Agate Type

the oklahomas of mobile, 1897

Check this out, from Mark Rucker’s amazing baseball blog at The Rucker Archive.  It’s a photograph of an African American ballplayer, probably from the 1890s, taken at a photo studio in Mobile, Alabama.  His shirt seems to say “Oklahoma,” which seems odd. 

As Mark says:

“It does not make sense that a uniform reading Oklahoma should be worn in the 1890s in coastal Alabama, but what could be the possible connections?  Maybe there are none, but I would remember that Oklahoma was a legendary spot in the early 1890s.  The Great Oklahoma Land Rush occurred in 1893, which was news nationwide.  Though not yet a state, Oklahoma was well known everywhere.  But, I still don’t know why the name would turn up in Mobile, and we may never know.”

I don’t have answers to all the questions posed by this photograph, but there was in fact a baseball team called the Oklahomas in Mobile, Alabama, in 1897.  In late May they were in New Orleans, playing a team called the Allens, and on May 31 and June 7 they were scheduled to play the Biloxis of Biloxi, Mississippi:

(Biloxi Herald, May 29, 1897, p. 5)

(Biloxi Herald, May 29, 1897, p. 8)

This raises still more questions, though, especially this: in the 1890s, you’d expect a black team to be identified as such, in both news items and ads—yet the Oklahomas are not.  (Neither are the Biloxis, for that matter.) On the other hand, if they were a particularly well-known team it might not have been necessary to label them racially.  But if they were a white team, you have to wonder why a black man would be photographed wearing a jersey with their name on it—especially in the Deep South.  I’ll keep looking.

UPDATE 1/31/2013 Courtesy of Bill Mullins, here are several more items showing that the Oklahomas of Mobile were indeed a “colored” nine, and naming some of the players.  If the player in the photograph was a pitcher, as Mark speculates, then perhaps we are looking at a photo of Fobbs, “Prof. Beasley,” or Lacy:

 

(Biloxi Herald, June 5, 1897, p. 8)

 

(New Orleans Item, April 19, 1897 1904, p. 6)

 

(New Orleans Item, April 20, 1897 1904, p. 6)

 

(New Orleans Item, May 11, 1897 1901, p. 2)

 

UPDATE 2/1/2013 The New Orleans Item pieces are actually from 1901 and 1904 (my mistake, not Bill’s), so the Oklahomas were active as late as 1904.

the murder of walter dickey

Mark Aubrey has got a series of posts up about Walter Claude “Steel Arm” Dickey (mentioned briefly in this post), a lefthanded pitcher who toiled mostly for southern teams, but appeared briefly with the St. Louis Stars of the Negro National League in 1922, before he was murdered in Etowah, Tennessee, in 1923.

As Mark notes, there are numerous inconsistencies and contradictions in the various accounts of Dickey’s death.  Unsuprisingly the two white sources (the Chattanooga and Knoxville newspapers) see Dickey and his “crowd” as the aggressors, with the white killer, Waldo Keyes, acting in self-defense and escaping in an automobile that just happened to be passing by.  The two black sources (the Chicago Defender and Cool Papa Bell) say Keyes was the aggressor; the Defender says he arrived with companions in what would be his getaway car.  Anyway, you can read Mark’s posts and the articles and come to your own conclusions.

A tangential note: the Chicago Defender article, unlike the Knoxville and Chattanooga papers, is keenly aware of the racial geography of the area.  It makes sure to point out first that Dickey was murdered in the “Jim Crow section” of Etowah—that is, the very small black neighborhood—and, crucially, that after the killing Keyes fled to Copperhill, a small town right on the Georgia state line.  The Defender article chooses its phrasing carefully, calling Copperhill “a city that is dangerous for any person of color to even pass through in the day time.”  “Sundown towns” were southern communities where blacks might work, but could not live, and were expected to clear out by sundown.  In other words, the Defender was linking Keyes to a place it considered even worse than a sundown town. 

