to me and said, “Warm up, lad.” I started the game and before I could get any one out, three runs had crossed the plate. Then suddenly the game was halted and my manager came out to the pitcher’s mound and what he said to me wouldn’t look good in print. Some of the things I shall never forget. Among other things he said, “Here you are[,] large enough to beat Samson[,] and yet you couldn’t break a window glass with the balls you are throwing.” To be frank he really made me angry.
I began to cut the ball across the plate like a rifle shot…but after the smoke of battle had passed away the score was five to nothing against me.
Manager Gatewood did not take me out of the game nor did he have any other pitcher warm up, and in my mind I was sure to be back in Nashville before twenty-four hours.
But fate was kind to me for I managed to hold Foster’s team to six runs while my team mates scored seven runs and won the game.
Now I could send a telegram home with the great news and from that day on I have had my ups and downs[,] but I am still holding on and trying to make good.
And dear fans of Los Angeles, I am very grateful to you all for attending our ball games this winter, and I am sure that the entire club feels the same way.
Very soon we will board a rattler for home and when the Eastern fans ask me about our trip, I can say you can’t beat Los Angeles.
Keep on boosting your colored athletes and before long the whole world will have to sit [up] and take notice.
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