Agate Type

ed wilson & the acme colored giants, 1898

The latest issue of Black Ball reprints a short article from the April 2, 1898, issue of Sporting Life.  Here it is, courtesy of the LA84 Foundation, which has digitized much of the magazine:

The Acme Colored Giants, representing Celeron (near Jamestown, New York), was the last all-black team of the 19th century to play in an organized, otherwise white league, the Iron and Oil League.  They weren’t especially successful, finishing last at 8-41, but several of their players are recognizable, notably Tokohama conspirator Dave Wyatt, who would later become an important sportswriter for a number of black newspapers, and Ed Wilson.  Wilson just may be the Ed Wilson who later played for the Cuban X Giants and smashed three home runs in one game off future major leaguer Stoney McGlynn in Chester, Pennsylvania, in 1902. 

I didn’t know much about Wilson before, but the Sporting Life piece identifies his hometown as Bellevue, Pennsylvania, a small borough adjacent to Pittsburgh in Allegheny County.  Over the years spanning the turn of the century, I was able to find one African-American man named Edward Mathew Wilson of an appropriate age living in Bellevue.  There’s no smoking gun linking this Ed Wilson to baseball.  He’s listed as a day laborer in the 1900 census, a “general” worker in the 1910 census (his younger brother Charles was a piano player), and as an employee of a steel car company on his World War I card.  Still, the Bellevue connection seems like an important clue.  The 1900 census lists his birthdate as June 1873, in Pennsylvania; the 1910 census says he was 36, and his World War I card, assuming that it belongs to the same person, has him born on January 3, 1875.

The 1900 and 1910 census entries are clearly for the same person, although so far it seems to me that the same can’t be said for certain of the World War I card.  But the Sporting Life article does give us a good lead.

the tokohama conspiracy

     

                    Dave Wyatt                                          Charlie Grant

 

If true, the following story answers some questions I raised at the end of this post about the Tokohama affair.  In a 1910 article in The Freeman, the longtime Chicago sportswriter (and former teammate of Rube Foster and others) Dave Wyatt wrote that he and Charlie Grant concocted the plan to get Grant into the major leagues.  Here are his own words, from his column “Notes of the Managers and Players” (Indianapolis Freeman, February 19, 1910).  Unfortunately, my copy is unreadable after scanning; if I can get over to Chapel Hill soon I will try to get something better.

NOTES OF THE MANAGERS AND PLAYERS.
By DAVID WYATT.

[…]

[Charley] Grant was one of our greatest baseball players.  Some years ago he accompanied the writer to Hot Springs, where we hatched a plan to better the condition of colored players.  I placed the same before McGraw, whom I knew personally.  After considering things, McGraw said that he could probably get Grant into the League as an Indian.  I told Grant of the decision, but it did not appeal to him as right.  After seeing Grant perform “Mac” became all enthused, and insisted upon us hunting up some long Indian name to be used.  We manufactured one—Grant-a-muscogee.  This made a hit with McGraw, but in the meantime some newspaper man had got “hep” to us and sent the news broadcast that the Indian find’s name was Tokohoma.  The idea that McGraw did not know Grant was a colored man is all bosh; the writer arranged the whole plan, and McGraw stuck to his word all the way through until the colored players and patrons of the game worked up so much sentiment that Ban Johnson took a hand.  McGraw was one of the most loyal men I ever saw.  McGraw told Johnson that it was a shame for a man to be barred from baseball on account of color, and he actually wept when he could go no further with Grant.  In justice to Grant, I will say that at no time did he want to pass as anything but a colored player.  There were a half dozen players on the Baltimore club then who knew Grant personally; two of them were Mike Donlin and Roger Bresnahan.  George Rohe was raised up with him in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Jimmie Burke knew him well.  All these agreed to play dumb, and they carried out the part.  It was left to players with whom he had associated for years to have him turned down.

Lucius C. Harper remembered this story in 1942 for his column “Dustin’ Off the News” (Chicago Defender, August 8, 1942, p. 1), adding a number of key details:

I haven’t been able to substantiate the supposed incident at White Stocking Park in Chicago.  The first time Baltimore and Chicago met in 1901 was in Chicago in late May, well after Tokohama’s identity as Grant had been exposed.  There’s no indication in the Tribune that Grant was present at the games (though he was in Chicago at the time, according to the Washington Post), nor was there any mention of the Tokohama affair.  If something like Tom Evans’s on-field confrontation with Grant took place, maybe it was at a spring training or exhibition game, whether in Hot Springs or elsewhere.