the death of country brown, part two

Some time back I wrote about the case of longtime outfielder and baseball comedian Elias “Country” Brown, whose real name was apparently Elias Bryant, and how he was murdered by his brother-in-law in the course of an argument on Christmas Day, 1937.  I’ve obtained his death certificate, and it confirms that Elias Bryant was the victim of a “homicidal assault” on that date; but it adds virtually no information about him otherwise, aside from a purported age of 37 at the time of death, and the fact that he had worked for the WPA for about a year.  We also learn that he was buried in the Frederick Douglass Cemetery on Staten Island.

 

dave brown and the case of the glossy green shirt

I have some news about the case of Dave Brown, the great lefthander for Rube Foster’s American Giants in the early 1920s who dropped out of sight after the murder of Benjamin Adair in New York City in 1925.  As I reported a few months ago, the New York Amsterdam News carried a front page article on July 30, 1938, that announced the apprehension of Brown in Greensboro, North Carolina, and his impending extradition to New York to face murder charges:

It turns out that the case received a fair amount of coverage in the Greensboro papers.  On July 16, 1938, the Greensboro Daily News carried a small item about the arrest of 30-year-old David Brown for assault:

 
(Greensboro Daily News, July 16, 1938, p. 4)

A week later (July 23) the Daily News reported that Brown’s “fingerprints and record” had been forwarded to the FBI, whereupon it was learned that Brown was wanted in New York City for murder:

 (Greensboro Daily News, July 23, 1938, p. 16)

The city’s other daily, the Greensboro Record, weighed in with a lengthier (and somewhat different) story.  You have to read it to believe it, especially the third paragraph from the end:

(Greensboro Record, July 23, 1938, p. 10)

In every other article in both newspapers (including several short items not reproduced here), the man’s name is given as Dave or David Brown, so I think the “George” here is just a reporter’s mistake.  Anyway: an unusual “glossy green shirt” that Brown was wearing led detectives to connect him to the wanted poster for Dave Brown (showing him in a baseball uniform) that had circulated back in 1925.  Amazingly, they seemed to think that a fugitive who had played baseball years before would still be using his own name and walking around in a baseball jersey.  And it was deemed significant that this Brown “admitted” to having played ball himself.

The story evidently went out on wire services, and by July 30 the Amsterdam News had picked it up.  But on July 31 the Greensboro papers reported that New York City was declining to press charges against Brown, as there was “no evidence” to justify extraditing him after thirteen years.
 
    
(Greensboro Daily News, July 31, 1938, p. D10)

The papers were quite vague on the decision not to extradite and charge Brown.  Were the New York police saying that they could not establish that this was in fact the right man?  Or that there was not enough evidence to bring anyone to trial for the 1925 murder?

It’s possible that the files on this case still exist in Greensboro, and I think I will make some effort to get a look at them.  If nothing else, I’d love to see the wanted poster for Dave Brown.

UPDATE 2/28/2018 Courtesy of Larry Lester, here is the wanted poster for Dave Brown.

what was josé méndez’s full name?

I recently realized that I have seen at least three versions of José Méndez’s full name:

“José Méndez Ramos,” from a roster list published in La Lucha (January 26, 1912);

“José de la Caridad Méndez Arco de Tejada,” from Roberto González Echevarría’s Pride of Havana (p. 130);

“José Méndez Baez,” from James Riley’s Biographical Encyclopedia (p. 545).

Does anybody have any idea what the story is here?

UPDATE  3:50 p.m. His Hall of Fame plaque reads “José de la Caridad Mendéz Baez.”  Yes, the accent mark on “Méndez” was wrongly placed.

the death of country brown

Sorry, another macabre story.  Much like Joe Green, Elias “Country” Brown, an infielder/outfielder for east coast teams in the 1920s, was known for his on-field comedy act.  He’d go to bat on his knees, or pretend to dig a grave for the umpire, or hold imaginary phone conversations, sort of like a louder, bawdier version of Bob Newhart.

