Agate Type

Dobie Moore: One Last Word

Dobie Moore with the 25th Infantry Wreckers in 1916

Long-time readers of this blog will remember my nearly decade-long effort at chronicling the search for Walter “Dobie” Moore, the great Kansas City Monarchs shortstop who was shot in 1926 and subsequently dropped out of sight. When I last wrote about this in 2016, we had established the case, pretty much beyond a reasonable doubt, that Dobie Moore the ballplayer and Walter Moore of Detroit, who died on August 20, 1947, were the same person.

But of course it is always helpful to have confirmation. Up to the plate steps Karl Jensen, who also does research for the Medal of Honor Historical Society of the United States, locating the grave sites of Medal of Honor recipients. First, Karl found the 1919 World War I service card for Walter Moore of Atlanta, who enlisted at Georgia’s Fort Oglethorpe on May 11, 1915, at the age of 22 and two months. He then served in Company A of the 25th Infantry until June, 1919, and was discharged “for immediate re-enlistment”—which of course fits Dobie Moore’s career in the Army.

(Moore evidently did re-enlist immediately, as in January 1920 he appears in the U.S. census with the 25th Infantry at Camp Stephen D. Little in Arizona. I really don’t know much about military records, so I am curious about whether there is another record somewhere that shows this last period of service. He apparently re-upped for an additional year, as he and Bullet Rogan first played for the Kansas City Monarchs in early July, 1920.)

Then Karl found Moore’s Veterans Administration Master Index Card. The dates, unit, and serial number—335,099—all match. It gives a birth date of February 8, 1893—Moore, like Rogan, evidently lied about his age when he enlisted—and a clerk has penciled in his date of death: August 20, 1947, the date Walter Moore died in Detroit.

I was already quite sure we had the right person, but thanks to Karl, this should lay to rest any lingering doubts.

If you want to go back and follow the process from the beginning, here are the relevant links:

• Why all published birth and death information for Dobie Moore is wrong (October 20, 2007)
• Walter Moore’s WW2 draft card found (October 23, 2007)
• Image of Walter Moore’s WW2 draft card (February 8, 2013)
• Walter Moore’s death record found (April 30, 2013)
• Dobie Moore at George Carr funeral 1948 (April 30, 2013)
• Copy of Walter Moore’s death certificate; second 1948 sighting of Dobie Moore (May 9, 2013)
• 1924 passenger list found (May 17, 2014)
• Dobie Moore’s younger brother Allen “Pete” Moore was also a professional ballplayer (January 29, 2016)

Josh Gibson, Cuban Stars

The following photograph has provoked some wonder and curiosity in Negro league circles, because it appears to show Josh Gibson playing for a Cuban Stars team—something that has not been documented by historians or noted in any reference works.

At the end of the back row, standing at the far right, are Josh Gibson and Rap Dixon. Here are their images, side by side with other photos of the ballplayers, for comparison’s sake:

The photo certainly shows the Cuban Stars team run by Syd Pollock in the early 1930s, also sometimes known as the Cuban House of David. They had no actual connection to the House of David religious cult and baseball team—Pollock simply appropriated the name and the idea of wearing beards, and combined them with his already existing “Cuban” brand (previously the team was called the Havana Red Sox, or sometimes the Cuban Red Sox), to drum up attendance. One of the other (white) House of David outfits sued Pollock at the end of 1931 to try to force him to give up the name. Then, when he placed his team in the 1932 East-West League, as a condition of entry the league made the players shave off their beards and call themselves the Cuban Stars.

Here’s a photo of the 1932 team, probably pictured early in the year when they were still calling themselves the Cuban House of David. The lone guy in the beard (third from the right standing) is none other than Jimmy Claxton.

According to RMY Auctions, the players in the top row are, L to R: Carlos Etchegoyen, Johnnie Bob Dixon, Lázaro Salazar, Luis Tiant, Jimmie Claxton, Terris McDuffie, and Cándido Gálvez. Bottom row, L to R: Pedro Díaz, Pedro Lanuza, Pablo (really Fermín) Váldez, Ramiro Ramírez, Francisco Correa, Ramón Rojas (aka “Battling Siki”), Barney Brown. All these players indeed played for Pollock’s team in 1932.