Pete Burns had indeed been Grant’s teammate on the Columbia Giants just the previous year (1900).

Images above are from Sol White’s Official Base Ball Guide (1907). 

UPDATE 4/23/2009 Here’s the Washington Post from May 28, 1901: “Tokohoma, McGraw’s alleged Indian, is in Chicago, but will not accompany the team.  Why not?”  On second thought, maybe something did happen in Chicago, though Grant had in reality been exposed about two months earlier.  Keep in mind that McGraw, locked in a struggle with Ban Johnson, was apparently quite persistent about Grant.

“a dark mystery”

In the February 24, 1917, issue of the Indianapolis Freeman, Dave Wyatt put together a piece called “Death in the Game,” in which he listed prominent black ballplayers who had died in the previous ten years.  Wyatt was puzzled by what he called the “dark mystery” of the leading cause of these deaths, tuberculosis: “[E]very man,” he wrote, “was near perfection in build, physically strong, not a weakling in the list.”  Moreover, ballplayers “get plenty of fresh air,” stay at “first-class hotels,” enjoy “good food and a variety to choose from,” and their profession keeps them healthy and outdoors.  The only explanation he could come up with was to finger “overwork” and “dissipation” as the prime suspects, while noting that “[t]he per cent of college players who die of the disease after taking to baseball is too small to attract attention.”

Below I’ve done my best to reproduce the list exactly as Wyatt gave it, though a few things are blurry.  I would have scanned the article in, but the Freeman 1917-18 reel I was able to borrow was filmed slightly out of focus, and it would not be very legible. 

Wyatt lists, in order, the player’s name, his cause of death, his team, and the place of his death (but not the date).

Wm. Brown—Heart failure, Union Giants, Chicago.
Brooks—Heart failure, Page Fence, Kalamazoo, Mich.
Leon Boles—Tuberculosis, Union Leland Giants [sic], Kansas City.
Wm. Bowman—Tuberculosis, Leland Philadelphia Giants [sic], Coraopolis, Pa.
S. Butler—Tuberculosis, Hot Springs Arlingtons, Little Rock.
R. Butler—Heart failure, Hot Springs Arlingtons, Little Rock.
Chenault—Heart failure, French Lick, Evansville.
C. Collier—Gunshot, Hot Springs Arlingtons, Hot Springs.
J. Williams—Pneumonia, Union Giants, Chicago.
F. White—Pneumonia, Union Giants, Chicago.
P. Reed—Heart failure, St. Paul Gophers, St. Paul.
F. Dixon—Heart failure, Paducah Giants, Paducah.
D. Howard—Gunshot, Cuban X Giants, East Liverpool, O.
Hayman—Violence, Philadelphia Giants, Norfolk, Va.
Bedford—Lightning, Cuban Giants, Louisville.
Spinner—Injury, Kansas Giants, Kansas City, Kas.
Monroe—Pneumonia, A. B. C.’s Kansas City, Indianapolis.
J. Miller—Heart failure, Union Giants, Omaha.
Richardson—Tuberculosis, Union Giants, Topeka.
Z. Partilla—Tuberculosis, Hot Springs Arlingtons, Hot Springs.
E. Lockhart—Gunshot, Cuban Giants, Athens, O.
Wm. Randolph—Tuberculosis, Philadelphia Giants, Columbus, O.
C. Lyons—Tuberculosis, Columbia Giants, Dayton, O.
A. Ross—Heart failure, Leland Giants, Chicago.
L. Pollard—Suffocation, Illinois Giants, Chicago.
R. Wilson—Insanity, Cuban X Giants, Chicago.
George Wilson—Insanity, Page Fence Giants, Palmyra, Mich.
Turner—Gunshot, A. B. C.’s, C. Giants, Chicago.
J. Wright—Knife wound, Union Giants, Chicago.
G. [illegible, starts with “R”]—Tuberculosis, Illinois Giants, Chicago.
R. [could be “B”] Washington—Tuberculosis, Paducah Giants, Memphis.
Wm. Monroe—Tuberculosis, American Giants, Chattanooga, Tenn.
Wm. Lindsey [sic]—Tuberculosis, American Giants, Kansas City.
F. Leland—Tuberculosis, Chicago Leland Giants, Chicago.
D. Talbert—Tuberculosis, Leland Giants, Omaha.
T. Morgan—Tuberculosis, Union Giants, Momence, Ill.
C. Huff—Tuberculosis, Hot Springs Arlingtons, Hot Springs.
Wm. Jackson—Tuberculosis, Cuban X Giants, New York.