James Riley writes of Brown:

His wife was an actress and, in the off-season, he pulled the curtain for her.  Brown was involved in a tragic altercation with his wife’s brother that resulted in his brother-in-law’s death.  When Brown knocked the man down, his head struck the sidewalk and the impact killed him. (Biographical Encyclopedia, p. 119)

However…in the New York Amsterdam News, January 1, 1938 (p. 3), we find this:

So instead of Brown killing his brother-in-law accidentally, his brother-in-law killed him, perhaps accidentally.  Was Riley reporting a version of the story that had been so garbled that it turned the particulars of the incident completely upside down?  And here we’re told that “Country Brown” was his baseball name, with his real name being Elias Bryant.

I’ve had zero luck so far tracking down either Elias Brown or Elias Bryant.  Anybody happen to know what’s going on here?

the mysterious fate of dave brown

Here’s a Halloween story.  You probably know about the notorious case of Dave Brown, one of the best pitchers in black baseball during the early 1920s, who apparently murdered a man in New York in 1925 and became a fugitive.  Here is the original story in the New York Amsterdam News, published the day after the murder (April 29, 1925), before the identity of the assailant was known:
 

It turned out that Brown, who evidently pulled the trigger, was accompanied by Oliver Marcell and Frank Wickware.  Here’s an item from the column “Sport Pickups,” written by the pseudonymous “Expert,” in the Pittsburgh Courier a week and a half later (May 9, 1925):

Brown, it is said, played in the west under false names in ensuing years.  According to James Riley, “Unverified reports also persist that he died in Denver, Colorado, under mysterious circumstances” (Biographical Encyclopedia, p. 118).

Well, I recently ran across this item, on the front page of the Amsterdam News on July 30, 1938:

That is certainly the murder that Dave Brown was supposed to have committed.  I have so far not been able to find any follow up in the Amsterdam News, or mentions in other papers.  Could this have been a case of mistaken identity?  It’s worth noting that nowhere in this item is Brown identified as a ballplayer.  Perhaps the Amsterdam News editor who pulled this from a wire service (or wherever he got it) simply didn’t make the connection, and the baseball world never realized that Brown had been captured?

It seems to me that this should be relatively easy to check in police and court records, especially in New York.  If someone was tried for the murder of Benjamin Adair, we should be able to find it.

UPDATE 11/2/2008 In the comments Scott Simkus reminds me about this article (which I’d linked to a while back) on the Pipestone (Minnesota) Black Sox, a black team that in 1926 featured “Lefty Wilson,” who was supposed to have been the fugitive Dave Brown.

UPDATE 3/14/2009 See the latest research on the supposed apprehension of Dave Brown in Greensboro.

irvin brooks, west indian

I had been looking for sources that named Irvin Brooks as “West Indian.”  Courtesy of Paul Wendt, here is Cumberland Posey, writing about Brooks in the Pittsburgh Courier (April 3, 1943):

Brooks, you’ll remember, was not literally “West Indian”—he was born in the United States, and so were his parents, as far as we can tell; but he and his family lived among (and sometimes with) Caribbean immigrants in Key West, and he could well have had more substantial connections to the Bahamas of one sort or another.

If anybody has access to the digitized Pittsburgh Courier, maybe you could search for “Chester Brooks,” and see what comes up.

ty cobb in cuba, 1910

This is a Baseball Chronology entry for November 29, 1910, describing the Detroit Tigers’ visit to Havana that fall:

It’s the Cuban’s turn today as Cuban ace Jose Mendez shuts out the Tigers‚ 3-0.  On steal attempts‚ Ty Cobb is thrown out three times by Bruce Petway‚ who played last year for the Chicago Leland Giants‚ and Gervasio “Strike” Gonzales.  On his last attempt‚ Cobb argues that the bag is three inches too far.  When measured‚ Cobb is proved correct‚ but is still out stealing. A frustrated Cobb will cut short the tour and return to the U.S.  The Tigers will end their Cuban swing at 7-4‚ with a tie. This is a reversal of last year’s 4-8 record‚ when they played the Cuban teams without Cobb and Sam Crawford. The champion A’s also played in Havana at the same time‚ finishing with a 4-6 record.