As you can see, the uniforms in the Gibson-Dixon photo are identical to those in the earlier picture, with the exception of the socks. Here’s a comparison of the flags on the jersey fronts (U.S. and Cuban flag, crossed):


So, did Gibson and Dixon join the Cuban Stars/Cuban House of David team at some point in the 1932 season? There’s no reason to think so, as far as I can tell. Both were playing for the Pittsburgh Crawfords at the time. Both played in most of the Crawfords games, and the small gaps in their time with the Crawfords don’t match up with each other. Meanwhile during these gaps Pollock’s Cuban Stars were generally playing pretty far away and in obscure-ish locations. It would no doubt have cost a bit of money to hire Gibson and Dixon away from the Crawfords, even for a short time, and one would think Pollock would want to maximize their impact on his bottom line by 1) playing some high-profile games and 2) heavily advertising their presence, in local papers and maybe in the black weeklies, too. There’s no evidence of any of this happening.

So how did two Pittsburgh Crawfords get into a photo of the Cuban Stars when there’s no evidence they played for the team? First, it’s worth noting that the two photos have substantially different personnel—obviously many (in fact nearly all) of the players from the photo with Claxton are missing from the photo with Gibson and Dixon. It almost seems like a completely different team wearing the same uniforms.

In fact, upon closer examination the two photos share only a single player, the manager Ramiro Ramírez. In the Gibson-Dixon photo he’s kneeling on the far right, in the Claxton photo he’s in the middle of the front row. Here are the two photos, together with a third of Ramírez for comparison:

Glancing over the others, aside from Gibson and Dixon one obvious ID is Dick Seay, kneeling on the far left. The player standing just to the left of Gibson and Dixon looks like Terrible Ted Page to me, and in the middle of the back row (fourth from left) is the first baseman Dave Thomas.

So when did all these players appear on the same team? One key document does group them together. It’s a passenger list for the SS Carabobo, arriving in San Juan, Puerto Rico, from New York on November 20, 1933.

This page lists 14 players, the same number as in the photo. Here are Gibson, Dixon, Ramírez, Seay, Thomas, and Page. And in fact the other players on the list allow us to figure out a few other folks.

Neck Stanley:

Leroy Morney:

 

Otis Starks:

 

Harry Williams:

 

Jim Williams:

There are the only a few extant photos of Harry Salmon, the Alabama native who taught Satchel Paige how to control his fastball. Here is the tall guy standing on the far left compared with a not-very-good image of Salmon from the Birmingham Reporter in 1926. I would say it’s a match:

That leaves two players from the passenger list. One is William “Mickey” Casey. I can’t at the moment lay my hands on images of him, aside from a couple that are so poor they really don’t help much. But of the two unidentified players left, the one kneeling in the front row has a catcher’s mitt.

That leaves a lone player who lacks any images anywhere (at least that I’m aware of), the pitcher Tom Richardson. By process of elimination, here is the Cuban Star who’s left, and who seems likely to be Richardson:

The mystery photo, then, appears to show a Syd Pollock Cuban Stars team that we first see headed to Puerto Rico in November 1933. Josh Gibson did play for the Cuban Stars--but, as far as we can tell, only in Puerto Rico during the winter of 1933-34.

It’s worth noting that the Pollock Cuban Stars that played in the U.S. during the summer of 1933 had a completely different roster, with only Otis Starks and Ramiro Ramírez surviving to feature in Puerto Rico that winter. It appears that Pollock put together almost a whole new team for his island venture.

Now, I haven’t been able to find any specific mention in the U.S. press of this team. But W. Rollo Wilson wrote the following in his Pittsburgh Courier column on October 14, 1933, a month before they departed New York for San Juan:

Clearly in mid-October winter season plans were still in flux. Some of this movement can be confirmed, but other plans obviously changed. Wilson has Biz Mackey, Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, and Oscar Charleston going to California. To my knowledge, of those players only Paige actually wound up on the west coast (and Gibson of course went to Puerto Rico).

Wilson says that a Cuban Stars club (he doesn't specify if he means Pollock's team, the Max Rosner-owned Cuban Stars, or another club entirely) was headed for Puerto Rico, one that would include Dick Lundy, Jud Wilson, Bill Holland, Slim Jones, and Tex Burnett (but none of the players in the photo or earlier passenger list). Passenger lists  show that all these guys except Jud Wilson did in fact travel to Puerto Rico that winter.

I think there might be ample coverage of Pollock's Cuban Stars, and all these other teams, in Puerto Rican papers or baseball publications for that winter. If anybody knows, please get in touch!

Thanks to Jay Caldwell for calling the photo of the 1933 Cuban Stars/Cuban House of David team to my attention.