UPDATE 2/5/2008 Edited to clean up some crappy writing and confused tenses.

UPDATE 2/8/2008 “Chenault” is John Chenault of the French Lick Plutos, discussed in this post on Rafael Figarola (toward the end).  Also check out this post on Bill Monroe’s death, and this one on Bill Lindsay’s.  George Wilson is, of course, discussed here and here (and Ray Wilson is briefly mentioned), thanks to Todd Peterson and Joe Niese.  “P. Reed” is Phil “Daddy” Reid, owner of the St. Paul Gophers (and not a player as far as I know).  See Todd Peterson’s great article on the Gophers in the latest Baseball Research Journal for more on Reid.

santop in the first world war

In Riley’s Biographical Encyclopedia, we find the following description of Hall of Famer Louis Santop’s military service: “Santop missed most of the next two seasons (1918-19) due to Navy service during World War I, but after the Armistice he stayed with Ed Bolden’s Hilldale club for the remainder of his career…”  On the other hand, John Holway lists Louis Santop as the regular catcher for both Hilldale and the Brooklyn Royal Giants in 1918, and for Brooklyn in 1919.

In the Chicago Defender for 1918, Santop shows up several times with Hilldale, until this note appears in the July 27 issue:

And in the same issue:

Interestingly, Camp Dix, New Jersey, was an Army base, though Santop was supposed to have been in the Navy.  Even more interestingly, Santop apparently continued to play for Hilldale throughout the rest of the summer.  I found a reference to him, for example, in an article about the American Giants’ tour of the east coast (Defender 8/10/18).  Referring to a game played on Thursday, August 1 (an 8-7 win by Hilldale), Dave Wyatt wrote this: “Santop, the human freight car, pulled off the dirtiest piece of work on Gans that was ever witnessed on a ball lot; this, too, with ‘Judy’ leaving for Camp Grant on Saturday.”  (I’d like to know exactly what he did to Jude Gans!) Incidentally, Wyatt also says that Tom Williams, also supposed to have been drafted with Santop, started the game for Hilldale.  Then Santop pops up in the summary of another American Giants/Hilldale game on Sunday, August 11 (getting a triple and being hit by a pitch), and gets a mention in a short item on an undated game against the “Kauffman Club” (Defender 8/17/18).

In the August 17 Defender, an explanation appears:

That’s quite an injury.  You have to wonder whether it was overstated a little, whether by the newspaper, the doctors, or Santop himself.  Would it really be possible to catch professionally if you couldn’t even handle a gun or salute?  If it wasn’t exaggerated, it would certainly have strongly shaped Santop’s baseball career (although he continued to catch regularly at least through 1921).

Anyway, Santop, along with Tom Williams, is mentioned in another, undated game against the Cuban Stars in the August 31 Defender; then in a September 5 Hilldale game vs. the Turner Field Club (Defender 9/7/1918).  In late September, Santop played for Hilldale against a Camp Dix team featuring Leroy Roberts and “Yank” Deas of the Bacharach Giants (Defender 9/28/18). 

Finally Santop did get into the military, but as a Navy stevedore (Defender 11/9/18):

So what about 1919?  When did he get out of the service?

This is from the Chicago Defender, May 31, 1919.  The Royal Giants/Bushwicks doubleheader would have been played on the previous Sunday, May 25.  Note that H. B. Harris, the friend who held the testimonial dinner for Santop back when he was going in the Army, was the Royal Giants’ new business manager, which gives some background to Santop’s signing with them. 

So, bottom line: Santop actually played professional, non-military baseball for all of the 1918 season, and most of the 1919 season, starting on May 25.