Nearly everything in the first five sentences is wrong: 

--There were games played on November 27 and 28, but not on November 29.  Detroit indeed won on November 27, 4-0 over José Muñoz and Almendares. 

--On November 28 Habana, with Luis González (not José Méndez, who played for Almendares) on the mound, defeated the Tigers 3-0.

--Bruce Petway and Gervasio González were not on the same team, as this implies.  Petway caught for Habana, González for Almendares.

--Cobb was not thrown out stealing three times in the November 28 game against Habana (see below). 

--The tape measurement incident did not happen at all, as far as I can tell (also see below).

--Cobb did not cut the tour short in frustration.  He arrived late, after his teammates had already played seven games, going 3-3-1.  With Cobb, the Tigers won four of five games, and became the first major league team to win a series in Cuba since Brooklyn swept its four games in 1900.  “Taken all in all,” La Lucha said, “the Detroit bunch is going away well pleased” (December 6, 1910).

To expand on two points:

First, Cobb’s basestealing troubles in the series, specifically the November 28 loss to Habana.  In that game, Cobb tried to bunt his way on with two outs in the first, but Petway pounced on the ball and tossed him out.  And in the fourth inning Cobb walked, then Petway cut him down at second (the account doesn’t say who took the throw).  In his other two plate appearances he rolled out to the pitcher, Luis González, and popped up to second baseman Home Run Johnson.  So Petway did, in fact, throw him out twice in the game, but only once on a steal attempt.  Here is La Lucha’s English page on Cobb’s (and John Henry Lloyd’s) performance in this game:

La Lucha printed play-by-play accounts for three of Cobb’s five games; in those games, the only other incident on the basepaths involving Cobb occurred on November 27 game against Almendares, when Cobb tried to score from first on a hit by Sam Crawford, but was out at home (manned by González).  The accounts I have don’t give the play’s details, so I don’t know who threw him out.

It’s quite possible Cobb tried to steal unsuccessfully in the two games that lack play-by-play accounts.  In the 3-2 Tigers win over Almendares on December 1, Cobb went 1 for 5, and González had three assists.  And in the Tigers’ 12-4 trouncing of Habana on December 4, Cobb went 2 for 5 with three runs scored, while Petway had two assists.  But if Cobb tried to steal in these games, there is no indication of it in any of the game stories I have.

Second, there’s nothing in Diario de la Marina or La Lucha (including the English-language page) about Cobb stopping the game to have the base path measured.  Billy Evans, who was the umpire for the series, wrote several articles about it for American newspapers, and didn’t mention the incident at all.  It doesn’t appear in any of the Cobb biographies, or in Cobb’s own memoir in 1961 (which, as far as I can tell, makes no mention of his Cuba trip whatsoever).  Aside from The Baseball Chronology, which was originally published in 1991, the earliest English-language source I’ve been able to find for this story is Michael and Mary Oleksak’s El Béisbol: Latin Americans and the Grand Old Game, published in the same year (p. 21):

Cobb’s visit is remembered in Cuba not for his outstanding play, but for his wily twist of an umpire’s arm.  In one of the games, Bruce Petway threw Cobb out on a steal attempt.  Cobb protested that second base was implanted farther than the standard 90 feet from first base.  Cobb insisted that the umpire measure the base path.  Cobb was proved correct when the tape measured 90 feet, 3 inches.  The story lived on for years in Cuba, a famous footnote to the major league barnstorming tours.

This anecdote, unfortunately, isn’t footnoted.  At best, then, we have an oral tradition of unknown provenance surfacing some eighty years after the fact.  I’d be very interested if anyone knows of an earlier appearance for this story, especially in Cuban sources.

By the way: Ty Cobb, as it happens, did give thought to the advantage a few inches could represent—for him.  In his chapter on base-stealing in My Life in Baseball he (or Al Stump) wrote (p. 171):

The base itself, for instance, often wasn’t strapped down tight.  The writers used to mention my “superstitious” habit of kicking the bag after I’d arrived at a base.  Others thought it a nervous habit.  What they didn’t know [was] that with each kick, I moved that bag a few inches closer to me, after I’d taken my lead-off. If I had to dive back, that inch or two could be the difference.  Never overlook the smallest percentage.

UPDATE 10:58 p.m.  I forgot to mention that I also discussed the 1910 Detroit Tigers series in this post on Carlos Morán.

where was rube foster really born?

I’ve been following up on Kevin Johnson’s discovery of Rube Foster as one of many subjects interviewed in a sociological study of Chicago’s African American population after the Chicago race riot of 1919.  Foster apparently named La Grange, Texas, as his birthplace, rather than Calvert, where he grew up, and where everyone says he was born.  As I said, this would seem to be a highly credible source, and La Grange is a perfectly reasonable alternative to Calvert.

Let’s trace Rube back through a few official records.  Here is his World War I draft card, showing the commonly accepted birth date of September 17, 1879, though no birth place is given, unfortunately.

Here is a record in the 1900 census, showing the Foster family living in Calvert, Robertson County, Texas.  The father, Andrew Foster, is listed as a “Preacher.”  The younger Andrew’s birthdate is September, 1879.  His mother’s name is Evaline (pace James Riley, who mistakenly calls Rube’s mother “Sarah,” which was actually his wife’s name)—she is listed as having had six children, only four of them living.  Also living with the family is an older sister, “Christana,” born in January 1878, and a younger brother, Johnson, born in January 1884.  The children and father were born in Texas, the mother in Mississippi.  The parents had been married for 27 years (since 1873).

In the 1880 census, which was taken when Rube Foster was an infant, I can’t find the Fosters in Robertson County.  However, there is this family, living in Winchester, Texas, a small, unincorporated town in Fayette County, probably 15 miles or less from La Grange*:

We have Andy Foster, 29, living with wife Eveline (both are listed as born in Mississippi) and children Willie (not the Hall of Famer, Rube’s half-brother, of course, who would not be born for another 23 years), 5, Gertrude, 4, Christina, 2, and—“Bishop,” eight months old, born in September, 1879.  The family was enumerated on June 10, 1880, so if this child was born on September 17, Rube Foster’s birthday, the age is precise--he would not turn nine months old until June 17.

So, was Rube Foster born “Bishop Foster”?  Maybe.  It could be some sort of mistake by the census taker, but it seems like an unlikely mistake, being a rather unusual name.  Of course, it could be that there were really four children, and the enumerator erroneously put down only three, sloppily combining an older child’s name with a younger child’s birth date.

Or—“Bishop Foster” could be Rube Foster.  He might have been renamed while still an infant, which happened with some frequency in the nineteenth century.  Or perhaps Bishop was his middle name, which the family stopped using after a while, and which Foster himself replaced with his nickname, Rube, as an adult.

With the information we have, we can’t know for sure.  But the 1900 family is surely Rube Foster’s, and the 1880 family both resembles the 1900 one in every particular, and happens to be located very near La Grange, which Charles Spurgeon Johnson reports as Rube Foster’s birthplace.

These are pretty small things—perhaps a different birth place than we thought, perhaps a twist regarding his name we didn’t know about.  They don’t change anything we already understand about Foster’s life, achievements, character, etc.  But there are those of us who like to cross the t’s and dot the i’s.

*--Zoom out to see the distance between Winchester and La Grange.